Vegas Golden Knights vs. Edmonton Oilers: 2023 Stanley Cup playoff series preview and pick

Vegas Golden Knights: 1^st in Pacific Division, 111 points

Edmonton Oilers: 2^nd in Pacific Division, 109 points

Schedule (ET)

Date	Game	Time
Wednesday, May 3	1. Edmonton at Vegas	9:30 p.m. ET
Friday, May 5	2. Edmonton at Vegas	TBD

Additional dates and start times will be confirmed later this week.

The Skinny

The top two picks in the 2015 NHL Draft are about to go head-to-head in the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time. Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel both had strong showings in the Western Conference quarterfinals and are now set to face off in the first playoff meeting between the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights.

Spending the first six seasons of his NHL career with the fledgling Buffalo Sabres, this is Eichel’s first time making the playoffs at all. He’s done plenty to re-establish himself as a No. 1 center this season, but his Edmonton counterpart has been on another level. McDavid recorded a staggering 153 points during the regular season to cement himself as a three-time Hart Trophy winner, but he’s now in hot pursuit of the ultimate team prize. And that’s not even getting into the other players on either sides of this series, from Leon Draisaitl to Mark Stone and William Karlsson to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

Head to Head

Vegas: 1-2-1

Edmonton: 3-0-1

The first three games of the season series were close. Each of them ended 4–3, with two requiring overtime to resolve. The final meeting between the two teams (on March 28) saw the Oilers prevail by a 7–4 score; Nugent-Hopkins led the way with a goal and four assists while McDavid racked up a trio of helpers.

The lone Vegas victory occurred at Rogers Place in Edmonton on March 25. The Golden Knights held McDavid to just one assist in the game before Nicolas Roy sealed the deal the overtime winner.

Top Five Scorers

Vegas

Mark Stone, 8 points
Chandler Stephenson, 8 points
Jack Eichel, 5 points
William Karlsson, 5 points
Alex Pietrangelo, 5 points

Edmonton

Leon Draisaitl, 11 points
Connor McDavid, 10 points
Evan Bouchard, 10 points
Evander Kane, 4 points
Klim Kostin, 4 points

X-Factor

Ever heard of Connor McDavid? He’ll pretty much always be the X-factor in any playoff series in which his team participates. McDavid didn’t quite perform to his usual standards in the Oilers’ quarterfinal win over the Los Angeles Kings, leading to some speculation that he might be a little banged up, but that won’t prevent the Golden Knights from focusing completely on trying to limit his production. If you give the Oilers chances on the power play, they will score — it’s only a matter of when. McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard are integral pieces of that puzzle. If they all crescendo at the same time, the Oilers will be incredibly difficult to stop.

Vegas doesn’t have a McDavid, but it has a lot of really, really good players. Whereas many of the Oilers’ secondary players are more dependent on McDavid and/or Draisaitl for their offense, the Golden Knights’ forward group is stacked with capable play-drivers: Eichel, Stone, Stephenson, Karlsson, Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith, not to mention top defensemen Shea Theodore, Alex Pietrangelo and Brayden McNabb. The Golden Knights have also received significant contributions all year from secondary sources, namely Michael Amadio, Keegan Kolesar, William Carrier and Nic Hague. This Golden Knights team is deeper than you might think, and it’ll need to attack in waves to overpower the Oilers.

Offense

The Oilers power play converted at a jaw-dropping 56.3 percent success rate in the first round, which is one of those figures that doesn’t quite feel real until you see it on NHL.com. Although the playoffs are a festering ground for chaotic figures propped up by small sample sizes, we can pretty confidently say the Oilers won’t score quite that much against the Golden Knights — even though Vegas’ PK operated at a dreadful 58.3 percent success rate against the Jets. Both those numbers are due to normalize in a big way.

Here’s something interesting: Edmonton and Vegas tied for first place with 15 goals at 5-on-5 in the first round. The Golden Knights achieved that in one fewer game. Don’t let the Oilers’ historic power play give you the wrong idea — Vegas is an elite offensive team and arguably on par with the opponents in this series. Marchessault, Smith, Pietrangelo and Theodore combined for zero goals in five games against the Jets. It seems pretty safe to say one of those guys will score in Game 1 against the Oilers.

Via Natural Stat Trick, the Oilers led the way with 3.23 expected goals per hour at 5-on-5 in the first round (Vegas finished fourth, with 2.76), but while their top trio of McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard did a ton of damage against the Kings, the Oilers are still holding out hope that one of Evander Kane, Nugent-Hopkins, Zach Hyman and Kailer Yamamoto will heat up to a thermonuclear setting against the Golden Knights. Aside from the surprising Klim Kostin, the Oilers’ secondary scoring wasn’t quite there in the quarterfinals. If Hyman heats up in this round like he did against the Calgary Flames last year, it could end up being a quick series.

Defense

It might be a tad premature to anoint Evan Bouchard as a No. 1 defenseman, although he sure pulled his weight in the offensive zone during the first round. He also conceded more 5-on-5 expected goals on an hourly basis in the series than any Oilers skater not named Zach Hyman. Cody Ceci also really struggled in big minutes. Mattias Ekholm gives Edmonton a legitimate workhorse on the back end, but he’s only one guy. Ultimately, the Oilers’ fate in the second round might depend on whether Darnell Nurse can live up to his billing (and his big contract) as the anchor of this Oilers defensive group. He fared reasonably well against the Kings, but the Golden Knights are a much greater threat.

