Everything Kris Knoblauch touched Monday night turned to gold.
He split up Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, giving 97 some guys he’s known before in other top-six staples in Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Zach Hyman. But when it came to 29, he didn’t him the same treatment as fourth-liners Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen, the latter of which played his first playoff game, slid up the lineup to play big minutes, while Viktor Arvidsson drew out of the lineup.
It was easy to look at the wingers Draisaitl had and make the assumption that they wouldn’t stick, but that’s not what Knoblauch and the rest of his coaching staff did. They opted to break away from their relative norm of rolling four lines and instead match lines.
Using centres as the proxy, the McDavid line saw lots of the William Karlsson line, Vegas’ third, while Draisaitl’s line was asked to handle Jack Eichel and Vegas’ top line. Both did so admirably, as each line controlled above 60 percent of both the shot attempt share and expected goal share, dominating the game.
That was no small ask for Draisaitl to rein in Eichel. After all, it was — to a certain extent — his fault for the Oilers’ Game 3 loss, accidentally deflecting a puck into his own net, but Knoblauch knew he would be up to the task.
“I thought those three played really well,” said Knoblauch after the win. “Talk about difficult decisions we had, talking out two guys I think have been playing really well, to insert two fresh guys, and then also Game 3, Corey Perry’s maybe our best forward and I bump him down to the fourth line.“We felt that every line had to bring something, have different components, and wanted some speed and physicality to play against that top line of theirs. Leon and Podkolzin and Kapanen had played together during the regular season, and they played really well together.“We just had a lot of confidence in Kapanen to just be ready. We told him before the series started that there will be a time when we need you. He did not disappoint — we’re very happy with those three.“Leon’s a proud guy, he wants to be the best guy on the ice, and if’s he got a matchup, it’s not too often Rocket Richard trophy winners, Hart Trophy winners take a challenge of a shutdown role, and his defensive details were really good tonight. He really bought into that and he checked him well.”
While Kapanen was thrust into the lineup, so too was Troy Stecher, who despite not playing in almost a month, played 16:46, the fourth most minutes among Oilers defencemen. He found himself alongside Darnell Nurse, his most common defensive partner this season, and really helped calm down Nurse’s game.
It’s been a tough run this postseason again for Nurse as the Oilers have been outscored 20-13 with him on the ice in any situation, the most goals against of any defenceman this postseason, and outscored 13-9 at five-on-five, with the second most goals against. Before you ask — no, that’s not because of him playing with Evan Bouchard, who has been on the ice for 16 five-on-five goals for, the most of any defenceman, outscoring opposing teams 16-13.
The swap worked out well, as Nurse and Stecher — largely seeing the second and fourth lines of the Golden Knights at five-on-five — controlled 62.9 percent of the shot attempt share, 66.6 percent of the expected goal share and 66.7 percent of the scoring chance share, all the while outscoring Vegas 1-0.
That was huge, as through the first three games of the series the Oilers were getting crushed with Nurse on the ice at five-on-five, controlling 48.2 percent of the shot attempt share, 44.9 percent of the expected goal share and getting outscored 4-3.
Edmonton’s third and fourth lines — featuring Adam Henrique centring Evander and and Connor Brown and Mattias Janmark centring Trent Frederic and Corey Perry — were also tremendous. That third line was on the ice for Henrique’s first goal of the game, and in part for the second, scoring shortly after a power play expired.
Being able to leave Edmonton with a 3-1 series lead was huge for the Oilers, who now have a chance to make this series short with another win in Sin City. Game 5 of the series goes Wednesday night.
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.
