McDavid scores again, Oilers hold off Golden Knights

EDMONTON -- Connor McDavid scored for the fourth straight game, and the Edmonton Oilers hung on for a 4-3 win against the Vegas Golden Knights at Rogers Place on Sunday.

McDavid, who has five goals during the goal streak, also had two assists to extend his point streak to 10 games (12 goals, 14 assists for 26 points). He leads the NHL with 62 points (23 goals, 39 assists) in 37 games this season.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had two goals and an assist, Zach Hyman had a goal and an assist, and Leon Draisaitl had two assists for the Oilers (18-13-6), who were coming off a 5-2 loss at the Minnesota Wild on Saturday.

Connor Ingram made 26 saves in what was both his Oilers debut and his first NHL game since Feb. 22. He was recalled from Bakersfield of the American Hockey League on Friday, when Tristan Jarry (lower body) was placed on injured reserve.

“It’s been hectic, but at the end of the day, no matter what level you’re in, my job is just to stop the puck,” Ingram said. “I don’t have to learn a forecheck or things like that. My job never changes. Guys did a great job making me feel welcome and showing me everything I need to know. It’s been great.

“There’s a lot of days I didn’t think it would ever happen again. It’s just the truth of it in this world. It’s a competitive game. There are 64 spots in the world to do this, so you don’t take it for granted any day that you’re up here. It’s a huge honor.”

Tomas Hertl had a goal and two assists, Mitch Marner had a goal and an assist, and Noah Hanifin had three assists for the Golden Knights (16-8-10), who have lost three in a row (0-2-1), including 6-3 at the Calgary Flames on Saturday. Carter Hart made 17 saves.

“They should have been much more fatigued than we were, it was their sixth game in nine days in six different cities, so that was not an excuse,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We’re actually pretty good in back-to-backs. I don’t really have a reason why we wouldn’t start on time.

“What I saw was we didn’t execute or play with the same pace or compete that they did. Why that was, it’s certainly nothing to do, to me, with a back-to-back. We eventually got to our game, and if we wouldn’t have we would have been embarrassed."

McDavid put Edmonton ahead 1-0 at 9:11 of the first period. He took a short pass from Draisaitl after gaining the zone, circled in from the right dot and glided across the front of the crease before putting the puck past the extended right pad of Hart.

“It’s sneaky. Obviously, you know how fast and how skilled he is out there, and there are plays that don’t look like anything’s going to happen, and then next thing you know it’s kind of in his hands coming up the ice with a full head of speed,” Marner said. “When that’s going on, it’s tough for anyone to cover him. He’s so shifty, so dynamic.

“Those head fakes, it’s hard not to bite on them, really, just with how quick and how fast he’s going. So, we’ve just got to do a better job in the neutral zone trying to take away his time and space.”

Nugent-Hopkins made it 2-0 on a power play at 14:37, tapping in a backdoor pass from Draisaitl.

Nugent-Hopkins then extended the lead to 3-0 with another power-play goal at 2:22 of the second period. Draisaitl got to his own rebound at the left side of the net and passed it out front. The puck hit off a skate and went right to McDavid, who swung it to the right side of the net to Nugent-Hopkins, who put it past Hart’s glove.

“They had a push. We probably in the second gave them a little bit too much, turned pucks over and not getting the puck all the way down,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “But that’s a good team. They had a good push and we found a way to manage it."

Hyman made it 4-0 at 7:45, taking a pass from Darnell Nurse into the slot off the rush and lifting it over the top of a prone Hart.

“You get a 4-0 lead and you don’t want to take your foot off the gas, but they have a push, and they push,” Hyman said. “It was one of those games, but we won in regulation. It was a big two points against a division rival.”

Hertl got the Golden Knights on the board to make it 4-1 at 12:59. He took a pass in the slot from Marner along the left boards and sent a snap shot past Ingram’s blocker for a power-play goal.

Pavel Dorofeyev made it 4-2 at 3:52 of the third period, picking up the rebound of Hertl's slap shot from the point and scoring under a diving Ingram on the power play.

“You’ve got to attack the game, and when we do that, we have success,” Hanifin said. “We showed it in the second and third periods.

“We’ve just got to play with confidence and you can’t sit back, especially with teams with that much skill up front. If you sit back and let them dictate, you’re in trouble.”

Marner got the Golden Knights to within 4-3 at 5:49. He took a centering pass from Hertl before scoring with a snap shot in front.

"I believe Vegas might be the worst team or one of the lower-end teams in the first period of games, and I believe they are the best team in the third period,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “They build their game and they get better. A lot of credit on how the (Golden) Knights played in the second half of the game, but we did let our gas off a bit in the second period.

“We weren't getting the puck in deep, we were laying up, trying to make plays and pucks were getting picked off. We had to defend a lot, and when you do that, they give up opportunities or take penalties. But we relaxed a bit.”