Leon Draisaitl scored his league-leading 22nd goal and also had two assists as the Edmonton Oilers took a 5-0 lead and held on to win 6-3 over the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday afternoon.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Connor Brown each had a goal and an assist for Edmonton, which extended its win streak to a season-high five games. Zach Hyman and Corey Perry also scored, Darnell Nurse added two assists, and Stuart Skinner made 38 saves. The Oilers are now 8-1-1 in their last 10 games.
Ivan Barbashev scored his team-leading 15th goal, and Brett Howden and Victor Olofsson also scored for Vegas, which saw its four-game win streak come to an end. Noah Hanifin had two assists, and Adin Hill made 28 saves but allowed a season-high six goals. The Golden Knights had given up only five goals in their last four games combined.
Edmonton took a 1-0 lead at 17:36 of the first period with a power-play goal by Nugent-Hopkins, who fired a wrist shot from the left circle past a screen into the top far corner. The goal ended a 101-minute shutout streak by Hill and the Golden Knights, as the Oilers had lost 1-0 to Vegas on December 3 in Las Vegas.
The Oilers started the second period strong with four consecutive goals by Hyman, Brown, Draisaitl, and Perry on just eight shots in the first 12:53, making it 5-0. But Vegas, which had hit the post three times earlier, got back in the game near the end of the period with two goals in 26 seconds from Olofsson and Hanifin.
Vegas made it 5-3 just a minute into the third period with a short-handed goal by Howden, who stole the puck from Skinner behind the goal and scored on a wraparound into an empty net.
However, Jeff Skinner ended the Golden Knights’ momentum just 38 seconds later when he scored off a rebound of a Mattias Ekholm shot from the high slot, putting the Oilers back up by three and ending the scoring.
