For the first time in more than two months, the Vegas Golden Knights will enter a game looking up in the Pacific Division standings when they host the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday night in Las Vegas.
Vegas, which had held at least a share of the Pacific Division lead every day since Jan. 3, dropped a point behind the Anaheim Ducks in the standings following a 4-2 loss to the visiting Minnesota Wild on Friday night while the Ducks rallied for a 6-5 shootout win over Montreal.
It was the fourth loss in the last five games for coach Bruce Cassidy’s squad, which also fell behind 3-0 in a game for the fourth time in its last five games.
Minnesota scored three goals in a three-plus-minute stretch in the second period, including two 18 seconds apart, to build its 3-0 lead. Pavel Dorofeyev cut the lead to 3-1 early in the third period with his 30th goal off a Jack Eichel setup, but Vladimir Tarasenko sealed the win with a goal with just 4:18 to go.
“It’s a lot of the same,” Cassidy said. “We get behind, we have a bad stretch, and one (goal) becomes two becomes three. We should be better than that.”
“It’s unfortunate they had those minutes and were able to capitalize and all of a sudden we’re chasing the game again,” Eichel said. “Back to the drawing board I guess and prepare for Sunday.”
Eichel, a key cog on the United States team that won the Olympic gold medal in Italy, has just two assists in five games since his return and is a minus-5 in plus/minus. Dorofeyev has picked up some of the slack with four goals since the break and became the first Golden Knight in franchise history to post back-to-back 30-goal campaigns.
“(Saturday) we’ll try and fix some things and then be better on Sunday,” said Cassidy, who held an optional practice Saturday. “We’ve got a good offensive team coming in here. They’ve had trouble keeping the puck out of their net, so they have some of the issues we have. But I think it’s less about Edmonton right now, it’s more about us.”
Edmonton began Saturday’s action in third place in the Pacific Division, four points behind Vegas, but is one of six teams bunched together in the standings while battling for three guaranteed Western Conference playoff spots for the division.
The Oilers are 2-3-0 since the Olympic break and have been bleeding goals, allowing 22 during that span. Edmonton comes in off a 6-3 loss to visiting Carolina on Friday. Goaltender Tristan Jarry continued to struggle, allowing five goals on 31 shots, the third time in his last four starts he’s allowed five goals in a game.
“Nobody wants to get scored against,” said forward Zach Hyman, who scored twice. “We’re not trying to go out there and let in five goals every night. There’s an effort there to be better. We’ve talked about it and it’s just a matter of going out there and doing it and doing your job and trusting that the other guy is going to do their job.”
Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said his team must find some answers quickly before the unthinkable happens for Connor McDavid and company … they miss the playoffs.
“Obviously, we need to find it and put together wins,” Knoblauch said. “We’ve only got (19) games left, and we’re on the brink of not making the playoffs. We can’t wait to find our game in the playoffs because we need to ultimately get there. We need to find another gear.”
This is the second of four regular-season meetings. Host Edmonton, behind two goals and an assist by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, jumped out to a 4-0 lead and held on to win the first matchup, 4-3, on Dec. 21.
