At some point it had to happen. On Tuesday night, the Edmonton Oilers found their complete game in an 8-2 thrashing of the Vegas Golden Knights.
Cam Talbot made 22 saves to get the win.
The Oilers finally got a big night from Connor McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins who struck for two goals each in the win.
“We kind of put everything together tonight and things went well for us,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “We can’t get away from that now. There have been times this season, at home especially, where we have a good game then come out with a crummy one. We have to stick with this and play the same way.”
Edmonton, who improved to 7-8-2, also got goals from Oscar Klefbom, Patrick Maroon, Matt Benning and Mark Letestu.
“It was a big night for us on special teams tonight,” Klefbom said. “It was just a matter of time for the power play (3-for-3). It’s been frustrating since we have been creating a lot of chances and been very close. We’ve been missing on execution. It was nice to get some results tonight, that’s for sure.”
Vegas’ goals came from Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and James Neal.
“Everything went wrong tonight, we weren’t skating, we gave them too many odd-man rushes and they’re a talented team and they take advantage of that,” Knights head coach Gerard Gallant said. “Right from the start it wasn’t a good game for us. I thought we got a little better in the second, but it was a bad game overall.”
[WATCH: All Golden Knights vs. Oilers highlights]
Maxime Lagace got the start for Vegas and yielded seven of the Oilers’ goals; he was given the hook in the third period.
“We weren’t sharp, we weren’t good, we weren’t playing our game,” Engelland said. “We sat back, we weren’t in their faces like we normally play and a lot of us weren’t ready to go. They played well, they got eight on us and we have to learn from that and move on.”
Dylan Ferguson, 19, finished the game in his NHL debut.
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