3 takeaways from Knights’ loss: Oilers tie series with fast start

The sense of déjà vu crept in as soon as Evan Bouchard blasted his one-timer past Adin Hill on Wednesday.

The Edmonton Oilers romped past the Golden Knights in Game 2 of their second-round series after a first-period offensive explosion, helped by a Bouchard power-play goal. He did the same thing four days later in Game 4 to help the Oilers follow the same script.

Edmonton scored three first-period goals in a 4-1 win at Rogers Place that evened the series 2-2. The Knights, just as they did after their 6-4 win in Game 1, followed a dominant display with a disappointing performance.

That means the series is now a best-of-three, with Game 5 at 7 p.m. Friday at T-Mobile Arena. The Knights are 2-1 in their history when tied 2-2 after four games. The Oilers are 9-4.

“We put ourselves in a bad spot early,” Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “You start chasing the game. Now they’re excited, they’re thinking (they are) going to bounce back, and they get to their game. You dig yourself a big hole, and it showed. It took us a long time to sort of build any momentum.”

The Knights won Game 3 with a great forecheck, solid puck possession and strong discipline that kept Edmonton’s top-ranked power play off the ice.

Those elements went missing two days later.

The Knights barely had the puck at five-on-five. They recorded 26 shot attempts, tied for their second-fewest of the season, according to the website Natural Stat Trick.

The Knights also couldn’t capitalize when they had opportunities. They were 0-for-4 on the power play to continue an 0-for-11 slump in the series.

The Oilers had no such offensive issues. They came out aggressive and physical in front of their home crowd, drawing two slashing penalties on defenseman Shea Theodore in the first 7:29.

Bouchard scored seven seconds after the second call. That put Edmonton up 2-0 after center Nick Bjugstad got his third playoff goal 52 seconds earlier on a backhand wraparound.

Defenseman Mattias Ekholm increased the Oilers’ advantage to 3-0 with 6:30 left in the first. Knights captain Mark Stone failed to score on a chance in front of rookie goaltender Stuart Skinner, then was cross-checked in the back by right wing Kailer Yamamoto.

No penalty was called, and Ekholm scored with Stone trailing the play. It was Edmonton’s third goal on eight shots on Hill, who made the first playoff start of his career.

Stone, when asked if he thought there should have been a penalty on the play, said, “Of course I did.”

Left wing Ryan Nugent-Hopkins put the Oilers up 4-0 with his first goal of the playoffs with 5:15 left in the second. It was Edmonton’s second 4-0 lead of the series, after it scored the first five goals in its 5-1 win in Game 2.

Skinner only blinked once from there, giving up a goal to center Nicolas Roy 5:58 into the third period. The 24-year-old, after being pulled from Game 3, made 25 saves for his fifth playoff win.

It will be on the Knights to come up with another response like they did in Game 3. They’ve outscored Edmonton 11-5 in their two wins, but have been outscored 9-2 in their two losses.

“I think that we didn’t quite establish the way that we wanted to play early enough,” defenseman Alec Martinez said. “You can’t do that against a team like that. It’ll come back and bite you.”

Here are three takeaways from the loss:

1. Penalty-filled finish

The game devolved by the end.

Yamamoto and center Chandler Stephenson were given misconduct penalties with 7:05 remaining. Right wings Evander Kane and Jonathan Marchessault also were given misconducts 3:07 later after Kane delivered a hard hit along the boards to defenseman Alex Pietrangelo.

Things got uglier when Pietrangelo was given a game misconduct and a major penalty for slashing center Leon Draisaitl with 1:27 to go. Oilers captain Connor McDavid said he’d like to see Pietrangelo suspended for the play.

It didn’t end there. Defensemen Nic Hague and Darnell Nurse fought 37 seconds later. Nurse was given an instigator penalty, which will carry a one-game suspension because it came within the final five minutes of regulation. The only way Nurse will play in Game 5 is if his suspension is overturned upon review.

2. Oilers’ stars shine again

McDavid and Draisailt, the NHL’s two leading scorers in the regular season, were held off the scoresheet for only the fourth time this season in Game 3.

They made sure that didn’t happen a second time. McDavid had two primary assists Wednesday, while Draisaitl had one. One adjustment coach Jay Woodcroft made was playing the two on separate lines for the most part at five-on-five rather than keeping them together.

McDavid’s two-point night gives him 170 this season between the regular season and playoffs. The only other players to hit that figure are Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Mike Bossy and Jaromir Jagr.

3. Hill’s game

After two solid showings off the bench in the series, Hill stopped 29 of the 33 shots he faced in his first start since March 7.

Goaltender Laurent Brossoit didn’t dress for the Knights after suffering a lower-body injury in the first period of Game 3. Two-time Stanley Cup winner Jonathan Quick served as Hill’s backup, and rookie Jiri Patera was called up for insurance.

In three appearances in the series, Hill has allowed four goals on 61 shots in 125:55.

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.