GAME RECAP: Golden Knights 4, Oilers 3 (Game 3)

EDMONTON, AB – What a cruel way to end what could've been another remarkable comeback.

Forward Reilly Smith scored with 0.4 seconds remaining on Saturday night to give the Vegas Golden Knights a 4-3 victory in Game 3 at Rogers Place, bringing their Second Round series to 2-1 after the Edmonton Oilers gave up a two-goal lead in the first period before equalizing late in the final frame.

Veteran Corey Perry scored his fourth and fifth goals of the playoffs in the opening 12 minutes to give Edmonton an early 2-0 advantage that was erased in 54 seconds later in the opening period by tallies from Nicolas Roy and Reilly Smith that tied the contest heading into the middle frame.

William Karlsson gave Vegas the lead in the second period before Oilers captain Connor McDavid tied the contest at 3-3 on a fortunate bounce off the skate of Brayden McNabb with under three minutes left in regulation, putting overtime and a seventh straight comeback win for the Oilers within reach.

But on the last play, Smith's second goal of the night proved to be the dagger, when Karlsson got a fortunate bounce off the side of Edmonton's net to find Smith alone in the slot, who rounded Stuart Skinner and threw it into the crease where it deflected in off the stick of Leon Draisaitl with under a second left.

"We didn't sort it out very well to let the puck get into the slot, but after that, it's just unlucky," Draisaitl said. "It goes off my stick. I'm just trying to keep it out of the net, and it's just a bad bounce. It's unfortunate."

Stuart Skinner made the start in place of Calvin Pickard on Saturday night, stopping 20 of 24 shots in his return to the Oilers crease for the first time since Game 2 of the First Round against the Los Angeles Kings. Leon Draisaitl had two assists, while Connor McDavid contributed a goal and an assist.

The Oilers will have to let this defeat go quickly as they look ahead ot their next chance to push the Golden Knights to the brink of elimination on Monday night at Rogers Place in Game 4 of the series.

"We're still up by one, so it's our job just to show up again the next night and play our hardest to try and make this thing 3-1," Skinner said. "But we can't go chasing that. We gotta stick to our process and keep doing what we're doing, play well in all areas of the ice, and I think if we do that, we give ourselves the best chance."

FIRST PERIOD

Despite the ideal start from the Oilers, we had ourselves a brand new hockey game after 20 minutes.

The energy generated inside Rogers Place from Corey Perry's fourth and fifth goals of the playoffs in the opening 12 minutes of Game 3 was nullified nearly instantly before the break, as the Golden Knights were able to make it 2-2 with two fast strikes in 54 seconds from forwards Nicolas Roy and Reilly Smith.

Stuart Skinner got the nod between the pipes in place of Calvin Pickard due to an injury for the perfect 6-0-0 netminder this postseason and didn't get an assist on Perry's opening marker, but he certainly deserved one for coming out of his crease to break up a potential breakaway for winger Ivan Barbashev,

The netminder broke up Barbashev's potential break with a pass to Leon Draisaitl along the boards before the German moved it up the wall into the neutral zone, where Connor McDavid won the puck off Mark Stone to create a three-on-two attack while Perry was coming across the blueline as the trailer.

After the puck arrived on Perry's stick from the feed provided by McDavid, the veteran body-faked Barbashev in the slot to open up more space for him to rip his wrist shot under the right arm of Adin Hill to open the scoring at 7:19 of the frame, giving the 39-year-old points in each of the three games in this series.

Zach Hyman flashed a backhand redirect high and wide on the following shift on a great combination between him and Evander Kane producing the turnover and the Grade-A opportunity, but the Oilers would find themselves on the power play five minutes later to double their advantage with their first PPG of the series – redirected home by none other than Perry for his second goal of the contest and fifth of the 2025 playoffs.

Perry was parked in front of the Vegas crease when Evan Bouchard released a wrist shot from the blueline that was heading wide if it weren't for the veteran's incredible redirection that put it back on target and inside the right post to increase the Oilers' lead to 2-0 at 11:12 of the middle frame.

Perry (39 Years, 359 days) became the oldest player in Oilers franchise history to record multiple goals in a playoff game, besting Willy Lindstrom (33 years, 12 days) who scored twice in Game 4 of 1984 Stanley Cup Final. With his two goals, Perry passed Brad Marchand again for the fourth most goals among active NHL players, with his 59 career postseason goals now trailing only Alex Ovechkin (76), Sidney Crosby (71) and Evgeni Malkin (67).

The 39-year-old former MVP was Edmonton's best player on Saturday night.

"Corey put in a really good game tonight, and I think some other guys did too," Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. "But we know Vegas is a good team. They're not going away, and we'll need everyone chipping in and playing as best as they can."

But you had to expect a fightback from the Golden Knights – just maybe not as fast or in the fashion that it happened – and it was quickly tied 2-2 over a 54-second span in the final five minutes of the first period.

The two-goal swing for Vegas started with a weird one for goaltender Stuart Skinner and forward Nicolas Roy, who was lucky to be in the lineup for Vegas on Saturday night after avoiding suspension and escaping with only a fine for the crosscheck he delivered to the face of Trent Frederic in overtime of Game 2.

Brett Kulak defended a two-on-one for the Golden Knights brilliantly to prevent Roy's low cross-ice pass from connecting with Tanner Pearson, but after Nicolas Hague got the puck on the opposite wall and quickly put it back on net, Skinner crossed himself up thinking the puck was loose behind him as he tried reaching back before it popped loose in front for Roy to easily put away to cut the lead to 2-1.

