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The Oilers face the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday. The game can be seen on Sportsnet One, East, Pacific, Ontario and heard on the Oilers Radio Network, including 630 CHED. Puck drop is 6:08 p.m. MDT.
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"That's a team that comes at you in waves," said Sam Gagner, who recorded an assist in the loss. "They're a hard team to play against and force you into turnovers. We did a good job making them turn it over and play in their end, but just not enough of it."
"They forced us into a lot of puck errors because of their ability to pressure us," echoed Head Coach Ken Hitchcock. "Their tempo was higher than ours. They play at a tempo that's hard to match. They're deep and they come at you with four lines… They were on top of us for a lot of the night."
It was an action-packed opening frame that featured three goals and plenty of prime scoring opportunities on both directions. The Golden Knights grabbed the extra goal of the first, though, and carried a 2-1 advantage into the intermission.
The home side came out hot and applied plenty of pressure on the Oilers in the early stages, eventually opening the scoring at the 5:40 mark when William Karlsson found Mark Stone in the slot for his 31st goal of the season and first on home ice since the Golden Knights acquired him from the Ottawa Senators before the trade deadline.
The Oilers were able to net the equalizer 13:14 when Ryan Nugent-Hopkins buried his 23rd of the season. With Colin Miller in the Sin City sin bin for hooking, Oscar Klefbom passed the puck from the point to Connor McDavid along the board and the captain found Nugent-Hopkins for a rocket wrister from the high slot past Malcolm Subban.
Milan Lucic provided a screen in front of the Vegas netminder after he subbed out usual net-front presence Alex Chiasson in the latter stages of the man advantage.
Zack Kassian rang a shot off the iron in the opening frame as well, while Leon Draisaitl had a chance in alone on Subban but his five-hole attempt slid just wide of the cage.
The Oilers were 55 seconds away from heading to the break with a 1-1 tie, but Cody Eakin had other plans as he flew down the left wing and sniped a wrist shot top shelf on Mikko Koskinen's glove-hand side to give the Golden Knights the lead through 20 minutes.