Kasperi Kapanen scores in overtime & Stuart Skinner records his second straight shutout with 24 saves as the Oilers eliminate the Golden Knights in five games with a 1-0 victory at T-Mobile Arena
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LAS VEGAS, NV – Putting a ‘Kap’ on this series to send us back to the Western Conference Final.
Kasperi Kapanen scored the series-winning goal in overtime, and Stuart Skinner made 24 saves for his second straight shutout as the Edmonton Oilers eliminated the Vegas Golden Knights from the Second Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in five games with a 1-0 victory in Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena.
“There are probably a lot of people who thought it was gonna go longer than five games, and probably not a lot of people who thought we would win,” Connor McDavid said. “It’s nice to keep on rolling and keep on proving people wrong, and we got a lot of belief in this room. It’s fun to be part of.”
After not suiting up until Game 4 of the series, Kapanen notched his second career overtime-winning goal in the playoffs and his first tally for the Oilers since Jan. 24 with his second effort on a mad scramble inside the Vegas crease, jamming home the loose puck on the rebound from Darnell Nurse’s attempt from the slot at 7:19 of overtime to send the Oilers to the Western Conference Final for the third time in four seasons.
“I think that pretty much summed up the whole game today,” Kapanen said. “There weren’t too many Grade-A chances, but I’m just happy it went in.”
Kapanen’s goal was the seventh OT series-deciding goal in Oilers franchise history and the first since Connor McDavid’s winner in Game 5 of the 2022 Second Round against the Calgary Flames, and first on the road since Todd Marchant’s Game 7 winner in the 1997 First Round against the Dallas Stars.
Stuart Skinner answered his critics for the second straight game with 24 saves to secure clean sheets in back-to-back contests, going perfect in Games 4 & 5 with a combined 46 saves to eliminate the Golden Knights and improve to 5-1 with a 1.97 GAA and .926 SV% in series-clinching scenarios.
“Hopefully, it shuts a lot of people up who were talking about him, but we’ve always believed in him,” McDavid said of his team’s netminder. “He comes in and pitches two shutouts. I can’t say enough good things.”
“I don’t think I want to do it like this too often, but it happens,” Skinner added. “It’s the nature of the game, it’s the nature of the position that I’m in, but being able to come back in no matter what the scenario is and having that resiliency in me is something that I can be proud of. So much of it has to do with how the guys are playing in front of me. The way they’d played ever since I came back was impressive.”
The Oilers advance to the Conference Final for the 12th time in franchise history and will face either the Dallas Stars or Winnipeg Jets for the chance to compete in the Stanley Cup Final for the second year in a row.
Edmonton books its ticket to the Western Conference Final with Kapanen’s winner
Back on The Strip in Las Vegas, this opening frame resembled more of a chess match than the adrenaline-filled start to Game 4 we witnessed in Edmonton back on Monday, after both sides took a feel-out approach to the opening 20 minutes at T-Mobile Arena with the series on the line for Vegas.
The Oilers came into Game 5 one win away from reaching the Western Conference Final for a second straight season and the third time over the last four years, with their only blemish came in 2022 during their Second Round defeat to the Golden Knights in six games.
They were looking to clinch their spot in Round 3 with a 42-19 all-time record in potential deciding games helping their case, but nothing would come easy on Wednesday with scoring chances at a premium as both Edmonton and Vegas tightened the reins defensively to not be the ones to commit the first error.
“It was just a grind of a game,” Skinner said. “That’s playoff hockey as well, I think, especially in the scenario that they were in. They’re fighting for their lives. We’re trying to get something going, so a lot of back and forth and lots of dump-ins. They’re stifling defensively, and we are too. So the fact that there were so many dump-ins shows you how good the two teams are.”
Defenceman John Klingberg showed the most flair of both sides in the opening frame on Edmonton’s best chance of the period with a through-the-legs move and pass to Zach Hyman to create a scoring opportunity, but the blueliner’s move lacked the finish after he missed the winger’s tied-up stick in front.
