A lot has been made of this daunting Edmonton Oilers offense, especially on the power play, but the Vegas Golden Knights found an answer for it in Game 1 by taking advantage of their momentum and getting goals in bunches to keep ahead.
But, the Oilers offense won over in Game 2, smothering Vegas early on, and by the time they let up, the game was already over.
The Oilers started off Game 2 exactly how they did in Game 1, and that’s with an early power play goal from Leon Draisaitl.
However, while Game 1 saw the Golden Knights respond quickly and hold off Edmonton for the rest of the game, the Oilers showed no mercy in Game 2.
Evan Bouchard got another power play goal about five minutes later, Connor McDavid scored shorthanded four minutes after that, and Draisaitl got his second of the night late in the first, and the Oilers had a 4-0 lead before the end of the first period.
Meanwhile, Vegas only got four shots in the frame, as Edmonton dominated possession all period with a 19-4 edge in shots, 14-3 edge in 5v5 scoring chances, and a 1.17-0.41 edge in 5v5 expected goals.
Vegas picked up the pace a little bit more in the second, but it was still just Edmonton getting the goals, as McDavid got his second of the night on the power play to make it 5-0 mid-way through the frame. And with the game officially in blowout territory, it started to get ugly.
We got a good ol’ fashioned line brawl as the second period came to an end, with one official fight, two scrums that got written off as roughing, and Evander Kane going a bit over the top in his scrap with Keegan Kolesar.
The Golden Knights attempted to get back in the game in the third period, but they didn’t get too far. Ivan Barbashev scored 1:36 into the period, and that was all they could manage as the Oilers take the game with a 5-1 score.
McDavid had two goals and an assist and Zach Hyman had three assists to lead the team in scoring, while their other usual suspects in Draisaitl (two goals), Bouchard (goal and assist), and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (two assists) all had multi-point games, and Stuart Skinner rebounded from a tough Game 1 performance by stopping 30 of the 31 shots he faced.
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