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Best Oilers Fights of 2024-25: Trent Frederic and Nic Hague drop gloves as playoff series with Golden Knights erupts

Originally posted on Oilersnation | By Ryley Delaney | Last updated Jul 19, 2025 2:00 PM ET

There was a sour taste left in the mouths of the Edmonton Oilers after the way Game 3 ended in the second round of the playoffs.

Up two games in the series and heading home against the Vegas Golden Knights, the Oilers jumped out to an early 2-0 lead in the first period. But the Knights clawed back, tying the game before the intermission. Late in the second, William Karlsson scored to give Vegas a 3-2 lead, but Connor McDavid had an answer with 3:02 left in the third to force what looked like inevitable overtime.

That is, until Leon Draisaitl accidentally deflected the puck into his own net with just 0.4 seconds on the clock. Just like that, what could have been a commanding 3-0 series lead vanished. And with an extra day off before Game 4, the sting lingered even longer.

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Back at it in Game 4, the Oilers once again opened the scoring (something they’d continue doing in every game until Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final). They came out strong. Just 87 seconds in, Adam Henrique found himself all alone in the slot and made no mistake.

Edmonton also started leaning into a new strategy: bumping Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill at every opportunity to try and get under his skin. That plan boiled over when Mattias Janmark drifted a little too close to the crease, and Hill stuck out a foot. He hit the ice, and both teams piled into the corner.

From that chaos, Trent Frederic and Nicolas Hague emerged without any officials in sight, which meant it was time for the first fight of the postseason.

Frederic didn’t get off to a great start. He barely got his gloves off before Hague, who had the jersey tucked, started feeding him uppercuts. Frederic stood upright and answered with a big overhand right, but quickly returned to his crouch, opening the door for a few more uppercuts from Hague.

Back on his feet, Frederic threw a couple more rights and tried to shield himself from the flurry. He got a few decent shots in, but Hague landed the biggest punches of the fight: Two clean left hooks to Frederic’s ear. To his credit, Frederic wisely tied him up to end things.

No bias here: Hague won that one decisively. He landed more shots and had the two hardest punches of the scrap. HockeyFights.com voters agreed, as 73% of the 70 voters gave the win to Hague. The tilt earned a 6.81 average rating, the third-highest of any Oilers fight that season.

Did the fight swing momentum in Vegas’ favour? Simply put, no. Before the period was over, Henrique scored his second of the game to make it 2-0. Evander Kane added another later in the second, and that’s how it ended. In fact, no more goals were scored until overtime in Game 5, but that’s a story for another article.