What has changed since the last Edmonton Oilers-Vegas Golden Knights playoff series

Game 4 brought about the Alex Pietrangelo slash on Leon Draisaitl, amid various accusations from both teams about players targeting the start. And Game 5 is also a haunting memory for Oilers fans, where Vegas scored three times in two minutes to take a 4–2 lead that would ultimately result in the 4–3 final.

The other thing of note, of course, was the goaltending. Former Oilers and Edmonton Oil Kings goaltender Laurent Brossoit started the series for Vegas, but was pulled in Game 2 after allowing five goals on 32 shots. He would start Game 3, but leave after one goal against with an injury, setting the stage for the Adin Hill run that carried them to the Stanley Cup.

The Oilers were in the transitionary phase of having Jack Campbell and rookie Stuart Skinner as their tandem. While Skinner started all six games of the 2023 series, he only finished three of them without getting pulled: the wild Game 1, and both Oilers wins in Games 2 and 4. Campbell came on in relief in Games 3, 5, and 6.

There’s some eerie similarities between 2023 and 2025

The “history repeats itself” believers are going to love this section. And with some of the context points, it’s indeed hard to overlook them, and how similar things are shaping up.

The Oilers are coming off a hard-fought six-game series against the Kings in which Los Angeles held a series lead and a chance to go up three games to 1. The Kings blew a multi-goal third-period lead in Game 4, lost in overtime, and gave the Oilers momentum they wouldn’t relinquish the rest of the way.

Edmonton now must go up against the Pacific Division-winning Vegas Golden Knights, who did not win a playoff round last year, have this year, and are looking to advance to yet another Western Conference Final. Hill will most likely be the Vegas goaltender of record for this series, while the Stu is not hot on Edmonton’s side. What a doozy of a parallel.

But this year is also different

Let’s get the obvious out of the way: Goaltending. Whereas the Oilers didn’t expect to see Adin Hill back in 2023, given that Brossoit started the first three games, they are fully expecting up to seven games of Adin Hill this time around, and can better game-plan for how to beat him.

In the Edmonton net, Calvin Pickard is expected to start the series, riding a four-game win streak since Game 3 of the first round. Now, Pickard hasn’t been a complete brick wall in net through that win streak, and a bad loss will quite likely give Skinner a path to reclaiming his starter’s role. But as it stands for Game 1, it is Pickard’s net, and he will have a chance to exact revenge against the franchise that selected him in their expansion draft, but then immediately dealt him to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The roster and coach also are different this time around. Jay Woodcraft has been swapped out in favour of Kris Knoblauch behind the bench, and a lot of younger, inexperienced talent on the Oilers is gone, replaced by veteran free-agent signings. There is also no Mattias Ekholm on the Oilers back-end, most likely for the entire series.

The context is also different heading into this year’s series. Whereas the 2023 Oilers were coming off a 2022 Western Conference Final loss to the Colorado Avalanche in which they didn’t stand much of a chance, the 2025 Oilers came within a 2–1 goal of the Stanley Cup last year and are a lot more prepared to face tougher opponents like Vegas this time around.

The Golden Knights also have a bit of different context, in that the year prior to their 2023 Cup run, they missed the playoffs entirely and fired their head coach; last year, they battled through seven heavy games against the Dallas Stars in the first round, and this year, the Minnesota Wild gave Vegas more of a fight than the 2023 Winnipeg Jets did.

All of that is to say, while there’s some déjà vu with how we got here, it would be unwise to expect lopsided final scores throughout this Oilers-Golden Knights matchup.