The Edmonton Oilers gained a huge two points in the Pacific Division race, defeating the host Vegas Golden Knights by a score of 4-2 at T-Mobile Arena on Sunday (March 8).
Leon Draisaitl, Trent Frederic, Kasperi Kapanen and Vasily Podkolzin each scored for the Oilers. Vegas got one goal apiece from Jack Eichel and Noah Hanifin.
Edmonton netminder Connor Ingram made 24 saves in a winning effort, while Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill allowed three goals on 18 shots.
With the victory, the Oilers now have 70 points from a record of 31-25-8. Edmonton sits third in the Pacific Division, two points back of the Golden Knights, who have 72 points from a record of 29-21-14.
Frederic Chips in With Depth Scoring
Of Edmonton’s top six goal scorers in 2025-26, only Draisaitl lit the lamp in Las Vegas. Instead, the normally top-heavy Oilers got offensive contributions from some unlikely sources, most particularly Frederic, who came into Sunday’s game with just three goals in 60 games this season.
Frederic has been Edmonton’s most oft-criticized player this season, and rightly so: he signed an eight-year deal worth $30.8 million last June, and has thus far completely failed to live up to that contract. But he seems to be playing with greater confidence coming out of the Olympic break and now has tallied twice in the last four games.
He scored a big goal at T-Mobile Arena, winning multiple battles at the front of the Vegas night and banging in his own rebound to put the Oilers up 1-0. It was the rare occasion this season that Frederic looked like the power forward that Oilers general manager Stan Bowman must have envisioned when signing him to that lofty contract.
Oilers Win Crucial Coach’s Challenge
Recently, Edmonton’s had a terrible tendency to allow a goal right after scoring, and that appeared to happen again Sunday.
Frederic had broken the scoreless tie at 3:21 of the second period, but just over three minutes later, at 6:43, Vegas forward Keegan Kolesar threw the puck on the net, and it somehow got through Ingram. The score was tied. Or was it?
Edmonton elected to challenge the goal, and after a video review, it was determined that Kolesar had “preceded the puck into the offensive zone and was in an off-side position prior to his goal.” The goal came off the scoreboard, and the Oilers remained in front by a score of 1-0.
While Vegas would ultimately score next, anyway, with Hanifin tallying at 13:09 of the second period, that goal didn’t have nearly the same momentum-shifting, confidence-shaking impact that Kolesar’s ugly goal would have. Edmonton is now a perfect seven-for-seven on coach’s challenges this season.
Strong Outing from Ingram
The successful coach’s challenge also provided Ingram with a mulligan for what was a pretty dreadful goal against. Ingram, who had played tremendously up until that point, regrouped and remained dialed in for the remainder of the game. The Oilers goalie came up with several great stops and couldn’t really be faulted on neither Hanifin’s nor Eichel’s goals.
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Ingram is now 3-1-0 with a goals-against average (GAA) of 3.01 and a save percentage (SV%) of .882 in his four starts since the NHL’s resumption of play following the Olympic break.
With this latest performance, Ingram has further established himself as Edmonton’s No.1 netminder, especially as fellow Oilers goalie Tristan Jarry continues to struggle. Although his numbers aren’t the greatest, Ingram is giving his team a chance to win. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about Jarry, who is 1-5-0 in his last seven starts.
No Faceoffs for McDavid
Notably, Edmonton centre Connor McDavid didn’t take a single faceoff on Sunday. When the Oilers captain’s line was on the ice for a faceoff, winger Ryan Nugent-Hopkins drew into the circle. Nugent-Hopkins finished the game winning five of nine faceoffs.
While McDavid isn’t particularly great on the draw (his faceoff win percentage for both this season and his entire career is just 47.7%), he averages more than 11 faceoffs per game. This was only the second time in his 776 career NHL regular season games and the first time since 2017 that he went an entire game without taking at least one draw.
Given all that, Sunday’s goose-egg raises eyebrows; Is McDavid nursing some kind of injury that would be detrimental to taking a faceoff?
That’s something to keep an eye on when Edmonton returns to action for its next game, against the league-leading Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Tuesday (March 10).
