The Edmonton Oilers fell in Game 1 of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Wednesday night. Despite a four-goal performance from Leon Draisaitl, the Vegas Golden Knights skated away with a 6-4 victory.
Wednesday's loss marked the seventh straight Game 1 loss the Oilers have suffered. And it capped off a rather woeful performance, outside of Draisaitl's onslaught of goals.
“I just don't think we played very well tonight. We did some things to shoot ourselves in the foot. We can be better and we will be better,” Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft told the media following the game.
“We were a little bit loose. We made some uncharacteristic individual errors and they made us pay,” Woodcroft continued during his media availability. “We were too loose and we didn't play to our gameplan tonight.”
Draisaitl was Edmonton's only source of offense on Wednesday, scoring all four goals for the Oilers. However, the Golden Knights often responded by scoring multiple goals of their own. They scored three goals after Draisaitl's first goal and two goals after his third goal of the game.
Draisaitl is now up to 11 goals this playoff campaign. Furthermore, he has 52 points in his last 25 playoff games. The Oilers superstar is the third player in NHL history to record 50+ playoff points in any 25-game span.
Draisaitl, unfortunately, became the second player in as many nights to see a four-goal night wasted. The Seattle Kraken defeated the Dallas Stars in overtime despite Stars veteran Joe Pavelski scoring four goals on Tuesday.
The Oilers and Golden Knights will pick the series back up for Game 2 on Saturday. Hockey fans in the United States can watch on TNT as Vegas looks to take a 2-0 series lead in front of their home fans.