LAS VEGAS — The goals stopped coming. As a result, the Vegas Golden Knights are done playing hockey for the 2024-25 season.

Goaltender Stuart Skinner shut the door on the Knights for 127:31, not allowing a goal and in doing so, the Edmonton Oilers are moving on to the Western Conference Finals following Wednesday’s 1-0 overtime win in Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena.

Kasperi Kapanen was the hero by default as a result of his overtime goal as he stuffed home a loose puck past Adin Hill to send the Knights to their summer cottages and to the golf course. But the real heroes were Skinner and Edmonton’s depth.

Skinner, who came into the Edmonton crease when Calvin Pickard was injured in Game 2, reclaimed the net going forward by doing what he had to do to keep the puck from crossing the goal line. His confidence grew with each and every save, as he had 24 stops in Game 5.

The other heroes were the Oilers’ depth players, guys like Adam Henrique, who was a star in Game 4, the defense, led by Evan Bouchard along with Jake Walman, John Klingberg and Darnell Nurse who tightened up and limited the Knights’ quality chances, particularly Wednesday.

“It’s always tough when you get down a couple of games,” said Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo. “It’s a hard league to win in and we knew that going in.

“We had chances. We couldn’t capitalize on them. We just didn’t get the job done.”  

Vegas managed just 10 goals the entire five-game series and coach Bruce Cassidy said that wasn’t close enough to getting the job done against a quality team like Edmonton.

“We’re not a shoot-first team necessarily,” Cassidy said. “And that’s something we probably need to rethink how we play going forward. 

“It’s disappointing. We only had one power play (Wednesday) and that’s usually something that can get you going. It’s not easy to get to the front of the net and second chances were at a premium.”

Credit the Oilers’ forwards for helping out their blue line corps and not allowing Vegas to get inside and in front of Skinner. Even the stars — Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl — were constantly coming back to help their defensemen and challenge for the open space in the Edmonton zone.
   
The Knights had to go without their captain, Mark Stone, who was injured in Game 3, tried to go in Game 4 and was held out of Wednesday’s Game 5. Cole Schwindt made his playoff debut in Stone’s place, centering Vegas’ fourth line with Tanner Pearson and Keegan Kolesar.

Cassidy did some shuffling as a result. But it wasn’t really anything we hadn’t seen previously. Ultimately, someone had to put the puck in the net for Vegas to keep its season going. And when that didn’t happen, it ended the comeback hopes.

There was a sequence during the third period where Vegas had three quality opportunities to break through. First it was William Karlsson, then it was Pavel Dorofeyev. Finally, Brett Howden was set up at the left post by Jack Eichel but he was unable to beat Skinner in close.

And after that flurry of tries, Hill came up with a big stop as Draisaitl broke in alone on a breakaway only to be denied by the Knights’ netminder.

It really was a microcosm of the series. The Knights failing to capitalize when they had the chance and the Oilers finding a way to stay in it until they could solve Hill.

Cassidy looked back on the Game 2 overtime loss at T-Mobile Arena that put his team in an 0-2 hole as the turning point in the series.

“We killed that five-minute major (to Nic Roy). We needed to find a way to win that game and get a split here,” Cassidy said. “There was a call there that was missed that could’ve given us an opportunity on the power play. We needed to get that goal and get it back to square going back to Edmonton.”

Winning Game 3 on Reilly Smith’s last-second goal should’ve given the Knights renewed life. But the Oilers snuffed that out with their dominating 3-0 performance in Game 4. Still, Vegas played with energy and determination Wednesday and had it been able to get a puck past Skinner, the Knights would likely still be playing.

“I don’t know if you can lose two overtime games in a series and come back,” Cassidy said.

For the Knights, it had to be frustrating knowing they kept McDavid and Draisaitl in check for the most part (McDavid had one goal, Draisaitl two tallies) but still wound up losing. The fact Eichel failed to score a goal (he had five assists in the series) while the defense had just one goal overall and Tomas Hertl, Ivan Barbashev and Howden were all kept off the scoresheet for the entire series is a big red flag for a team that had 110 points and won the Pacific Division this year.

“It’s my job to get the best out of this group,” Cassidy said. “But the response (tonight) was excellent. They came out and played the right way. They wanted to win. We had pockets of good hockey.

“But that’s a good hockey team over there. They’re a hungry team. I don’t care what the standings at the end of the year were. They had some injuries where they lost some opportunities for points. There were two evenly-matched teams out there and they found a way to be better than us in certain areas. So sometimes you gotta say, ‘We didn’t blow it,’ but there are parts of the game we needed to be better at.”

They’ll have a longer-than-expected off-season to figure out how to fix it.