Draisaitl scores in sudden death as the Oilers come back for the sixth straight game on Thursday to take a 2-0 series lead on the Golden Knights with a 5-4 victory in Game 2 at T-Mobile Arena
LAS VEGAS, NV – Get ready, Oil Country.
We’re gonna have the chance to end this Second Round series at home.
Forward Leon Draisaitl scored the overtime winner with 4:40 remaining in sudden death of Game 2 on Thursday night, capping off a 5-4 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena to take a 2-0 series lead back to Edmonton for Game 3 on Saturday night at Rogers Place.
Draisaitl converted a pass from Connor McDavid on a two-on-one that was made possible by Corey Perry’s redirect near the Vegas bench after the Oilers failed to cash in on a five-minute power play assessed to Nicolas Roy for cross-checking Trent Frederic in the face with over five minutes gone in overtime.
Zach Hyman and McDavid then missed two excellent individual chances to end the game, but Draisaitl came through in the clutch with the help of Perry & McDavid to seal another comeback playoff victory for the Oilers that extended their already-established NHL record to six games and series lead to 2-0.
Jake Walman and Vasily Podkolzin each scored their first-career playoff goals as two of Edmonton’s three unanswered tallies in the second period before Evander Kane added his third of the playoffs two minutes into the final frame to extend the lead to 4-2. Vegas forced overtime with tallies from winger Victor Olofsson and defenceman Alex Pietrangelo in the final frame.
Goaltender Calvin Pickard was excellent with 28 saves on 32 shots to pick up his sixth straight victory, including a handful of amazing saves in the middle frame with the Oilers trailing 1-0 off Victor Olofsson’s first of two power-play goals in the contest 8:32 into the first period.
The Oilers will head back to Oil Country with a 2-0 series lead and a chance to take command of the series on Saturday night in Game 3 at Rogers Place.
Draisaitl scores the winner as the Oilers edge the Golden Knights
Looks like we’re going to have to stick to the script.
After it was Mark Stone who opened the scoring for the Golden Knights courtesy of the power play just over two minutes into Game 1 of the series, it was Victor Olofsson’s turn to break the deadlock on the man advantage just under nine minutes into the opening frame on a short five-on-three that resulted from Adam Henrique airing a clearance over the glass with a solitary second left at the end of a spirited penalty kill from the Oilers.
Stone had a golden chance to open the scoring less than a minute in on a wide-open redirection that the Vegas captain put wide of Calvin Pickard’s net before a risky breakout pass from Evan Bouchard led to Trent Frederic taking the game’s first penalty by tripping Brandon Saad near the blueline.
Edmonton’s penalty kill did a great job keeping the Golden Knights from generating any chances on their first power play, but it was Henrique who ultimately put his attempted clearance over the glass with only one second remaining on Frederic’s minor penalty to send Vegas to a brief five-on-three opportunity.
Olofsson finished off a low feed from the right post that was delivered onto his tape by Stone to open the scoring 28 seconds into Henrique’s delay of game penalty, putting the Oilers behind 1-0 for the seventh time in eight games this postseason.
Luckily, Edmonton is no stranger to these situations after having just set an NHL record in Game 1 with their fifth straight comeback victory – a record they were going to have to extend on Thursday night if they were going to take a 2-0 lead in this series back to Oil Country.
The Oilers came close to tying the game heading into the intermission when Connor Brown hit the inside of the left post on the rush before the puck came out the other side of the crease behind goaltender Adin Hill, who was beaten on the play but saved by the iron to allow Vegas to keep their 1-0 lead through 20 minutes.
Remember that script? It often writes itself with this team.
But this time, it was Calvin Pickard who was the primary author of a terrific middle frame from the Oilers that wouldn’t have been possible without No. 30 locking down Edmonton’s crease with a handful of five-star saves in the first eight minutes of the second period – allowing his team to go forward with confidence and score three straight goals to take a 3-2 lead into the third period.
The Oilers failed to capitalize on their first power play of Game 2 in the first five minutes of the period, with Pickard making his first major intervention by squeezing a shot from Nicolas Roy under his right arm on a three-on-two rush for Vegas after the winger exited the box from his high-sticking penalty.
Pickard denies Barbashev with a great save to keep it 1-0 for Vegas
Pickard then made a remarkable stretching save to deny Ivan Barbashev on what looked like a wide-open net for the Vegas forward, but the Oilers netminder managed to get his right skate to the forward’s Grade-A chance from between the hashmarks to keep it 1-0 for the Golden Knights just past the seven-minute mark of the frame.
Under a minute later, Pickard made another incredible stop on Barbashev when Shea Theodore’s point shot produced a big rebound for the Russian winger, but the Edmonton shot-stopper was there once again to stretch out with his right pad and send the golden chance for Vegas to the wayside with a big stop.
The Oilers were on the penalty kill before the eight-minute mark with Bouchard in the box for holding Barbashev, and Pickard remained up to the task coming up with a sublime maneuver to get his glove to Olofsson’s shot from the right circle on the exact same play that Vegas scored on in the first period on their opening man advantage.
What followed from the Oilers in front of him wouldn’t have been possible without their netminder’s exploits, keeping the Vegas lead at 1-0 with three high-danger saves before Edmonton exploded for three straight goals in a 5:36 span of the third period to build themselves a 3-1 lead.
