GAME RECAP: Golden Knights 4, Oilers 3 (Game 5)

LAS VEGAS, NV - The Sin City sin bin has the Oilers facing elimination come Sunday night at Rogers Place.

The Golden Knights scored three goals in 1:29 of the second period, including a pair of power-play goals on a two-man advantage, to ultimately earn a 4-3 victory in Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena on Friday night and stake themselves a 3-2 series advantage.

"Obviously, it's the 5-on-3 that crushes us," Mattias Ekholm said after the game. "I thought we did a really good job on the PK. We've got to stay limited on the amount of penalties, but at the same time, it's when you have to go down two guys that it's hard to defend.

"Give them credit, they made a good play, but those are the ones that kill you."

"That's playoffs and momentum," Zach Hyman said. "Going from having a fantastic start to the night on the PK, to trying to kill almost two minutes 5-on-3. Then, they gain some confidence off that, right? Yeah, it's tough. That's the way playoffs go. It's hard and you've got to be able to manage those times in the game when you get scored against. Obviously, that four minutes tonight did us in."

The Oilers also saw their fair share of success with the man advantage, with Connor McDavid scoring twice and Zach Hyman notching the other Edmonton goal -- all with a Vegas player in the box. The Golden Knights duo of Jack Eichel and Jonathan Marchessault did the brunt of the damage, combining for a goal and five assists in the evening.

Stuart Skinner started the game for the Oilers, but for the second time in the series, he did not end it. Jack Campbell replaced the Oilers rookie in the second period and turned away all nine shots he faced in relief.

The Oilers now head back to Edmonton for a Sunday night Game 6 where they will look to tie the series with the Golden Knights and force Game 7 back at T-Mobile Arena.

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FIRST BLOOD

In this wild second-round series against the Golden Knights, there has been only one guarantee -- the Oilers will score first and they will likely do it pretty early.

That was the case in Game 5 after the Oilers were gifted an early power play courtesy of a Reilly Smith hooking call on Evan Bouchard deep in the Oilers defensive zone. Edmonton's top unit went to work, and although it wasn't the crispest performance by the best man advantage in NHL history, it was still certainly effective.

The power play culminated with a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins shot from the slot that hit off a Golden Knights player's stick and landed on a platter for Connor McDavid to bury past Adin Hill. The Captain's sixth of the playoffs and fourth PPG came just 3:02 into the contest, marking the fourth time in the series Edmonton has scored in the first five minutes of a game.

Unfortunately for the Oilers, the 1-0 lead was very short-lived. Much like the 2015 NHL Draft, Jack Eichel followed suit when he bull-rushed his way out of the corner, spinning Stuart Skinner around and tucking the puck into the yawning cage. The play was challenged by Head Coach Jay Woodcroft, but it was deemed that there was no interference on the play, forcing the Oilers to go immediately on the penalty kill which they successfully nullified.

The goal came exactly 50 seconds after McDavid opened the scoring and was also Eichel's sixth of the postseason.

SPARK PLUGS PROVIDE A JOLT

It seems like over the last few games if the Oilers needed a jolt, Woodcroft would deploy the line of Warren Foegele, Ryan McLeod, and Derek Ryan.

After Vegas had battled their way back into a 1-1 game, the unit went to work deep in the Golden Knights zone. Ryan weaved his way through a pair of Vegas defenders to win a puck battle and start churning away on the cycle. Their hard work was rewarded when Nicolas Hague's errant stick upended Foegele behind Hill for a penalty.

The Oilers lethal power play marked the Vegas PK for a second straight time when Nugent-Hopkins rifled a shot-pass to the far post, where Zach Hyman was waiting for the easy redirection and his third of the playoffs.

TURNING POINT

The Oilers PK had been hoovering up Golden Knights power plays the last three games, but a second period 5-on-3 caused the dam to break.

First, Philip Broberg found his way into the penalty box for holding Eichel behind the Oilers net, and he was followed by Mattias Janmark just 44 seconds later for an errant high stick. The Golden Knights snapped a 0-for-14 streak on the PP when Mark Stone picked up the puck at the side of the net and tucked the puck under Skinner's pad.

