No McDavid, no problem as Edmonton Oilers make a statement in Vegas

If there was any game that reassured an Oilers fan base that had every reason to worry about what this spring might hold for their team, Tuesday night in Vegas was it.

Still without Connor McDavid, Mattias Ekholm and Stuart Skinner and moving up to the heavyweight division against a power team at the top of their own division, the Oilers looked strong in every aspect of the game.

They scored when they needed to, they shut it down when they needed to and goaltender Calvin Pickard improved to 19-8-1 with a 3-2 decision over a Vegas Golden Knights team that was 7-1-2 in its previous 10 games.

“It was a tight-checking game and it might be a playoff opponent so it was a big game for us,” said winger Viktor Arvidsson, who is starting to heat up with four goals in his last eight games. “They play a lot like Boston used to play — a heavy match-up so, for sure, you have to dig down a little more and be heavier on your stick.”

The Oilers looked pretty good in their first four games without McDavid in the lineup, going 2-2 with wins over Seattle and Calgary, and losses to Seattle and Dallas, but there is a big difference between a one-goal win over the Kraken and an overtime decision over the Flames and walking through the Golden Knights.

This was a solid piece of hockey from a team that has a lot of question marks around it.

“That was a tough battle against a tough team and we played really well,” said defenceman Jake Walman, whose first goal as an Oiler, 19 seconds into the second period, got the team rolling.

We’re capable of defending against the best and this is one of the best teams. Up and down their lineup they’re really deep and I thought everybody did a good job. We played a team game tonight.”

It started out according to script, with Edmonton unable to generate anything. You or I could have been in net for Vegas and it wouldn’t have mattered. The Oilers managed just one shot in the first 12 minutes, from 73 feet out, two shots through 16 minutes, the second one coming from 45 feet out and a third at 17:26 from just inside centre ice.

They were lucky to escape the opening 20 minutes down 1-0 on a Leon Draisaitl giveaway at centre ice.
It looked like the game plan was to put them to sleep and take over in the second period,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “Missed passes, going offside, the execution wasn’t there.”

At this point, the outcome looked obvious — the short-staffed Oilers were going to crash back to reality at the hands of a red-hot contender. The Knights, after all, were 24-2-4 when leading after 20 minutes.