Edmonton Oilers took the away win.
Leon Draisaitl’s pace has been deafening. AOP / USA TODAY SPORTS
Edmonton Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl’s pace remained ferocious as the Oilers defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 5-1 in the NHL playoffs.
At the same time, Edmonton evened the playoff series between the teams to 1–1 in match wins.
The Oilers scored four goals in the opening set, two of which were scored by Draisaitl. The German striker has already scored a total of 13 goals in this spring’s playoffs. Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard scored the Oilers’ other two goals during the period.
In the second set, McDavid already took the Oilers to a 5–0 lead. The Golden Knights’ only hit was completed by Russian striker Ivan Barbašov.
The match saw a large amount of ice time, as the jury distributed a total of 124 ice time minutes.
After the Oilers’ fifth goal, the players often fought each other with fists and there were many square meetings. Oilers’ Evander Kane’s actions have caused discussion, especially after the match.
Kane took on Keegan Kolesar of the Golden Knights. Kane wrestled Kolesar to the surface of the ice and punched Kolesar several times in the body as he lay on his back on the surface of the ice in Kane’s grip. The main referee of the match Kelly Sutherland stood right next to it.
Kane received a two-minute suspension for violence and a 10-minute conduct penalty.
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– Evander Kane’s body shots on Kolesar were… something. Could have been more than just “part of the fight”. I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear about this from the series. We’ll see, DailyFaceoff reporter Matt Larkin wrote on Twitter.
Kane shared his thoughts with the media after the match.
– We knew they would try to cause a mess and somehow get back into the match. I think we did a good job of responding to that.
– We are a team that cannot be punished physically, but we like to punish, Kane continued.
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Evander Kane has shared the tackles in this series. AOP / USA TODAY SPORTS