The Edmonton Oilers picked up two massive points on Tuesday (April 1) night, defeating the host Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 at T-Mobile Arena.
Viktor Arvidsson, Leon Draisaitl and Jake Walman each scored for the Oilers, while Vegas got one goal apiece from Pavel Dorofeyev and Nicolas Roy. Goaltenders Calvin Pickard and Aden Hill each made 20 saves for the Oilers and Golden Knights, respectively.
Related: Oilers Gut Out Huge 3-2 Victory Over Golden Knights
The Oilers did all their scoring in the middle frame, sandwiched between Vegas goals in the first and third periods. Edmonton went one-for-four with the man advantage, while the Golden Knights failed to convert on their lone power-play opportunity.
With the victory, Edmonton improves to 43-26-5 and pulls within seven points of the Golden Knights, whose record drops to 45-21-8.
Janmark Delivers the Hits
Edmonton registered 30 hits, equalling its most in a game for 2024-25, with a most unlikely individual, Mattias Janmark, leading the way.
The veteran Oilers forward dished out a game-high five hits, tying his career high. In his previous 628 career NHL regular season games, Janmark had only recorded five hits once, and that was also against the Golden Knights, last season.
Edmonton is the only team in the NHL averaging less than 15 hits per game this season, and the Oilers are on pace to record their fewest hits in a full-length season since 2007-08.
This apparent lack of physicality hasn’t hurt the Oilers, however. In fact, it’s the opposite: Edmonton is now 6-9-0 (a point percentage of .400) when registering at least 20 hits, compared to 37-17-5 (.669) when recording under 20 hits. Tuesday’s game was the first time this season that Edmonton has won in regulation when getting more than 20 hits.
Arvidsson Is Heating Up
One of Edmonton’s big free-agent signings of last summer, Arvidsson has greatly underperformed for much of the season. The veteran forward was without a point in 34 of his first 51 games with his new team, and had only eight goals as recently as mid-March.
Over the eight games since, however, Arvidsson has four goals, including a pair of game-winners. The 31-year-old has now scored in consecutive games for Edmonton, and his goal on Tuesday, coming late in the second period, proved to be the difference-maker.
This is a most welcome development for the Oilers, who will need depth scoring from the likes of Arvidsson if they are to make another deep postseason run this year.
No McDavid, No Problem
Tuesday marked the fifth consecutive game that Edmonton has played without its superstar captain Connor McDavid, who continues to recover from a lower-body injury that he sustained against the Winnipeg Jets on March 20.
While there was grave concern in Edmonton when it became apparent that McDavid would have to miss some games, the Oilers have more than held their own without him. After Tuesday’s win, Edmonton is now 7-4-0 when McDavid doesn’t play this season, including 3-2-0 over the last five games.
A big reason that Edmonton has been able to navigate McDavid’s absence is the play of Hart Trophy candidate Draisaitl, who potted his league-leading 52nd goal on the power-play at 16:03 of the second period against Vegas. In the eight games he has played this season without McDavid, Draisaitl has nine goals and seven assists. Contributions from the likes of Arvidsson have also proven pivotal.
It remains unknown when McDavid will return to Edmonton’s lineup, although Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said on Sunday (March 30) that the centre would be back in action before the regular season wraps up on April 16.
Oilers’ Biggest Win of the Season
One look at the standings tells you how important this victory was for the Oilers. At the start of Tuesday, Edmonton trailed Vegas by nine points for first place in the Pacific Division, with just nine games remaining in the regular season for both teams. A loss would have left Edmonton with virtually no chance of catching the Golden Knights, and while the odds are still long, Tuesday’s victory at least gives the Oilers a glimmer of hope that they can chase down Vegas.
Even more critically, though, Edmonton keeps pace with the Los Angeles Kings, who lead the Oilers by two points for second place in the division. Los Angeles won again on Tuesday, defeating the Winnipeg Jets by a score of 4-1 at Crypto.com Arena to improve its record to 42-23-9. The Oilers and Kings will play each other twice over their remaining eight games, which could very well decide second and third place in the Pacific Division standings.
The first of those two tilts takes place Saturday (April 5) afternoon in LA. Before then, however, Edmonton has a date with the host San Jose Sharks at SAP Center on Thursday (April 3) evening.