The shots were only 1-0 for the Golden Knights near the eight-minute mark when the Oilers registered their first official attempt on goal with a sharp-angle effort from Evander Kane, as both Edmonton & Vegas fought for chances by trading bursts of possession where they looked like the more dominant team.
Stuart speaks after posting his second consecutive playoff shutout
“I think it was our commitment to being above and not giving up odd-man rushes,” Darnell Nurse said of Edmonton’s defending in Game 5. “Obviously, Vegas is a very good team when it comes to odd-man rushes and capitalizing off defensive turnovers. So for us, we were very conscious of keeping five guys in between our net and the puck and getting above their defence.
We have good-skating defencemen and a lot of offensive firepower when they turn the puck over, so I think we had a much more conscious effort in getting pucks deep and just playing a simple game, and we kind of built off that.”
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins hit the side of the post before the Golden Knights had their push inside eight minutes left in the period, hemming the Oilers deep in their own zone with a few controlling shifts but being unable to test Stuart Skinner into more than a few routine glove saves.
Connor McDavid needed to track back following a two-on-one opportunity with Zach Hyman to help take away a Grade-A scoring chance for Ivan Barbashev before he took a stick to the face and slammed into the back boards for good measure while trying to make the defensive stop.
The Oilers were given the first power play on a tripping call against Keegan Kolesar in the final two minutes, but they failed to capitalize on it before the buzzer or during the remaining 1:06 of the man advantage on the other side of the intermission.
Coming into Game 5, they were 0-for-13 on the road with the power play, and special-teams struggles were just another thing Edmonton had to overcome in this series.
“We knew we had to come out and have full 60-minute efforts, and I think for the most part, we did that,” Nurse said. “When our goaltenders were leaned on, they made huge stops for us in huge moments. You go to the special teams and I thought our penalty kill, for as rough as it started, did a lot of good things at the end there, too. Our power play gained momentum for us even when the puck wasn’t going in.
“So I think for our group, we know that if we want to have any success, it starts with defending, and the offence will come off that. We were more conscious and did better with that in the series.”
Kris speaks as the Oilers defeated the Golden Knights in Game 5
The further we went into Wednesday’s elimination scenario in Sin City, the more it was looking like it’d be ‘next goal wins’.
Edmonton was able to still outshoot Vegas 10-8 thanks to a few solid spurts of attacking possession, but the Golden Knights appeared to have the more sustained pressure in the period with a 3-0 advantage in High Danger Scoring Chances, as per Natural Stat Trick, despite it still being level after two periods.
Skinner made a crucial save on Viktor Olofsson in the slot that came off Jack Eichel’s impressive behind-the-back pass to find the winger wide open. The Oilers had prevented Vegas’ top three scorers from the regular season in Eichel, Stone (injured) and Hertl from the scoresheet in the series’ first four games.
A few miscues by Adin Hill with the puck and another power play chance in the opening half of the middle frame for the Blue & Orange didn’t result in the go-ahead goal, outshooting the Golden Knights 18-9 with six minutes left when Troy Stecher had a tremendous chance stopped by Hill after his shot off the rush took a deflection off Brayden McNabb on its way through to make for a difficult save.
The Golden Knights came close in the last three minutes to scoring the opening goal on a sustained stretch that saw William Karlsson strike the side of the right post, but they couldn’t break the deadlock before the second intermission with the match still tied 0-0 through 40 minutes.
Connor talks following Wednesday’s overtime victory in Game 5
Neither the Oilers nor the Golden Knights could solve either of the perfect netminders Hill & Skinner through three periods of play, and there were plenty of Grade-A chances for both teams in the period that had the potential to end this one before we found ourselves sudden death.
The Oilers had to kill off an Evan Bouchard hooking penalty on Ivan Barbashev in the first three minutes of the period before they received a huge let-off when Jack Eichel’s through-the-legs move on Brett Kulak to open up a wide-open back-door chance for Brett Howden ended up bouncing over his stick.
