Draisaitl scores in OT to give Oilers a 5-4 win over Golden Knights and a 2-0 series lead

LAS VEGAS (AP) — It's not often that Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid don't make it onto the scoresheet, but they were noticeably quiet for nearly the entire game Thursday night.

Nearly.

Draisaitl took a pass from McDavid and scored off the rush at 15:20 of overtime to give the Edmonton Oilers a 5-4 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday night and a 2-0 lead in the second-round series.

After failing to capitalize on a five-minute power play when Vegas defenseman Nicolas Roy was assessed a major penalty for cross-checking 5:37 into overtime, the Oilers didn’t waste the opportunity later when the NHL’s most dynamic offensive duo combined for the winner.

Draisaitl said McDavid's pass was so spectacular that “it's tough to even celebrate my part of the goal.”

He said that tongue in cheek, but the game's ending was no laughing matter to the Golden Knights, who were critical that a penalty wasn't called on Viktor Arvidsson after defenseman Brayden McNabb went into the boards and then to the locker room. The Golden Knights went from a potential power play to watching Draisaitl and McDavid skate off in victory.

“(Referee) Gord's (Dwyer) looking at it,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “He's looking at it. I don't know what else to say. It's a can opener trip. It's a dangerous play.”

Vasily Podkolzin, Jake Walman, Darnell Nurse and Evander Kane also scored for the Oilers, and Arvidsson and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each had two assists. Calvin Pickard, who appeared to be shaken up when Vegas’ Tomas Hertl fell on his left leg in the third period, made 28 saves.

Victor Olofsson scored two power-play goals and had an assist for the Golden Knights, Alex Pietrangelo had a goal and an assist, and William Karlsson also scored. Jack Eichel had three assists, and Mark Stone two assists to extend their points streaks to five games apiece. Adin Hill stopped 33 shots.

Game 3 is Saturday night in Edmonton.

Kane’s goal 1:52 into the third period made it 4-2 before Olofsson answered less than three minutes later off a cross-ice pass from Eichel. Pietrangelo, who missed Game 1 because of an illness, tied it with 8:02 left with a shot from the right point.

The Golden Knights scored the only goal in the first period on Olofsson's power-play shot from the right circle. Eichel set up the play by passing to Stone, who from below the goal found an open Olofsson for his first career playoff goal.

Edmonton rolled off three goals in a row in the second period — all from distance. The Golden Knights quickly responded with Karlsson's redirect of Eichel's shot with 1:50 left in the period cut it to to 3-2.

The Oilers, who trailed 1-0 after one period, have a record six consecutive comeback victories in a single postseason.

Vegas has never been swept in its eight-year history and even rallied from 2-0 down in 2021 to beat Colorado in six games, though that series began on the road. The Golden Knights also have been eliminated in five games just twice, including the 2018 Stanley Cup Final against Washington.

The Golden Knights’ 42-game playoff winning streak when scoring at least three goals ended. It was the second longest in NHL history to Montreal’s 52-game streak in 1945-57, according to Sportradar.

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Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Adin Hill (33) stops the puck beside Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid (97) during the third period of Game 2 of a second-round NHL hockey playoff series Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Edmonton Oilers center Leon Draisaitl (29) celebrates with teammates after scoring against the Vegas Golden Knights during the third period of Game 1 of a second-round NHL hockey playoff series Tuesday, May 6, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Vegas Golden Knights right wing Mark Stone (61) falls over Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid (97) during overtime of Game 2 of a second-round NHL hockey playoff series Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Edmonton Oilers celebrate after defeating the Vegas Golden Knights in overtime of Game 2 of a second-round NHL hockey playoff series Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Edmonton Oilers center Leon Draisaitl (29) scores against Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Adin Hill (33) during overtime of Game 2 of a second-round NHL hockey playoff series Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)