Walman winds up & blasts his first playoff goal to tie the game
Less than a minute after the last of Pickard’s flurry of saves, defenceman Jake Walman teed up a one-timer set up by Vasily Podkolzin that caught a small piece of Brayden McNabb’s right leg on its way through to beat Adin Hill and tie the game, giving him his first-career postseason goal and growing his League-leading plus-minus to +10 at 11:31 of the frame.
Before tonight’s contest, Podkolzin had been the only Oilers player to suit up this postseason who hadn’t managed to find the back of the net despite the Russian winger posting five assists in eight playoff games, including the primary helper on Walman’s equalizer. That was all about to change just over four minutes later when he followed suit with his teammate to score his first-career playoff goal to give the Oilers a 2-1 lead at 15:18 of the period.
Podkolzin took a layoff feed from Viktor Arvidsson near the Vegas bench in the neutral zone before weaving his way over the blueline and into the slot, where he fired a hard wrist shot on goal that snuck through under Hill’s glove to give the 30-year-old his first-career multi-point game. With his first goal in the playoffs, he’s now up to six points (1G, 5A) through eight games this postseason.
Podkolzin powers home his first playoff goal to make it 2-1
The Oilers then made it a 3-1 advantage just over two minutes later when Darnell Nurse found his favourite spot in the slot off a turnover to beat Hill clean to the blocker side for his second goal of the postseason and second goal in three games.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was the one who picked up a careless pass from Brayden McNabb at the top of the left circle before finding Nurse wide open as he came over the Vegas blueline, extending his playoff point streak to a career-best six games (3G, 4A) to break his previous best run of five games from May 1-14, 2024.
The offence continued to flow in the middle frame just 53 seconds later in the final two minutes before the intermission – this time in the direction of the Golden Knights, who drew one back to make it 4-3 on a deflection from William Karlsson that finally solved Pickard prior to the break.
Nurse fires a wrist shot past Hill with the teams playing four on four
Nothing without a little drama to set up the climax in overtime.
After Evander Kane stretched Edmonton’s lead to two goals less than two minutes into the final frame, Vegas looked the more likely to score over the remaining 18 minutes despite being outshot by the Oilers 11-9 in the period.
The hosts’ persistence paid off, leading them to forcing overtime with another power-play marker from Victor Olofsson 4:32 into the period before Alex Pietrangelo equalized in his return to the Vegas lineup on a low shot along the ice past a screened Pickard with over eight minutes left in regulation.
Kane made it 4-2 when his in-close opportunity off a turnover and feed in front that was made possible by Zach Hyman got its final touch off Pietrangelo before rolling over the goal line. Kane’s marker was his third of the postseason, with Hyman and Nugent-Hopkins picking up the helpers to help extend their team’s lead early in the third period, which soon became under siege at the fortress of T-Mobile Arena.
Kane converts Hyman’s pass to extend the Oilers lead to 4-2
With McDavid in the penalty box for an unlucky high-sticking penalty before the five-minute mark, Jack Eichel set up Olofsson on the ensuing power play for his second of the game that cut the Oilers lead to 4-3 with over three quarters of the period remaining.
Vegas was on the front foot after pulling back to within a goal, and the hosts leveraged that pressure into making it 4-4 with 11:52 gone in the period when Alex Pietrangelo – playing his first game of the series after missing Game 1 with an illness – beat Pickard low to the right corner from the point with Tomas Hertl providing the screen in front.
The Oilers nearly came up with the late winner with Corey Perry inside the crease hounding for the loose puck before the puck poipped out to Draisaitl to try and send it through bodies in the blue paint, but somehow, the puck was unable to cross the goal line, sending us to overtime.
If the overtime period had not ended as it did, we would have been talking about this one for a long time.
But the script wasn’t about to be rewritten, and we’re heading back to Oil Country with a 2-0 series lead.
Just over five minutes into overtime, winger Trent Frederic took a cross-check to the face from Nicolas Roy in the defensive zone to draw a major penalty and a five-minute power play for the Oilers, where you’d be confident that Edmonton’s vaunted power play would be able to put it away.
But those Golden Knights are resilient, and despite the extended man advantage and a chance to end this thing, the Oilers couldn’t capitalize on their amazing opportunity or generate too many good looks to keep this overtime period going with under 10 minutes left in sudden death.
The Oilers could say the bounces were going their way as well, with Zach Hyman and Connor McDavid getting Grade-A chances after the extended power play when the puck magically fell to their blades on two separate instances where they benefited from some lucky bounces with Adin Hill in desperation mode.
Hyman was in the slot first when the puck fortuitously fell to him in the danger area before he hit the crossbar with his wide-open effort, and McDavid was next soon after when it came out to him at the right post from below the goal line, which led to him trying to flip it far side on Hill but failing to find the back of the net.
But the moment for the Oilers arrived with 4:40 left in overtime – a play that started in the neutral zone by a terrific redirection pass to catch McDavid flying out of Edmonton’s zone with speed before he left Jack Eichel in the dust to create a two-on-one opportunity with Leon Draisaitl.
After burning Eichel, McDavid came in with his other half of the Dynamic Duo and sauced it over the outstretched stick of Pietrangelo to Draisaitl, who fired it into the open cage with Hill anticipating a shot from the Oilers captain to win Game 2 for the Oilers and lift his side into a 2-0 series advantage.
We’ll see you in Oil Country on Saturday night, with the opportunity to take a stranglehold on this Second Round series.

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