In Las Vegas, the Edmonton Oilers took a 3-0 lead on the Golden Knights, on Saturday, and then held on for a 3-2 win.
Mikko Koskinen made 36 saves for the Oilers in the win.
“Every game is different,” Koskinen said. “All that matters is we got the win and the two points.”
Edmonton improved to 15-5-0.
Vegas got a second period goal from Chandler Stephenson to cut the Oilers lead to 3-1, and Reilly Smith hit for a goal early in the third period to make 3-2.
“I loved our start,” Vegas head coach Peter DeBoer said. “The first 12 minutes of the game we played exactly the way we wanted to play. We forechecked, we were direct, we didn’t turn pucks over. The last eight, 10 minutes of that first period, we did some of the things we said we didn’t want to do, which was take penalties, put them on the power play, and turn pucks over. It’s that simple.”
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins opened the scoring in the first period for a 1-0 lead to the Oilers.
“We knew they were pushing,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “I thought we did a pretty good job staying solid, not giving up too many high-quality chances. They’re a good team over there and they come in waves.”
Zach Hyman scored with 18 seconds left in the opening stanza for a 2-0 Edmonton lead.
“They’re an opportunistic team and a team that you can’t give that many chances to, so we kind of shot ourselves in the foot with that,” Stephenson said. “It just needs to be better.”
Jesse Puljujarvi made it 3-0 at 6:36 for the second period.
Robin Lehner made 27 saves in the Vegas loss.
“Not a lot of teams have kept those guys off the score sheet,” Smith said. “There’s more to that team than just those two players. The three or four breakaways that we gave, that’s what cost us.”
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