LAS VEGAS — Not since 1944 has the National Hockey League seen a game like this one, featuring zero power plays and only one goal.
And the goal? A total fluke, as Ivan Barbashev admitted after the game that he’d passed the puck twice — one pass blocked by Evan Bouchard, and the second intended for Jack Eichel that somehow sifted through Stuart Skinner’s five-hole.
Hey, sometimes you get the breaks, and sometimes the breaks get you.
It was the fifth such game — zero power plays, one goal — in NHL history, but it was entirely unentertaining.
Skinner was very good, posting an in-game save percentage of better than .930 for the fourth time in his last five starts. But Vegas Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill was forced to be better, a sign that the Oilers had the lion’s share of the offensive chances in this 1-0 loss.
The Oilers left their finish somewhere in the Rocky Mountains after wins in Utah and Denver, piling up 12 high-danger chances to Vegas’ six (Natural Stat Trick), but failing to score.
Connor Brown likely had their cleanest look in Period 2, a one-timer at the end of a pretty three-way passing play that he shanked wide of the net.
“The other day in practice,” began head coach Kris Knoblauch, “we saw Brownie with that one-timer that he had. He never missed. He was just connecting on it — in practice.
“He has it in the game, and it’s not what he wanted.”
This was just one of those games where you can’t find any fault in how your team played, yet you still walk away empty-handed.
The Oilers walked into Vegas and allowed one lucky goal and 16 shots against. That’s a recipe for victory all day long, and a sign your team’s defensive game is top notch.
But Leon Draisaitl flubbed a drop pass that allowed a two-on-one, and Barbashev got incredibly lucky, scoring while trying to feed Eichel at the other side of the crease.
“I tried to pass it to Jack twice,” he told reporters post-game.
As for Draisaitl, whose drop pass for Bouchard brought memories of Tommy McVie’s great line — “Two places never to make a drop pass: At home, and on the road,” — no one is blaming him for this one.
“I’ve made that play a million times, probably works out 900,000 times,” he confessed post-game. “Today, obviously it didn’t, so that’s on me.”
This was a night where someone would have liked to pick Draisaitl — Edmonton’s best player to this point in the season — up. But the soon-to-be-named Team Canada goalie, Hill, had other ideas, stopping all 28 Edmonton shots.
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“It’s probably one he wants back, but it happens,” Knoblauch said of the play. “The amount of opportunities (Draisaitl) creates, it’s not always going to be perfect. There are going to be mistakes, and if you have players never making mistakes, they’re probably never creating much.
“Sometimes you just have to accept the mistakes are going to happen, and there was a mistake on that goal. If there are mistakes happening where players aren’t creating very much at all, then you’ve got a big problem.”
Surely, this game wasn’t about the “1,” it was about the “0,” as the Oilers had the bulk of the scoring chances but somehow got shut out.
In two wins over Edmonton this season, Hill has 55 saves, two goals against, and four important points against an Oilers team that now trails the Golden Knights by seven points in the Pacific.
“We’ve played this team a bunch over the years, and we know how they play,” said Mattias Ekholm, sporting a bloodied left eye and a bandage across the bridge of his nose. “Sometimes when they’re on their game, it’s hard to generate a lot of offence.”
Edmonton dominated the final 12 minutes, outshooting Vegas 16-2 in the final frame. They had their chances, but few teams can lock ‘er down the way these Golden Knights can.
“It feels like you’re in the zone a lot, but you’re mostly on the perimeter,” Ekholm observed. “But we had some good looks. I thought we had some chances, but they had a goaltender, and we’ll have to learn from this game. Because I’m sure we’ll see these guys again.”
You bet they will, a week from Saturday when the Golden Knights come to Edmonton for a matinee.
The Golden Knights have won the first two games of the season series, stealing one in the third period in Edmonton a few weeks back.
The Pacific still goes through Vegas, so Edmonton had better figure that out if they fancy winning their division this season.
OIL SPILLS — The Oilers sent Drake Caggiula to AHL Bakersfield after the game. That means Zach Hyman should be ready to play Thursday at home versus Columbus … Knoblauch said Troy Stecher was fine after taking a shot to the ear in the third period … The Oilers flew home after the game, expecting to land just before 3 a.m. MT. They’ll have an off day Wednesday after a pretty good road trip, where they won two of three games.
