GAME RECAP: Oilers 4, Golden Knights 3 (OT)

EDMONTON, AB - 'Good Knight' said the Edmonton Oilers captain in extra time.
Connor McDavid scored the game-winner 1:17 into overtime, beating Adin Hill over the left shoulder with another sublime finish to earn Edmonton the extra point in a 4-3 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights in a hotly-contested Pacific Division battle on Saturday night at Rogers Place.
Stuart Skinner was exceptional, making 31 saves on 34 shots in his third straight start between the pipes for the Oilers to help improve Edmonton's record to 10-8-0 heading into a three-game road trip through New York this coming week that begins on Monday against the streaking New Jersey Devils, who've won 12 straight games.
Warren Foegele continued his hot streak with his third goal in five contests, while Draisaitl and Zach Hyman chipped in their ninth and tenth respective goals of the campaign in the win. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was a maestro with his passes on Saturday, contributing with three assists.
"It's fun to play good teams. It definitely is," Nugent-Hopkins said. "You've got to rise to the occasion, and this has been one of the hottest teams in the league so far, so we knew that coming in and obviously we needed to step our game up."
"To get the two points against that team is definitely big, and we've got to keep that feeling going on the road here."

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FIRST BLOOD

The Oilers flipped the script on a fast-starting Golden Knights side by getting on the board first through Warren Foegele's third goal of the season.
Vegas came into Saturday's tilt as one of the league leaders in scoring first, doing so 13 times this season -- second only to the Dallas Stars (14 times) -- and turning 11 of those early leads into victories. Edmonton, meanwhile, had given up the opening goal in 10 of its 17 games this campaign.
Defenceman Ryan Murray sent a slap-shot pass to Nugent-Hopkins, who drifted into the slot and let go a wrister that was saved by the left pad of Adin Hill before it rebounded into the danger area for Foegele to easily slide home on the backhand just 1:56 into the hockey game.
Foegele is enjoying a nice hot streak on a line with Nugent-Hopkins and Draisaitl, scoring three goals in his last five games.

VEGAS VENGEANCE

The first period saw the Oilers and Golden Knights alternate strong spells of pressure, with Foegele's goal coming on the third of three straight shots from the Blue & Orange to begin the game before Vegas enjoyed a pair of powerplays, eight shots in a row on Skinner and a fortunate equalizing goal in the final five minutes of the first frame.
Keegan Kolesar had a point shot by Shea Theodore strike him in the back and arch into the net over Skinner, squaring the two Pacific Division sides at 1-1 through 20 minutes. On the other side of the intermission, Mark Stone was awarded a penalty shot off a hook by Darnell Nurse and gave Vegas the lead by beating Skinner five-hole on the 1-on-1 just over four minutes into the middle frame to lift the division leaders into a one-goal lead.
"I think he left it up two inches off the ice and I just wasn't quick enough to get down there," Skinner said. "He's got a bullet and he scored two tonight. His second one was a great shot, too. Now I'm just going to learn from those and move on."

DRAI DRAWS LEVEL

In the exhaustive compendium of Draisaitl's career goals, the German's second-period strike was a certified classic. Everything from the start of the shift with the breakout to the final finish was excellent, as the Oilers second line and top defensive pairing put on a clinic to equalize the score.
Nurse delivered the perfect cross-ice pass to Draisaitl, who was waiting at his trademark spot in the left circle awaiting a one-timer. Instead of ripping it right when the puck landed on his stick, the German cradled the puck until Hill had slid into a desperate position before he wristed the equalizing goal over the Vegas netminder to reach double digits for goals on the season ten-and-a-half minutes into the middle frame.

SAVE OF THE GAME

With the Oilers on a late man advantage in the second period, 'SKINNERRRRR!' came up with a big stop to save the bacon of the Oilers powerplay in front of him.
Jonathan Marchessault cheated up the ice shorthanded and gloved down a clearance before taking off on a partial 2-on-0 with William Karlsson. Marchessault passed off to Karlsson, who tried to slide it five-hole on Skinner, but the Oilers netminder shut the door to bail out his teammates and keep things level heading into the second intermission.
Skinner has started the last three games for the Oilers in what's been the longest stretch of starts in the Edmonton, AB product's young NHL career.
"Obviously I'm learning that it's really hard to win this league, and being able to get this one, especially against the team that's as hot as Vegas, it feels great," he said. "It feels good for the confidence and we've just got to kind of roll off this. I thought the way we played, we've just got to keep on playing that way and I think we'll have some success."

