For the second night in a row in the NHL playoffs, a player’s four-goal game wasn’t enough to win.
Tuesday night, Dallas Stars forward Joe Pavelski had a four-goal game in a 5-4 overtime loss to the Seattle Kraken.
Wednesday, Leon Draisaitl became the first Edmonton player since Hall of Famer Jari Kurri in 1987 to record a four-goal game in the playoffs. However, the Vegas Golden Knights held on to win 6-4 after a late-game Oilers mistake to take a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference playoff series.
Draisaitl’s big game gave him an NHL-best 11 playoff goals, the most by an Oilers player through the first seven games of a postseason.
He scored twice in the first period with his second goal a thing of beauty. He was standing behind the goal line and banked a shot in off the back of Vegas goalie Laurent Brossoit.
Draisaitl tied the game 3-3 less than two minutes into the third period, but the Golden Knights responded with goals 50 seconds apart by Ivan Barbashev and Chandler Stephenson to make it 5-3.
Draisaitl pulled the Oilers to within a goal at 8:33, but the Oilers didn’t score again. Edmonton took a too many men on the ice penalty as goalie Stuart Skinner headed to the bench for an extra man.
Jack Eichel put the game away with an empty net goal.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl scores four goals, but Golden Knights win