The goal freed Broberg from the box, but the Golden Knights maintained the man advantage and scored once again 29 seconds after they had tied the game. It was Reilly Smith who took advantage of an unlucky Oiler bounce off McDavid that landed directly on the Vegas forward's stick for the easy tap-in.

The Golden Knights rode the momentum from the pair of special team's goals and added another from a floated point shot by Nicolas Hague that eluded Skinner and gave the home side a 4-2 advantage. The trio of markers all came 1:29 apart and saw the end of the night for Skinner, who was replaced by Jack Campbell in the hard-luck affair.

"He's given us a chance to win a lot of nights. That's all you can ask from your goaltender," McDavid said about Skinner. "He's in a tough situation here tonight and we know we got a capable guy in Soup there. I think that's the reason for the switch. I don't think it was much on Stu."

BAD INTENTIONS

After a reprieve from the Oilers penalty box parade, it was the Golden Knights turn to feel the heat.

Keegan Kolesar saw himself escorted out of the game after a malicious boarding penalty on Mattias Ekholm -- hammering the hulking Swede head-first into the boards with 24 seconds left in the middle period. The Golden Knights forward was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for his reckless actions.

Ekholm would need a brief patching up during the intermission, but remained in the game as he watched the Oilers power play work for retribution at the start of the third period.

McDavid scored the lone Oilers goal, driving around Brayden McNabb and beating three Vegas players to finish his own rebound behind Hill for his second of the game. Unfortunately for the Oilers, it was the last goal scored on the night pushing Edmonton to the brink.

"I didn't see much. I got my head face planted to the boards and that was it," Ekholm said of the hit. "I thought, I'm a pretty tall guy and I try to brace myself, but obviously I heard from guys that have seen it that he jumped and he kind of elbowed me back of the head. So he got the proper punishment for it, and we got a goal off of it."

PARTING WORDS

Head Coach Jay Woodcroft on the team's mindset heading into Game 6:

"Confident. Yeah, confident. We love the way we've played in our building all year. We've had a mindset here for the last year and a half about taking care of the day's business. We have a challenge before us. We're going to go home and we're going to play our best game at home and get back on a flight and come down to Vegas to challenge in game seven."

Coach Woodcroft on how he saw the game play out:

"What I saw tonight was that we lost the game by one goal. And I think, like I said, we gave up a five-on-three goal. We gave up a goal off of a bounce on a power play. Those are what they are. The two five-on-five goals against, I think we can do a better job as a team around our goaltender."

Connor McDavid on the number of penalties in the game:

"I just certainly don't like the one to put us five-on-three. It's innocent play and hurts us. Obviously, there's no intent there. That's not a great one to take, obviously. But that being said, we got to find a way to grab that momentum and we've talked about a lot grabbing those momentum swings, and we lost the game in 90 seconds."

McDavid on how the Oilers played as a whole:

"I thought the effort was there. Obviously put ourselves in a position to win a game, put ourselves in a position to come back in a game. It was a hard fought game. It was a night where I thought both teams played well and we just couldn't find a way to tie it up."

McDavid on coming back from a 3-2 deficit last season in the playoffs vs. LA:

"Yeah, certainly we can draw on that experience. Disappointing losing Game 5. Obviously, Game 5 is a big one in the series when it's 2-2, and now you got to win a game and game at home and go from there."

Leon Draisaitl on the Oilers 5-on-5 play:

"It was fine. We didn't create enough, not enough looks. I thought we attacked well, we just couldn't get to that last player, or create that last opportunity for us to get a five-on-five goal."

Mattias Ekholm on if the Golden Knights building is hard to play in with their fans:

"I mean, it's a fair assessment, but I think that's the same way up in Edmonton. I think we have a pretty loud building and we do the same thing and that's usually what happens when you score a lot of goals in a short amount of period. That gets the fans extra going."

Zach Hyman on if the Oilers can win if they are scoring mostly on the power play:

"I think they've got their share of power-play goals too, right. It's a tight series. I don't think they're dominating play at even strength by any means. It's kind of that series where special teams means a lot, obviously. But yeah, you got to find scoring at five-on-five two."