WON THE RACE, ONE-GOAL LEAD

Win a puck race and get rewarded. Simple as that, sometimes.
Tyson Barrie won a race against Reilly Smith to a loose puck on the powerplay near the Vegas blueline before pushing the puck down to Nugent-Hopkins at the top of the left circle. The Oilers forward then delivered a turn-around feed onto the tape of McDavid at the opposite circle, where the captain slid a pass back across to Zach Hyman, who dropped to one knee and one-timed the go-ahead marker past the sliding hill on the carry-over from the man advantage just 38 seconds into the final frame.

CONNOR CALLS GAME

Leave it to Connor in extra time to call game in a contest where the captain admittedly didn't have his best stuff.
"Personally, it was ugly right from the start for me," McDavid said. "I fought the puck all night, changed sticks a couple of times, dropped my stick, lost my mouthguard a bunch of times. It was ugly."
Stone's snipe midway through the third period to send the game to overtime had nothing on another incredible goal from Edmonton's enigmatic captain. McDavid picked up the puck in the neutral zone and picked up speed rushing into the Vegas zone, beating the tracking Golden Knights d-man before beating Hill up top over his left shoulder for the game-winner and his 16th goal of the season 1:17 into overtime.

"That was a very determined and serious player who wanted to go out and find the two points for our team and make plays down the stretch," Head Coach Jay Woodcroft said. "I like that he had that about them. He wasn't sitting back or anything like that. I think if you look at the play he made on that overtime goal, the way he took Pietrangelo's stick and then created a little bit of separation."
I think anybody can see blood, but he's one of the special ones that can smell it."
Draisaitl and Nurse picked up the helpers on the deciding goal to send the Oilers into a three-game road trip with a victory.
"It's always fun to be out there with those two guys in overtime when it matters the most," McDavid said. "It's something that we like to do, and we probably extended ourselves a little bit too long, but as I said, we made it count."

PARTING WORDS

McDavid further on battling through the game to score the game-winner:
"It happens. It happens to everybody. It's something that you go through, and like I said, I was fighting the puck all night; a couple of terrible plays trying to be on the right side of the puck all night not give up anything defensively and pitching in when I could and making it count when I got my chance."
"I'm not quite sure, but these nights happen. I look back maybe against New York last year and when we scored that goal, I was kind of bad all night again and fighting it. There are nights like that where you just don't have it, and tonight was that night for me. The boys did a great job of playing and giving us a chance, and I was just trying to contribute when I got my chance."
McDavid on building consistency from this performance heading into their New York three-game road trip:
"It's consistency. We've kind of been up and down riding the rollercoaster and that's something that you just can't do on a nightly basis in this league. You've got to find ways to have it every night, even when you don't win with your B- and C-game. It's obviously a big trip for us in New York playing a couple of teams that are red hot, and it's a good chance for us to build some momentum on this trip."
McDavid on some strong performances from Janmark, Foegele and newcomer Klim Kostin:
"Kostin has been really good for us since coming into the lineup. He's a big body skates well, he's got some skill, he gets on the forecheck and provides a lot of momentum for us. I thought Foegs played well and Janmark's been great too, so it's nice to see those guys stepping up and helping them."

Nugent-Hopkins on earning the win over a strong divisional opponent:
"For sure good to get the first one, but that's a good team over there too. I thought we played a better full 60 tonight, and obviously, we would've liked to close it out late. But you give that team a chance and they're going to put one in. It's huge to come out to two points."
Skinner on being a part of the Oilers earning some big wins:
"I mean, it's big. Getting the win in the game is the most important thing, right? That's how you get into the playoffs. That's how you get to win the Stanley Cup. That's obviously our objective, and being able to do that as much as we can is the big thing for everything."
Coach Woodcroft on McDavid fighting through different factors in the game before his big moment in OT:
"Yeah, he stuck with it. He had a few equipment issues and it was just a weird start to the game for him, but he stuck with it and obviously made some plays there that helped us win the game special. He 's special and came through when it mattered most, and in the end, our team found the win. He was a huge part of it."
Coach Woodcroft on using a big result against the Golden Knights to generate momentum:
"You can see why they're the top team in the Pacific Division. They're one of the best teams in the National Hockey League and why they're at the metrics they're at and everything like that, but I thought it was a competitive game. I thought we started the way we wanted to start. It didn't go perfectly, it wasn't always pretty nice out there, but we found a way to win against a really good team. You talk about a building block and yeah, it's a real building block."