In Las Vegas, Mikko Koskinen made 36 saves and the Edmonton Oilers gutted out a 5-3 win over the Golden Knights on Friday.
“Overall it’s been a fun 24 hours,” Koskinen said. “We got four points and showed a lot of character tonight. It wasn’t an easy game for us, but we got a big win.”
The game was the Oilers’ second in two nights.
“You can tell there was fatigue in our group,” Oilers head coach Dave Tippett said. “But we hung in there … and we were able to get the win.”
The Oilers offense was driven by Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman each of whom scored twice.
“They came out hard,” Oilers forward Zack Kassian said. “I think in the first period we were overwhelmed. Their forecheck was good, they were buzzing around in the o-zone, but I think our special teams won us the period.”
Vegas’ Nicolas Roy and Nolan Patrick had goals.
Trailing 2-3 after two periods, Vegas’ Nicolas Hague scored early in the third period to even the match at 3-3.
“Let’s be honest we could have easily had a couple of goals there tonight,” DeBoer said. “You’ve got to give their goalie some credit. It wasn’t like we couldn’t get in and didn’t get looks. Sometimes the other goalie made some big saves, or we didn’t cash in on the good opportunities that we had.”
Edmonton replied with a goal from Zack Kassian for a 4-3 lead, and Draisaitl popped in a late empty-net goal for the 5-3 final.
“The work we’ve put in so far in training camp and the first four games, leading into a game against Vegas on a back-to-back — which you know their season hasn’t gone as much as they’ve liked so far, they were going to be hungry — it was going to be a real test for our team,” Tippett said. “They tested us hard. We bent a little bit but didn’t break.”
Vegas went 0-for-3 on the power play, and are 0-for-9 this season.
Robin Lehner made 29 saves in the Knights’ third straight loss.
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