That one-goal lead for the Oilers didn't last much longer.

It was less than a minute later when Reilly Smith took a layoff from Jack Eichel at the Edmonton blueline and dangled his way past forward Vasily Podkolzin and Viktor Arvidsson before opening up Skinner to slide a backhand five-hole that tied the game at 2-2 with 3:49 left in the opening period.

"The first one I get stripped there. That puck should probably just go [into the zone], so that's obviously on me," Draisaitl said. "But I think just the quickness of the two of them deflated us a little bit, so it's something to look at."

The Oilers were now responsible for giving up a two-goal lead in back-to-back games in this series as we entered the middle frame with a clean slate.

"I have no understanding why the leads have been changing as much as they have been," Knoblauch said. "I don't see teams changing how they're playing. They're making mistakes. We made a couple of mistakes early in the second half of the first period, which was unfortunate.

"Anytime you get the 2-0 lead, you want to stick with it, keep pushing and play the same way, making it hard for them to generate things. Ultimately, they have to cheat a little bit in the game to get back into it, but I don't feel like they had to cheat to create any offence. We just made some mistakes and gave that to them."

SECOND PERIOD

Skinner denied Vegas forward Tomas Hertl not once but twice in the first 10 minutes of the middle frame, but the Oilers netminder couldn't squeeze shut centre William Karlsson's net-side finish with less than three minutes left that gave the Golden Knights their first lead of Game 2 heading into the break.

Skinner came across his crease to stand up Hertl for the first time in the period with a high stop before laying across the goal line on the Czech forward's wrap-around attempt with just over five minutes left for a confident save in a 2-2 stalemate as the second period entered its final quarter.

"I felt like the game was pretty quick in the first for probably five minutes, and then it kind of settled down," Skinner said. "Obviously, lots of energy. I had a lot of excitement—first game in a while, first game at home in the playoffs, so the energy was really high. It was nice to go back in there. Not the result that we wanted, but we'll get better and move forward."

The Golden Knights took the lead with 2:55 remaining in the frame as Edmonton's forwards changed at the end of a long shift, turning a fast neutral-zone regroup into a quick exchange between Noah Hanifin and William Karlsson in the right circle that the Swede snuck under Skinner's glove and inside the post.

"We just got caught out there a long time, and we just had a change that led to the goal against, and it leads us to being unable to sustain pressure," Knoblauch said. "That happens in the second period when you have to defend a long period of time, and then, you can get one or maybe two guys off. But we had a little more of a wholesale change."

The Golden Knights held onto their one-goal advantage through 40 minutes of Game 3 to put the Oilers in the position of needing to come up with their seventh straight comeback win to take a 3-0 lead in this series.

THIRD PERIOD

A bounce for a bounce, sadly, and this one's going to hurt.

We're going to have to shake this one off and move on from it quickly.

"There's no time. Obviously, it stings right now," Draisaitl said. "It's an unfortunate way to lose, but that's on us. Tomorrow's a new day. We'll move on."

It was Connor McDavid who made it 3-3 with 3:02 remaining on a lucky redirection that struck the skate of defenceman Brayden McNabb from the corner that managed to find its way past a resilient Adin Hill in the third period, turning the emotions inside Rogers Place in a 90-degree direction with the belief that Edmonton's seventh straight comeback and a 3-0 series lead on Vegas could be in reach in the final three minutes or overtime.

But in the most cruel fashion, the Golden Knights claimed victory with 0.4 seconds on the clock.

The Oilers didn't manage the puck with over 10 seconds left before overtime, having the opportunity in Vegas' zone to keep hold of it and kill off the remaining time in regulation before a preventable turnover sent the Golden Knights up ice for one final attack to try and make something of the final seconds.

That ended up proving costly on the game's final play, with Karlsson chasing a dump-in behind the net with four Oilers below the circle before the Swede's last-ditch attempt to get it in front bounced off the side of the net and landed on the open stick of Reilly Smith in the slot, leaving hearts in mouths inside Rogers Place as Stuart Skinner came out of his crease to challenge the shooter.

"We're not a team that's always going to dump and chase and put it behind," Knoblauch said. "You never want any mistakes, but that's the game, and you try and limit those as much as possible. The game-winning goal, we're in a good position. Really, it's a one-on-three. He dumps in the puck and they retrieve it, and we're just playing a little desperate to try and make the play and block the shot.

"What happens is they make a play, and unfortunately, that's the end of it."

Darnell Nurse and Connor McDavid went down to try and block the final attempt, but after Smith rounded Skinner and threw it on goal in desperation, Leon Draisaitl ended up redirecting it into the back of his own net when it was looking like it'd go through the crease and wide to send us to overtime.

Ultimately, it found its way into the back of Edmonton's net before the final buzzer. The referee initially waved off the play to think that we'd escaped to overtime, but the official review was quick and showed that there was still less than half a second remaining to give the Golden Knights the late 4-3 victory.

"Karlsson just threw it out there, which you knew he would do," Skinner said. "I thought [Smith] was gonna shoot it right away. I thought he didn't have that much time, so I kind of just sprawled out there. I stayed with him for another half second, and then he caught us with 0.4 seconds left."

The victory halved Vegas' deficit in this Second Round series to 2-1 heading into Game 4 on Monday at Rogers Place.

"Devastating," Skinner added. "But things happen. Good bounces, tough bounces – it happens for everybody. So we move forward."