Connor Ingram made 19 saves for the Oilers (40-30-10), who have lost three of four (1-2-1). They fell into second place in the Pacific Division, one point behind the Vegas Golden Knights, who defeated the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 in overtime Saturday. The Oilers and Golden Knights each have two games remaining, but Edmonton would hold the regulation-wins tiebreaker (31-28).
“We just couldn’t find a way to get one,” Oilers center Adam Henrique said. “I thought we pushed hard throughout the entire game, had a lot of opportunities, but couldn’t find a way to get that first one.”
Said Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch: “I thought the effort was great. I thought they worked hard. We did a lot of good things. We did make some mistakes. … I thought we had enough scoring chances to get certainly more than one goal tonight, and their goalie played well and we missed some really good opportunities.”
Panarin put the Kings up 1-0 at 7:34 of the first period. He stole the puck from Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard at the blue line in the defensive zone and scored on a breakaway with a wrist shot that beat Ingram to his glove side.
It was Panarin’s 26th point (nine goals, 17 assists) in 23 games since being traded from the New York Rangers on Feb. 4.
“I mean, he can make plays, and he makes two or three a night that no one else makes,” Kings interim coach D.J. Smith said. “A lot of the game was just that kind of back and forth, but they made one mistake, give The Bread Man a breakaway and he gets the winner, so we expect a lot from him to get where we want to go, but he found a way to do it here tonight.”