EDMONTON — The margin for error is so small right now for the Edmonton Oilers that all it takes is a few mistakes to lead to their demise.
The Oilers lost 4-2 to the division-rival Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday after blowing a one-goal lead entering the third period. Disregard the last of the three late tallies, scored by Vegas captain Mark Stone into an empty net with five seconds on the clock. It was the previous two where there was lots of blame to go around.
The Oilers were in that position, however, because they just can’t score enough.
They could have padded their lead if Connor McDavid — making his return from a three-game injury absence — or Jeff Skinner scored on their chances in the second period, or if Viktor Arvidsson wasn’t robbed by Vegas goalie Adin Hill early in the third.
Not to mention the only two goals they got were odd ones. Defenceman Brett Kulak tipped in a point shot from partner Darnell Nurse, and Zach Hyman was gifted a loose puck to the side of the net because of an odd ricochet off the boards.
Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch called their offensive push merely “average.” That’s not good enough for a team that has now scored 2.36 goals per game — 30th in the NHL.
They’re not creating enough or finishing enough when they do. They have a team shooting percentage of 7.13 percent, better than only the New York Islanders. They aren’t putting their opponents in chase mode enough, either. The Oilers drew just one penalty for the third time in their last four games.
“Whether it’s a matter of it being early in the year, it’s us not bearing down when we get those chances — making sure it’s good shots and good rebounds and whatnot,” defenceman Mattias Ekholm said. “Another component to it is we’ve got to put ourselves in positions to score. We are going to have to work a little harder to get some more penalties.
“It’s a hard thing to score five-on-five in this league — it really is — so we’ve got some work to do. I know we got the pieces in here, and I know we’ll get it together.”
Maybe so, but it’s an issue until they do.
The lack of offence put the Oilers in a position to blow this game, their second in a row. And blow it they did because of these three facets:
The penalty
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins doesn’t take many penalties. His career high for penalty minutes in a season is 36. He took just his second minor of the 2024-25 campaign on Wednesday.
But, boy, was it ill-timed and unnecessary.
Nugent-Hopkins trailed puck-carrying Golden Knights defenceman Shea Theodore as they came around the Vegas net. He then reached out and grabbed his opponent right in front of the official with 8:32 gone in the third period.
“I feel like I’m just trying to make a play on it,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “From his (the referee’s) angle, it’s a penalty and he calls it. Tough time to take it.”
The Oilers have been lousy on the penalty kill, stopping opponents just 60 percent of the time entering Wednesday’s contest. They killed off Troy Stecher’s hooking charge in the second period.
There’s a hockey axiom that suggests bad penalties are harder to kill off. The Oilers couldn’t go 2-for-2 after Nugent-Hopkins’ infraction.
“That’s unfortunate with the penalty — 200 feet away (from the Edmonton net),” Knoblauch said. “It’s tough to take an offensive zone penalty — when we had the lead.”
“As a (penalty) killer, especially the way it’s gone so far for us, it’s not fun being in that penalty box at that time,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “We worked so hard the rest of the game. Obviously, (I) would like to have that one back.”
The tying goal
There have been many issues on the penalty kill this season. In this case, the moments before Noah Hanifin’s equalizer — a shot from the point — maybe could have been defended better.
“They were able to make a seam pass — it was a very high-level pass — we had it covered off pretty well, but it got through us,” Knoblauch said. “Once that pass gets through, then you’re in scramble mode.
“There was a lot of good things on the penalty kill — some clears, some denials — but just not good enough.”
Really, though, the goal wasn’t because of the skaters on the ice.
Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner played a solid game. The windmill save he made on Alexander Holtz with a minute left in the second period was divine. Hanifin’s power-play goal just can’t go in, though.
The shot was just off the ice. There was some traffic, notably by Tomas Hertl. But the attempt was untipped, and Skinner appeared to have a good look at it most of the way.
“I thought we did a decent job on it,” Ekholm said of the PK. “I thought we were sacrificing bodies out there, trying to get in lanes … and it seemed like a little bit of a wrister on the ice and it found the back of the net.”
Bingo. Ekholm wasn’t in any way trying to throw his netminder under the bus with the last part of that quote. Simply outlining what happened tells the tale.
Skinner’s .758 save percentage while short-handed ranks 12th last in the league, per Natural Stat Trick. He’s also allowed 3.13 more goals than expected in the situation. Only three goalies have been worse. Skinner’s partner, Calvin Pickard, ranks last at 4.64.
The winning goal
Nugent-Hopkins’ penalty wasn’t wise, but it was a momentary lapse of judgment. Skinner let a puck by him he’d surely rather not.
But it was Hanifin’s second goal with 48.4 seconds remaining that left the Oilers kicking themselves. And that’s mostly because several players didn’t do enough.
Holtz dumped the puck into the Oilers zone and skated off on a line change. The puck rimmed around the boards to the hashmarks, where Ekholm lost a battle with Ivan Barbashev. Not ideal, but there were three other Oilers in the picture — Evan Bouchard, Leon Draisaitl and Vasily Podkolzin.
The problem was none of them took Hanifin, who was cruising down the middle when Barbashev hit him with a pass. He beat Skinner against the grain to the glove side.
“There should be support in the corner,” Knoblauch said. “There wasn’t the support that there should have been there. It looks bad on Ekky, but it’s not Ekky. Ekky should have help there. They’re able to make that cross-ice pass, which makes it very difficult for a goalie to make that save going east-west down the slot.”
Ekholm summed up the biggest misstep perfectly.
“We can’t have someone walk down when we’re four-on-two in the D zone. Plain and simple,” he said.
Nope. No, you can’t.
The two goals against ruined a good performance. It also turned two points into one and then zero and dropped the Oilers to 6-7-1 on the season.
“We’re winning battles, doing all the right things,” Kulak said. “Just any chance they got, they were putting the puck in the back of the net, and that was kind of the difference at the end.”
(Top photo: Perry Nelson / Imagn Images)
