How the Edmonton Oilers fell apart against the Vegas Golden Knights

Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports

The Edmonton Oilers lost to the Vegas Golden Knights because they couldn’t defend. Simple as that.

Despite scoring being up across the NHL recently, the old saying ‘defense wins championships’ still rings true in 2023. Only Edmonton didn’t get the memo.

After steamrolling past the Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Oilers couldn’t score their way past Vegas, winning only two of six games against the Golden Knights.

Just five days ago, I wrote how the Oilers had five key areas to improve upon if they wanted to beat the Pacific Division champion Golden Knights. And while the Oilers failed in all five of my categories, the one that really sticks out was the need to improve five-on-five play.

There’s no way around it: Edmonton was brutal at even strength in the series. Of the 18 goals scored against Vegas, the Oilers only managed to score nine times during five-on-five play. The remaining nine goals were scored on the power play: Edmonton’s bread and butter.

The Oilers rolled into the 2023 postseason with the most efficient power play in the history of the National Hockey League. And the scoring split between even strength and having the man advantage was fine during the regular season when facing teams of varying ability.

But being a one-trick pony made Edmonton vulnerable during the Stanley Cup Playoffs, especially against a team like the Golden Knights that prides itself on clogging the middle ice and preventing scoring chances.

Vegas scored 16 of 22 goals on Edmonton at even strength. And a lot of that success can be credited to the balanced attack of Bruce Cassidy’s Golden Knights. His team rolled four lines and three D pairs. They even started two different goaltenders after their de facto No.1, Laurent Brossoit, left Game 3 with a lower-body injury. And yes, Adin Hill was fantastic in Game 6 for Vegas.

I could talk about depth all day, and how Edmonton’s forwards didn’t stack up against what Vegas had to offer. Yeah, the Golden Knights were deeper. There’s no disputing it when 11 Vegas forwards scored in the series compared to Edmonton’s eight.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored once. The same with Zach Hyman. Even Evander Kane – the former San Jose Sharks forward – and Vegas’ enemy No.1 – was virtually non-existent aside from racking up 38 penalty minutes. Kane had one assist in the series.

With the aforementioned Oilers forwards unable to contribute offensively, it put way too much on the shoulders of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Blaming them would be a step too far in my eyes. Draisaitl scored six times against Vegas and McDavid had 10 points.

But let’s just get real here for a second: scoring wasn’t ever going to be the problem for the Oilers. Edmonton averaged 3.17 goals per game against the Golden Knights. The sore spot was an inability to keep the puck out of the net.

In six second-round games, the Oilers averaged 3.67 goals against. Defensive coverage was abysmal at times. And goaltender Stuart Skinner was pulled in three of the last four contests.

There’s plenty of blame to go around. I don’t think Skinner was the reason why the Oilers lost the series. But he didn’t help his own cause. Despite earning the starting job for the Stanley Cup playoffs by virtue of his .914 save percentage and steady play during the regular season, Skinner’s playoff performance lagged significantly.

In the first 12 postseason playoff games of his NHL career, the Oilers netminder could only muster an .883 save percentage. And he finished only eight of the games he started in goal for Edmonton.

There wasn’t anything egregiously bad about Skinner’s game. But he was beaten clean too often and failed to make the game-changing saves that his team needed.

But what I found disturbing was the complete lack of trust the Oilers showed in goaltender Jack Campbell. Signed to a $5 million, $5-year deal this past offseason, Campbell was firmly planted on the Edmonton bench at the start of every 2023 Stanley Cup playoff game.

That was despite Campbell having a career 5-1 record with a .956 save percentage against the Golden Knights. And a .920 save percentage during the Stanley Cup playoffs.

I thought Woodcroft should have turned to Campbell for Game 4. But the Oilers dominated that matchup, and Skinner got the win. But in games 5 and 6, Skinner got the hook. Campbell played well in relief, although both games were largely out of hand when he took over the Edmonton crease. But imagine what Campbell is now thinking with four years remaining on his contract with the Oilers. It can’t be good.

Edmonton may not have gotten enough saves, but they also didn’t help their goaltenders. Game 6 was a microcosm of everything wrong with the Oilers defensive game. Missed assignments in front of the net. Double – even triple – coverage of Golden Knights players. Getting caught deep on the forecheck and allowing odd-man rushes to come back the other direction.

All of which were listed in my recent piece. As I watched Game 6, I knew Edmonton was in trouble the moment I saw defenseman Cody Ceci chase a Golden Knights player to within feet of the blue line just before Jonathon Marchessault scored the second goal for Vegas midway through the second period.

The Oilers were absolutely lost defensively on that goal. And it got even worse a few minutes later when three Edmonton players converged on Vegas forward Jack Eichel in the low slot. Marchessault was left all alone to deposit a rebound off of an Alec Martinez slapshot from a distance – one that Skinner should have handled.

Those two Vegas goals weren’t the only examples of poor defensive play by the Oilers. But they were glaring. And I think they’re the direct result of the aggressive man-on-man system employed by Woodcroft.

At some point, the Oilers bench boss has to ask himself if his personnel can handle such a demanding system. Because way too often, Edmonton looked confused during the series with Vegas. The Golden Knights crossed routes all over the offensive zone, which looked intentional. The Oilers were never able to sort it out for any extended period of time.

The same goes with Edmonton’s aggressive two-man forecheck and 2-1-2 neutral zone. It works fine during the regular season against teams employing a similar system. Edmonton can run and gun better than almost every team in the NHL. But against a tight defensive team like Vegas, the Oilers’ aggressiveness was a weakness.

In the future, I wonder if Woodcroft doesn’t systematically look at what Cassidy is doing with Vegas and take a page from his playbook. I have no doubt McDavid can score playing under any system. But I’m not sure the Oilers can defend in the postseason with their current system.

In a six-game series, it’s never one thing that dooms a hockey team. And there’s a multitude of specific reasons why the Oilers were eliminated. But here’s the bottom line: Edmonton wasn’t good enough defensively. And now they have all summer to think about it.

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How the Edmonton Oilers fell apart against the Vegas Golden Knights

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