Leon Draisaitl was denied twice on two separate terrific chances to break the deadlock: once on a breakaway with a blocker stop by Adin Hill before Alex Pietrangelo took the net off its moorings and again on a two-on-one opportunity created by a turnover made by Vasily Podkolzin, which required Pietrangelo to make two important blocks to prevent the German from getting a shot on goal.
Edmonton nearly escaped with a late winner on another odd-man rush that saw Connor McDavid get denied by a save from Hill with 1:06 on the clock in regulation, and overtime felt like an inevitability in this contest with the Oilers looking to improve to 2-0 this series in sudden death to eliminate Vegas.
Looking locked in defensively behind a resilient Stuart Skinner, it would only take one goal from here on out for the Oilers to win this thing.
“We spent a lot of time in the defensive zone, but I think about all the block shots, all the desperation plays that we played with fighting to get pucks out of our zone, those kinds of little things I think really allowed us to get to overtime.”
Bruce speaks after Vegas is eliminated by the Oilers in Game 5
The Oilers have made several key personnel decisions in these playoffs that’ve paid dividends—Stuart Skinner, Troy Stecher, and Kasperi Kapanen, to name only a few—after all three were inserted into Edmonton’s lineup for Game 4 back at Rogers Place on Monday night.
Flash forward to Game 5 after Skinner held things down in regulation en route to picking up his second straight shutout, it was Kapanen—playing only his second straight game following an impactful and physical performance in Game 4—who provided the only goal of Game 5 to see his team through to the Western Conference Final.
“There are so many good players on this team that I understood when Knobber told me that I wasn’t going to start playing against LA,” Kapanen said of being healthy scratched in the first seven games of the playoffs. “That was fine, and the team was playing really well, so we weren’t changing anything with our lineup, which was understandable. That’s the main goal. The most important thing is the team winning and us advancing, and I knew eventually, I’d probably get a chance.
“Just being patient and being ready. I think in the last game, it was pretty obvious I had a lot of energy there, and I just tried to make an impact that way and just keep it simple. Today, it was getting lucky and being in the right space or spot at the right time. But this one feels nice.”
Kasperi & Darnell speak after the 1-0 victory in Game 5 vs. Vegas
After the Oilers looked the more dangerous team in overtime with a couple of good early chances in the opening seven minutes, Kapanen put away a loose puck on his second effort in the crease to score the game winner and the decisive series-winning goal 7:14 into sudden death to send Vegas packing and Edmonton to the Western Conference Final.
“I don’t think there’s a lot to it,” Kapanen said. “I think Podzy made a great play on the blueline, and Leon gave it to Doc and he just kind of threw it on net. I think I missed it a couple times, but I was just trying to stay with it and I was lucky it went in.”
Kapanen didn’t suit up until Game 4 of this series after being a healthy scratch in the first eight games of the playoffs, but with two impactful performances in Games 4 & 5 including the series winner, the Finnish forward wound up being the hero that Edmonton needed to seal away their Game 5 victory in overtime.
“A guy that didn’t start the series playing comes in and is asked to play a big role and finds a way to get a goal there. A huge goal,” McDavid said.
Stuart Skinner extended his shutout streak to 127:19 following Calvin Pickard’s lower-body injury that prompted his return to the Oilers crease after his counterpart assembled six straight victories, and Skinner was able to outduel Hill at the other end with another clutch series-clinching performance.
“I think we defended pretty well in front of him the last two nights,” Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. “Was it perfect? No. Were there any chances? Definitely. He came up big the last two nights. The other night, early in the game, especially on the penalty kill, he made some other big saves there tonight when we needed them, especially as the game wore on in the third period. A lot more saves were needed, but not only making the saves, but looking confident doing it.
“If anyone needed to feel good about their game and have a little reward, he definitely deserved it, because the playoffs didn’t start off ideally for him. I think also the numbers lied a little bit. I don’t think his save percentage and his goals against were really that bad. I think it was just under the circumstances, and we knew we would need him. We went with Picks for a while, and when he had his opportunity, he came up and played really well for us.”
Kapanen sends the Oilers back to the Conference Final in OT
