Leon Draisaitl scored his league-leading 52nd goal to highlight a three-goal second period for the Edmonton Oilers, who held on to defeat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 on Tuesday night in Las Vegas.
Jake Walman and Viktor Arvidsson also scored and Evan Bouchard had two assists for Edmonton (43-26-5, 91 points), which extended its third-place lead in the Pacific Division to nine points over the Calgary Flames. Calvin Pickard stopped 20 of 22 shots for the Oilers.
Nicolas Roy and Pavel Dorofeyev each scored for Vegas (45-21-8, 98 points), which had a six-game winning streak snapped. Adin Hill, making his fourth straight start, finished with 17 saves.
Vegas, which officially clinched a playoff spot mid-game when Calgary lost in regulation at Utah, took a 1-0 lead at the 4:34 mark of the first period. Dorofeyev stole the puck from Draisaitl in the neutral zone and later fed Roy, who then roofed a wrist shot from the high slot past Pickard’s glove side.
Walman, obtained from San Jose at the trade deadline, tied it 1-1 just 19 seconds into the second period, with a slap shot from inside the left circle past Hill’s glove side and inside the far post. It was Walman’s first goal in 25 games — his first with the Oilers.
Edmonton then scored twice in the span of 2:17 near the end of the period to take a 3-1 lead. Draisaitl got the first one 17 seconds into a 5-on-3 power play, one-timing a crossing pass from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins from the center of the right circle. ‘
Arvidsson followed at the 18:20 mark with what proved to be the game-winner, poking in a rebound of Kasperi Kapanen’s shot under Hill’s right pad.
Dorofeyev cut the Oilers’ lead to 3-2 early in the third period. He flipped a wrist shot from inside the blue line through traffic and past Pickard’s blocker side. It was his team-leading 32nd goal.
Hill was pulled for an extra attacker with 1:53 remaining, and Pickard made an arm save on Dorofeyev’s point-blank wrist shot to seal the win.
–Field Level Media
