Season Over For Vegas Golden Knights: Edmonton Wins 1-0 Thriller In OT, Takes Series In Five Games In Round 2 Before 18,288 Wednesday
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Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The Pope, an Elvis and Flavor Flav walk into an arena.
Four hours later, they walk out of the Vegas Golden Knights’ final game of the season Wednesday.
The NHL season ended anti-climactically for the Vegas Golden Knights as the Oilers’ Kasperi Kapanen scored the game-winner about seven minutes into overtime as the puck slipped past VGK goalie Adin Hill under a pile of players.
The Knights were shut out the last two games against Edmonton.
VGK lost all three games on home ice after Vegas enjoyed a very successful 50-win, 110-point season inside the friendly confines of T-Mobile Arena. The Oilers finished third in the division with 101 points, but defeated the second-place LA Kings and the division-winning Golden Knights in the first two rounds.
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Edmonton goalie Calvin Pickard, the Vegas franchise’s first-ever pick in the 2017 NHL expansion draft, won the first two games of the series at T-Mobile Arena.
But the last two games and Oilers wins came courtesy of fellow netminder Stuart Skinner, who was brilliant tonight in walling off every VGK shot on goal.
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After the game, Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo had these comments to offer:
Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said Vegas needed to win at least one of the first two games of the series on home ice and fretted about the VGK losing Game 2 in overtime after Edmonton took game 1, 4-2, after the Golden Knights led that game, 2-0, in the first period.
“We made it more difficult for ourselves,” Cassidy of the VGK losing the first two games on home ice.
The Knights rallied to win Game 3 at the third period buzzer in Edmonton thanks to a goal by Original Misfit Reilly Smith, but looked non-competitive is a 3-0 Game 4 loss in Edmonton Monday night.
Asked about his team not scoring a single goal in Games 4 and 5, Cassidy said, “It’s not easy to get in front of the net . . . At the end of the day, they did a good job at blocking shots.”
Cassidy said he liked his team’s response in Game 5.
“That’s a good hockey team over there,” he said of the Oilers, which lost in seven games to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final a year ago.
But Cassidy said Edmonton did not see the Golden Knights play their best hockey tonight.
“I wouldn’t say it was our best,” he said.
At the same time, the VGK were wounded, with the team’s emotional leader, captain Mark Stone, missing tonight’s Game 5 with an injury. Golden Knights goal sniper Pavel Dorofeyev missed action and did not seem at full strength.
The Oilers’ depth was a key to the series win, as Edmonton relied on others besides its known superstars, Connor McDavid and Leon Dreisaitl, to win games.
The Oilers also played a tough, physical brand of hockey, and was not the high-powered finesse teams of past seasons.
The Oilers are the first team in the NHL to make it to the Stanley Cup Playoffs’ Final Four. They play the winner of the Dallas-Winnipeg series in the Western Conference Final.
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