It’s very simple: the Vegas Golden Knights must win tonight. If they do not, it is officially game over for the 2024-25 campaign.
The Golden Knights trail 3-1 in the best-of-seven series against the Edmonton Oilers, who will look to wrap up the second-round matchup in Game 5 tonight at T-Mobile Arena. The Oilers won both meetings in Las Vegas to take a 2-0 series lead before Vegas won Game 3 on Reilly Smith’s last-second goal.
But the Golden Knights are coming off their worst performance of the postseason, a 3-0 shutout loss that has them on the brink of elimination. The Golden Knights exhibited a surprising and rather inexplicable lack of urgency and desperation in a critical Game 4 matchup in which they were outplayed in virtually every facet of the game.
To preserve their season, the Golden Knights will have to win three games in a row.
“We did it last series,” Smith said. “We have a lot of faith in this group. Just take it one at a time.”
That starts with securing a victory tonight. To do so, the Golden Knights will have to play like their season is on the line — which it is — and deliver the do-or-die urgency they failed to summon in Game 4.
“You get down 3-1, there’s no magic potion to sprinkle around the room,” Bruce Cassidy said. “We’re too far along as a team. There’s a lot of guys in that room that won. They understand what’s at stake.”
The Golden Knights will have to fight for their season.
“We have to control our own destiny and play to win games,” Smith said.
Despite losing both games in which they scored first, the Golden Knights must get off to a better start, and grabbing an early lead would go a long way, much as it did for the Oilers in Game 4.
“We have to make sure we’re on our toes,” Cassidy said. “I don’t think there were enough players on their toes, ready to go [in Game 4]. So that’ll be step one in Game 5 — make sure we push the envelope early and get to our game quicker.”
The Oilers played with energy, intensity and urgency right from the start in Game 4. Vegas must do the same tonight.
“We have to play harder, and we have to play better for longer periods of time,” Cassidy said. “It would behoove us to be the better team in the first 10 minutes, because if we get going and get to our game, it’ll give us confidence. We’ll feel good about ourselves, and maybe it creates doubt in [Edmonton].”
Vegas also has to do a much better job getting through the neutral zone, getting pucks deep and forcing the Oilers to make plays. Vegas will need to be drastically better on the forecheck, which just wasn’t there in Game 4.
“We need to be more aggressive offensively and try and force them to make mistakes on their breakout and get pucks back, and then make plays when we have opportunities and get pucks to the net,” Jack Eichel said.
But the Golden Knights must take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves, especially on the power play. Faling to do so was a major contributing factor to the loss in Game 4.
“The power play let us down in the first period,” Cassidy said. “It could have gotten us back in the game, certainly, but we didn’t execute well enough.”
In fact, the Golden Knights went 0-for-3 in the opening frame, generating just two shots on goal. Even capitalizing on one of those three opportunities could have completely changed the course of the game as well as the series. The Golden Knights cannot afford to squander such chances in an elimination game.
There’s no guarantee the Golden Knights will get those power plays, however, which is why their game at 5-on-5 has to improve on both sides of the puck.
Defensively, that means tightening things up in front of the net, which is where the Oilers scored both first-period tallies in Game 4.
“We gave up two goals right in front of our net where pucks came from below the goal line to the front,” Cassidy said. “We’ve got to kill those plays, be harder on the walls to begin with, or be better supporting when the puck does come to the front of the net.”
Cassidy said the Golden Knights have to do a better job getting to the slot and defending it.
“To me, that’s where it starts and ends,” he said.
Adin Hill also needs to be much, much sharper, and he needs to remain focused. The Golden Knights should have the advantage in net in this series, but Hill has underperformed thus far, which is no longer an option.
Offensively, the Golden Knights have to generate sustained pressure and test Stuart Skinner, who was 0-3 with a 5.36 goals-against average and .817 save percentage before recording a shutout on Monday.
“We had some looks, but we were kind of one-and-done,” Cassidy said. “Not a lot of second chances or second-effort plays for us.”
That needs to change. Immediately.
That’s true for Vegas as a team as well as for individuals throughout the lineup who have not made a difference in this series.
“It’s time,” Cassidy said. “That’s part of getting our offense going. The guys you’ve relied on all year to consistently produce, it’s time to produce.”
Having last change should help, but at the end of the day, it’s time for the Golden Knights to show up to this series.
The task of recovering from a 3-1 deficit is daunting, and the odds are not in Vegas’ favor, but all that matters right now is Game 5.
“It’s hard to win,” Cassidy said. “But if you start with one at home — a building we’ve typically played well in — it’s small picture right now. Take care of business [in Game 5], be ready to play, see if you can get a lead by playing the right way, having more urgency than them, more desperation.”
At this point, there is no tomorrow for the 2024-25 season.
“If we don’t win, we’re done,” Cassidy said. “It’s cliche, but it is one game at a time. We have to win one game three times in a row.”
For the Golden Knights, it’s now or never.
Projected lineups
UPDATE: Mark Stone will NOT play. Cole Schwindt will make his playoff debut.
Golden Knights*
Brett Howden — Jack Eichel — Mark Stone
Victor Olofsson — Tomas Hertl — Pavel Dorofeyev
Ivan Barbashev — William Karlsson — Reilly Smith
Tanner Pearson — Nicolas Roy — Keegan Kolesar
Brayden McNabb — Shea Theodore
Noah Hanifin — Alex Pietrangelo
Nicolas Hague — Zach Whitecloud
Adin Hill
Oilers*
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins — Connor McDavid — Zach Hyman
Vasily Podkolzin — Leon Draisaitl — Kasperi Kapanen
Evander Kane — Adam Henrique — Connor Brown
Trent Frederic — Mattias Janmark — Corey Perry
Brett Kulak — Evan Bouchard
Jake Walman — John Klingberg
Darnell Nurse — Troy Stecher
Stuart Skinner
*Subject to change
How to watch
Game 5: Oilers at Golden Knights
When: 6:30 p.m. PT
Where: T-Mobile Arena — Las Vegas, NV
TV: ESPN
Radio: Fox Sports 98.9 FM