LAS VEGAS — Just before the regular season started, an anonymous poll of Golden Knights revealed 86.7% of the team saying the Edmonton Oilers are “Vegas’ chief arch-rival.”
Seven months later, the teams will meet in the postseason for the second time in three years, a battle of the last two Western Conference champions.
⚔️ A Rivalry Renewed ⚔️
🎙️: @garylawlesspic.twitter.com/vDQCsPqGnq
— y-Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) May 6, 2025
Vegas won the West and the Stanley Cup in 2023, while the Oilers are looking for redemption after winning the West last year, only to lose to the Florida Panthers in the Cup Final.
With plenty of similarities from the 2023 playoffs comes several changes to both lineups.
Depth will be key, while top-line superstars will be counted on to ignite for both teams.
Here are three reasons the Golden Knights can get past their arch-rivals and advance to the Western Conference Final:
1. COACHING: Yes, Kris Knoblauch is now on the bench for Edmonton, instead of Jay Woodcroft, and many believe that’s one of the reasons the team is better. It may be true, but that doesn’t take away from the fact the Knights still have the edge with their bench boss, Bruce Cassidy. Long before he arrived in Vegas, the 59-year-old skipper spent time as head coach of both the Washington Capitals and Boston Bruins, guiding the latter to the Cup Final in 2019, where they lost to the surprising St. Louis Blues. Knoblauch has is in his second year as a head coach, and sure he led the Oilers to the Cup Final in his inaugural season, but he also has the liberty of coaching who some consider the two best players in the world in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Where Cassidy holds the edge is in his ability to make adjustments on the fly, and keep fluidity among his forward lines and defensive pairings. We saw it in the opening round against Minnesota, and he won’t be afraid to do it again if need be against the Oilers.
“I think the relationship between the coach and the player probably gets more and more cemented or solidified with time, as opposed to year one,” Vegas general manager Kelly McCrimmon said. “But, he stands for the same things that that he stood for as a coach of the Boston Bruins, with the reasons that we hired him, the things that we wanted him to bring to our organization. I think that’s been really consistent. I think he’s had some changes to staff.
“I think there’s different things that you just have to evolve and adapt and grow with day by day. But in terms of who he is and what type of coach he is, I think very much what he was when he arrived.”
And that, in fact, is the coach who led the Knights to their first championship.
2. A WILD X-FACTOR: William Karlsson, affectionately known to the fanbase as “Wild Bill,” has been exceptional on and off the stat sheet, and continues to do what he does quietly at both ends of the ice. Karlsson has been someone the Knights can count on, and Cassidy can turn to, when making line adjustments, to provide defense at one end, or to make things happen at the other. Karlsson just may be the most underrated never-nominated Selke Trophy kind of player in the NHL. Karlsson owns 67 points (29 goals, 38 assists) in his 100 playoff games and a franchise-best +38 rating. Of his nine regular-season goals this season, four were game-winning tallies, the second-most for Vegas.
“He’s appreciated by the people in this room who see him every day, and by our fans and certainly by the organization,” McCrimmon said. “But he is a consistent, zero maintenance, hard working, intelligent, two-way player. … A proven playoff performer, just a tremendously valuable player in our organization. (He) knows exactly what the organization is about, what we stand for, what we want to look like. And he’s a big, big part of that, has been from the beginning.”
3. GOALTENDING: It’s Vegas’ Adin Hill versus either Calvin Pickard or Stuart Skinner for the Oilers. Game 1 will pit Hill against Pickard. And the fact is, Hill has proven statistically to be a much better goaltender, and is playoff tested. It was the 2023 series against the Oilers when Hill was brought in, and he’s been the guy ever since. After sitting on the bench as Jordan Binnington’s backup for the 4 Nation’s Face-Off, Hill returned for the final stretch of the regular season with a chip on his shoulder and turned in a 12-3-1 mark to go along with a .920 save percentage and 2.11 goals-against average. In that stretch, among goalies with a minimum of 16 starts, Hill’s save percentage was eighth-best in the league, while is goals-against average ranked fifth. Pickard has been the guy for the Oilers in the postseason, going 4-0 with a 2.93 goals-against average, but that .893 save percentage is rather low when coming into a series against a team as deep as the Knights. If the Oilers are forced to go with Skinner, he’s 0-2 with a 6.11 GAA and .810 SV% this postseason.
“He was excellent, he got better as the series went on,” Cassidy said, about Hill against Minnesota in the first round. “He’s been good in the playoffs, the big games. Hopefully that continues. It’s been his playoff resume so far.”
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