The Three Issues That Plagued VGK Worst In Game 4

Trailing 2-1 in the series, Game 4 on the road was not a good time for the Golden Knights to play their worst game of the 2025 postseason. From the moment the puck was dropped, the intensity level from the Oilers went up, and Vegas never matched it.

That manifested itself in a quick 2-0 lead for Edmonton, and despite a trio of 1st period power plays, the Golden Knights could not find enough consistency in their offensive game. In the end, they were shutout by one of the most maligned goalies in the NHL playoffs and are now facing the task of winning three straight games to rescue their season.

I don’t think we dictated the pace of the game and that’s something we’ll have to fix for the next game -Reilly Smith

There were plenty of problems to go around in the only lopsided game of the series to this point, but here are the three places VGK fell short.

Protecting Adin Hill’s Crease

In the 1st period, specifically, it was open season in the blue paint in front of Adin Hill. Not even 90 seconds into the game, Adam Henrique found himself uncovered five feet away from the goal after a VGK turnover under the red line. That seemed to agitate Hill as he ended up shoving Zach Hyman after a post-whistle bump, he purposely stuck his leg out and acted like he’d been tripped as Mattias Janmark skated harmlessly through and then when Evander Kane came toppling over him (pushed in by Brayden McNabb?) after the second goal, all hell broke loose.

They went in there a number of times. That’s a conversation we’ll have. We have to protect the area. (Adin) pushed back and showed some emotion and that’s part of playoff hockey. Whether they go there or not we’ve got to be stiff in there. It’s part of our team identity, we just have to take care of business there. At least get sticks on pucks and see what happens from there. -Bruce Cassidy

Hill has always been willing to stick up for himself when skaters take what he considers to be liberties in his area. That certainly raised the temperature of Game 4, which ultimately backfired on the Golden Knights, but typically, that’s not the reason protecting the front of the goal is crucial for Vegas.

When the Golden Knights are going well, getting to the front of their goal is a near-impossible task. Last night, it was anything but that. The Oilers lived in the low slot, and they eventually got paid off for it.

In Game 5 (and hopefully 6 and 7), that’s the single most important improvement the Golden Knights must make. Force the Oilers back to making plays around the outside and their offense will feel much less dangerous.

Lack of Offense

Stuart Skinner entered Game 4 with a 0-3 record, an .817 save percentage, and a goals against average of 5.36 in the 2025 playoffs. You’ll never face a goalie on shakier ground confidence-wise than VGK did last night. But, they couldn’t find even a single goal, and it had less to do with Skinner than anything else on the ice.

We had some looks but we were kind of one-and-done. Not a lot of second-chance second-effort plays for us. Need to do a better job through the neutral zone of breaking them down if we are going to get chances off the rush. -Bruce Cassidy

The biggest issue offensively for the Golden Knights in Game 4 was their inability to find consistency in any of the three zones. Their breakouts from the defensive zone were sporadic and rarely controlled, their spacing and execution through the neutral zone was the worst it’s been all postseason, and their forecheck lacked any bite necessary to recover from an early 2-0 deficit.

We didn’t play as cohesively as we probably needed to. We were dumping the puck in and not having all three guys forecheck or coming through the neutral zone and having someone change. We just didn’t have the same unity with our group so we didn’t give ourselves enough chances to create rushes and sustained offensive zone because of that. -Reilly Smith

Edmonton is a tricky team to forecheck due to their speed and transition prowess. On one hand, a forechecker wants to get in as quickly on the defensemen as possible, but on the other, he must be sure to stay on the correct side of the puck if the breakout is made cleanly. VGK seemed to be caught in between all night.

You obviously want to get above their guys when they are transitioning the puck and take their speed away. At the same time I don’t think that should be holding us back. Collectively as a group it needs to be better, cleaner, and more urgency. We’re good when we’re forechecking as a five-man unit and everyone is up the ice. We were probably a little bit passive at times and allowed them to break the puck out a little too easily. So the sustained pressure in their end wasn’t as good as it should be. -Jack Eichel

Cassidy pointed to inconsistent shift length, poor puck placement on dump-ins, and execution issues through the neutral zone, which led to the forechecking struggles. In theory, it all should be correctable for Game 5.

Draisaitl’s “4th” line

In Game 4, Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch pulled out a bit of an unorthodox forward line. It consisted of center, Rocket Richard winner, 52-goal scorer Leon Draisaitl, on the left wing was Vasiliy Podkolzin who has scored 26 goals in four years in the NHL, and right-winger Kaspari Kapanen, who was a healthy scratch each of the first three games of the series.

Then, Knoblauch used his home-ice advantage of last change to hard match that line against VGK’s top line of Jack Eichel, Mark Stone, and Ivan Barbashev (which ended up being Brett Howden).

The Oilers’ group dominated the matchup.

They took four defensive zone draws, allowed just three shots on goal from the Vegas big line, didn’t allow a single high-danger chance, and held them to a minuscule 0.12 expected goals.

This was a huge problem for the Golden Knights as it effectively eliminated the most impactful offensive line from the regular season. Sure, it may have limited Draisaitl’s offensive impact, but it was done alongside two bottom-six players. That freed up Connor McDavid, and it ultimately helped allow Adam Henrique to score two goals against VGK’s 3rd and 4th lines.

Game 5 takes place at T-Mobile Arena which will help Cassidy avoid this matchup and get Eichel and Stone much better opportunities.