It’s certainly worth giving some praise to Brett Kulak, who absolutely demolished his L.A. opponents in the first round with an on-ice expected goals percentage of 71.77 at full strength (via Natural Stat Trick). By and large, Kulak’s pairing with Vincent Desharnais did its job quite well, albeit in relatively sheltered minutes. It remains to be seen whether the Golden Knights use their their home-ice advantage in an attempt to hone in on that duo with more unfavorable matchups in Games 1 and 2, but the Oilers also have a few legitimately strong defensive forwards at their disposal, including Derek Ryan, Ryan McLeod and Warren Foegele — who, funny enough, are all currently slotted on a line together.

At this point, Pietrangelo is actually somewhat similar to Bouchard in terms of his overall impact, although he also logs more minutes (25:53 in the playoffs to 23:08 for Bouchard). It’s certainly difficult to dispute Pietrangelo’s pedigree as a Stanley Cup champion and an Olympian, even if, at 33, he’s no longer the exact same player he once was. The Golden Knights are undoubtedly still plenty comfortable with Pietrangelo as their No. 1. With Brayden McNabb seemingly on track to rejoin the team for Game 1 against the Oilers, the Golden Knights have a fully formed defensive group with six high-quality NHLers. There’s certainly no Ceci in that top four. With Pietrangelo, McNabb, Shea Theodore, Alec Martinez, Nic Hague and Zach Whitecloud, the Golden Knights boast one of the strongest two-way defensive groups in the league. They have the edge in this category.

Goaltending

This is where things get a little trickier. The Golden Knights’ goaltending situation is a wee bit precarious, with Logan Thompson still nowhere near returning from his lower-body injury. Jonathan Quick hasn’t played in a month. Adin Hill hasn’t played in two. That leaves Laurent Brossoit, a former Oilers backup who latched on with the Golden Knights as an unrestricted free agent two summers ago. Brossoit was very sharp in Vegas’ series win over the Jets, allowing 13 goals on 166 shots over five games for a .915 save percentage, but he only started 10 games during the regular season (albeit with sparkling numbers) and is relatively untested by NHL standards, with just 117 appearances to his name since 2014–15. If the Golden Knights end up having to turn to Hill (or Quick) at any point in this series, they’ll likely be in trouble.

Brossoit’s counterpart at the other end of the ice is a veteran of, ahem, 64 NHL games. Stuart Skinner had a tumultuous first playoff series with the Oilers, giving up some highly suspect goals at times and ultimately posting an .890 save percentage and a 3.43 goals-against average in six games. He was solid in the regular season and could end up as a finalist for the Calder Trophy, but the playoffs are a very different beast — particularly for young goaltenders. The Oilers anticipated Jack Campbell would be their savior in goal after signing him to a big five-year contract last summer, but he played all of 50 minutes in the first round after relieving Skinner early in Game 4. Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft will likely return to Skinner to start the series against the Golden Knights, but it remains to be seen how long his leash will be if he falters.

Injuries

The big one for the Golden Knights is Logan Thompson, who has yet to begin skating while recovering from a lower-body injury he suffered back in March. The upstart goaltender had Vegas looking like a truly complete team for much of the season and likely would’ve finished high up in the Calder Trophy balloting had he remained healthy. Meanwhile, McNabb missed Game 5 of the Golden Knights’ series against the Jets with an upper-body injury but is expected to return to practice with the team on Tuesday, a good sign regarding his availability for Game 1 against Edmonton.

For the Oilers, Mattias Janmark could very well play against the Golden Knights if head coach Jay Woodcroft can find a spot for him in the lineup. Janmark has been out with a foot injury since Game 1 against the Kings but skated as a placeholder in the Oilers’ morning skate ahead of Game 6 on Saturday. Aside from that, the Oilers are essentially fully healthy (with an obvious caveat for the bumps and bruises common around this time of year).

Intangibles

We’ll keep this one very, very simple:

The Golden Knights have Phil Kessel, even though he didn’t play in Game 5 against the Jets (marking his first absence from one of his team’s scheduled games since 2009). Kessel scored 14 goals and 36 points in 82 games with the Golden Knights during the 2022–23 regular season, putting him within eight points of reaching 1,000 for his career. He added two assists in the Golden Knights’ first four playoff games against Winnipeg.

On the other hand, the Oilers do not have Phil Kessel.

Advantage: Vegas Golden Knights.

Series prediction

It’s easy to look at the team with McDavid and Draisaitl and clear a path for it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, but it’s never quite that easy. The Golden Knights toyed with the Jets in the first round of the playoffs, and now they’re more than ready for a challenge. T-Mobile Arena is one of the most challenging environments for a visiting team in the entire National Hockey League, and the Oilers have to play the first two games of the series on the road.

It certainly wouldn’t be surprising if these two teams played each other close in every game of this series. Ultimately, it’ll probably come down to which team gets the better goaltending. Based on the first round, we’ll give Brossoit the nod over Skinner, but it really could go either way. Just wait until we see Eichel in the Western Conference Final.

Golden Knights in seven games.