The Golden Knights had their chances. A few more fortunate bounces could have earned them an extra game in the playoffs.
But one of the best seasons in franchise history is over after a second-round exit at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers, who closed out the series with a 1-0 overtime win in Game 5 on Wednesday at T-Mobile Arena.
The Knights went into the playoffs healthy. They were guaranteed home-ice advantage through the first two rounds. None of that ended up mattering. The Oilers won all three games at T-Mobile Arena.
“Any time you have a good team, you just feel like you didn’t really finish what you set out to do,” defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said. “We got a hell of a team, hell of a locker room. It’s disappointing. It’s a hard league to win in, and we know that. We knew that going in.”
Injuries ended up mounting for the Knights in the playoffs and proved too difficult to overcome.
Captain Mark Stone suffered an upper-body injury in Game 3 and didn’t suit up for Game 5. Left wing Brandon Saad didn’t appear in the final three games of the series with an undisclosed ailment.
Pietrangelo and defenseman Brayden McNabb were compromised. Pietrangelo missed Game 1 with an illness and was in pain after blocking a shot in Game 4. McNabb was hurt after being tripped in overtime in Game 2. Neither participated in the Knights morning skate Wednesday to save their bodies for the game.
“Super proud of the guys for the way they came out, committed to playing the right way,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “I thought we had pockets of really good hockey.”
It just wasn’t enough. Edmonton advanced to the Western Conference Final for the third time in four years. The Knights, on the other hand, have a long summer ahead.
Here are five reasons they lost the series:
1. Five-on-five struggles
The Knights won the Stanley Cup two years ago — and defeated the Oilers in the second round along the way — because they were dominant at even strength.
The script got flipped this time around. Edmonton outscored the Knights 15-7 at five-on-five, making up for the fact it was outscored 3-1 on special teams.
The Oilers depth controlled the series. Ten different skaters scored at five-on-five for them. Only five did so for the Knights, with center William Karlsson and right wing Reilly Smith leading the way with two goals each.
The team’s five leading goal scorers in the regular season — right wing Pavel Dorofeyev, centers Tomas Hertl and Jack Eichel and left wings Ivan Barbashev and Brett Howden — combined for zero goals against Edmonton.
The Oilers, on the other hand, got the series-clinching goal from right wing Kasperi Kapanen, who was a healthy scratch the first three games.
2. Oilers stars did enough
The Knights did their best to contain Edmonton superstars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Both finished with six points in the series. Which was a win for the Knights considering McDavid (1.58) and Draisaitl (1.46) rank third and fifth, respectively, all-time in points per game in the playoffs.
The problem was their own stars couldn’t break through.
Eichel had five assists the first three games but didn’t record a point the last two. Stone had four points the first two games, got hurt early in Game 3 and then didn’t look like himself in Game 4.
Dorofeyev and Hertl didn’t have a point in the series, though Dorofeyev missed the first two games with an undisclosed ailment.
One of the only Knights players that was consistent against the Oilers was Karlsson. He had four points in the series and was incredible defensively against McDavid. The Knights outscored the Oilers 3-0 at five-on-five when those two shared the ice, according to the website Natural Stat Trick.
3. Missing the target
Edmonton did an excellent job clogging the middle of the ice and making it tough for the Knights to score.
They also didn’t help themselves. The Knights missed the net 91 times in the series. The Oilers also blocked 104 shots.
Part of the Knights’ problem was their best player didn’t shoot enough.
Eichel finished with nine shots on goal and 22 attempts at five-on-five in the series, according to Natural Stat Trick. He’s one of the NHL’s best playmakers but he scored 28 goals this season. He can beat goaltenders on his own.
The Knights needed him to be more assertive, especially with Stone injured.
“We’re a team that’s not a shoot-first team anyway, so that’s something we’ll look at,” Cassidy said. “I think it cost us a little last year, too, a lack of production in the Dallas series. We have to look if we have to change our mindset a little bit.”
4. Coin flips
The Knights could still be playing if they closed out one of the first two games of the series.
They had a 2-1 lead entering the third period of Game 1 but gave up three goals the final 20 minutes. They led 1-0 after the first period in Game 2 before giving up three goals in the second. The Knights needed two goals in the third to force overtime before losing on Draisaitl’s game winner.
Maybe things would have been different if Edmonton right wing Viktor Arvidsson was given a penalty for tripping McNabb before Draisaitl’s goal. The Knights will never know.
“We needed to leave here with a split (after Game 2),” Cassidy said.
The Knights ultimately couldn’t climb out of a 2-0 deficit for the second time in franchise history. They did so in the second round in 2021 against the Colorado Avalanche.
“Unfortunately, we lost too many close games. That was the difference,” Karlsson said. “We don’t score the last two games. That’s the difference.”
5. Oilers goalies got it done
As Karlsson said, the Knights season ended with consecutive shutouts at the hands of Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner.
Skinner didn’t even start the series in net after allowing 11 goals the first two games of Edmonton’s first-round matchup against the Los Angeles Kings. Calvin Pickard, a 2017 expansion draft pick by the Knights, started Games 1 and 2 before suffering an undisclosed injury.
Skinner was shaky in Game 3 and gave up the winner to Smith with 0.4 seconds left. But he settled down afterward thanks to strong defensive play in front of him.
The Oilers, between Pickard and Skinner, finished the series with a .917 save percentage. Knights starter Adin Hill posted an .893.
Hill was great at times in the series, but the two long-range goals he allowed in Game 2 may have swung things in Edmonton’s favor. He wasn’t as sharp as he was two years ago when he had a .934 save percentage in the Knights’ six-game victory over the Oilers.
That’s just one of many reasons Edmonton will get a chance to defend its Western Conference title. The Knights will have to spend the offseason thinking about what went wrong, and what they can do better next year.
Contact Danny Webster at [email protected]. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
