GAME RECAP: Oilers 5, Golden Knights 1

EDMONTON, AB – The Edmonton Oilers earned their sixth straight victory on home ice by defeating the Vegas Golden Knights 5-1 at Rogers Place on Wednesday night without Connor McDavid in their lineup.

"I think when you're missing the best player in the world, you don't try to replace him," Zach Hyman said. "I think everybody just as a group collectively has to step up and play better, and I thought collectively it was one of our better games of the season."

The Blue & Orange received multi-point games from Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman and Ryan McLeod while Dylan Holloway, Cody Ceci and Mattias Ekholm chipped in with goals in the victory that strengthened Edmonton's hold on second in the Pacific Division and home-ice advantage in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Stuart Skinner picked up his 35th win of the season after making 18 saves, conceding his lone goal to Keegan Kolesar on a short-handed breakaway before Holloway marked his return to the NHL a minute later with an unassisted marker midway through the final frame.

"Just everybody on the same page," Hyman added. "And then I thought Holler, who came in the lineup, was fantastic. He, Clouder and Perrs were probably our best line and they were skating and making plays, so when a guy like Connor's out, guys have to step up and I thought they did."

The Oilers continue their busy stretch to end the regular season on Friday night when they host the Arizona Coyotes in the first of back-to-back games at Rogers Place this weekend.

FIRST PERIOD

The Oilers provided plenty of pace to a Pacific Division battle with the Golden Knights that's been billed as a potential first-round matchup in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and that was despite not having their de-facto pacesetter Connor McDavid in the lineup.

"It's amazing when you're connected how much faster you look as a team," Hyman said. "When you're not thinking and have five guys on the same page, the game just seems easier and it looks faster from the outside, so I just thought we were a connected group today."

The Oilers would benefit from a fortuitous bounce off Cody Ceci's shot from the right corner that was bundled over the line off the left leg of Vegas defenceman Alec Martinez, who committed the own goal by redirecting the puck past his own netminder Adin Hill for the 1-0 Oilers lead near the midway mark of the opening frame.

The tally was Ceci's fourth goal of the season, with all of them coming in the 2024 calendar year.

Zach Hyman had the opportunity to extend Edmonton's lead before the five-minute mark of the frame with a chance off a rush for Leon Draisaitl that was parried away by the chest protector of Adin Hill to keep it a one-goal game.

Two minutes later, Stuart Skinner made a quick pad save on Jonathan Marchessault, which led to Hyman airing out a long flip pass for Draisaitl to put off the far post from the top of the left circle on the first bounce with a slap shot. 

Draisaitl and Hyman were on the top line alongside Nugent-Hopkins on Wednesday due to the absence of their captain, who was out of the lineup with a lower-body injury that the Oilers didn't want their captain to rush back from with the Stanley Cup Playoffs less than two weeks away.

SECOND PERIOD

The Oilers generated the best chances through 40 minutes and Mattias Ekholm was able to set a new career-high with his 11th goal of the season less than six minutes into the middle stanza that gave his side a two-goal lead.

The Swede received a clean cross-ice pass from Ryan McLeod as he came down from the blueline and fired a clean slap shot over the left shoulder of Hill to make it 2-0, with McLeod picking up his second assist of the night to make it two multi-point games in his last three appearances.

The tally was Ekholm's 44th point of the campaign, which matches his career-high from the 2017-18 season, and his 19th point over a 19-game stretch since March 1. Both he and Evan Bouchard lead the league in points by a defence pairing since the beginning of March with a combined 41 points – three more than the 38 points assembled by Colorado’s Cale Makar and Devon Toews.

"Phenomenal," Hyman said of his team's defenceman. "I think for the past month he's been one of the best d-men in the league. I think that's pretty much what he's been. He's been unbelievable for a while here now, so I think he's a guy who's actually underrated. If you talk about the best defenceman in the league, his name doesn't come up, but you can't ask for a better two-way defender. One of the hardest guys to play against."

The Oilers weren't finished, however, as Hyman was able to put an end to a four-game goalless drought 2:32 later and extend Edmonton's advantage over Vegas to three with under 11 minutes left in the period.

With possession below the goal line in the Golden Knights zone, Draisaitl had the puck on his stick before backhanding it into the slot for Nugent-Hopkins, who let fly a quick shot that wasn't handled by Hill before Hyman scooped up the rebound and put away his 53rd of the season on his backhand.

The Oilers built themselves to a 3-0 lead on the scoreboard and a 17-12 lead in shots through 40 minutes.

THIRD PERIOD

Office hours for Leon Draisaitl in his power-play spot located inside the right circle were open during a five-on-three for the Oilers in the final frame when Ryan Nugent-Hopkins made an appointment to set up his linemate's 41st goal and 103rd point of the campaign that stretched the lead to four.

With Vegas giving Edmonton 1:15 of time on a two-man advantage, Draisaitl severely dented any late comeback hopes the Golden Knights might've had when he made it 4-0 with a one-timer that marked his fifth multi-point game against Vegas in his last seven games against their Pacific rivals.

A second assist for Nugent-Hopkins was his 698th career point, leaving him two points back from becoming the seventh Oilers player in franchise history to cross the 700-point threshold in a Blue & Orange sweater alongside Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Connor McDavid, Glenn Anderson and Leon Draisaitl.

Keegan Kolesar broke up Skinner's shutout on the same power play with the finish low blocker on a short-handed breakaway, but the three-goal deficit was quickly back to four after Dylan Holloway provided immediate dividends on his call-up from the Bakersfield Condors on Tuesday.

"When I got sent down, I tried to use it as an opportunity to just focus on my game, try and get as good as I can and focus on the little things that they want me to work on," Holloway said. "When I got called up, I was pretty excited and just tried to implement the things that I was working on in Bakersfield into my game today."

Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said pre-game that he wanted to see Holloway pick up from where he left off in the AHL after recording a hat-trick in the Condors' 5-2 win over the Calgary Wranglers on Saturday, and the 22-year-old did exactly that when he earned himself an unassisted marker halfway through the final frame.

Hill thought he was safe leaving the puck behind the Vegas net, but the speed of Holloway allowed him to intercept the loose puck and wrap his fourth goal in the NHL this season inside the post to make an immediate impact in his return to Oil Country by returning the Oilers to a four-goal lead that the Oilers preserved to the final buzzer.

"I don't think he saw me. I kind of got lucky," Holloway said. "I was thinking to myself: 'There's no way he's leaving it' and then it got left perfectly there for me. That was huge. That's definitely a good bounce for me, and I was pretty excited about that one."

The Oilers remain undefeated in their last 11 games on home ice, taking 21 of a possible 22 points over that span (10-0-1).

"You've gotta take care of your home ice," Perry said. :That's first and foremost. And on the road, it's a different game plan, but at home, we've put some solid games together lately and we're going to have to continue to do that."