Mike McKenna speaks on Matt Berlin’s NHL debut with Oilers

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Mike McKenna and Tyler Yaremchuk discussed the feel-good story of the weekend: Matt Berlin making his NHL debut for the Edmonton Oilers.

Signed by the Oilers to an ATO after Stuart Skinner came down with an illness, Berlin — who plays for the University of Alberta Golden Bears — began Saturday’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks on the bench as Jack Campbell’s backup.

But with the Oilers up 7–3 in the dying moments of the third period, head coach Jay Woodcroft elected to give Berlin his NHL moment. The 25-year-old goaltender entered the game for the final two minutes, making a save on a shot by Blackhawks defenseman Caleb Jones.

McKenna, who appeared in 35 NHL games with seven different teams during his own professional career, shared some perspective on the situation in conversation with Yaremchuk during Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Saturday night in Edmonton, the Oilers, up big on the Chicago Blackhawks, decide to their EBUG between the pipes, and it’s University of Alberta Golden Bear and former Sherwood Park Crusader Matt Berlin who gets to go into the game. It was an unbelievable scene as you can see here, he gets to wear the motorcycle vest for the Oilers’ player of the game. An Edmonton product who actually, Mike, was on the same bantam team as Stuart Skinner as well as Tyler Benson and James Hamblin. So he’s been a teammate with some of these Oilers before, gets to live out the dream and make an appearance in an NHL game.

Mike McKenna: You would see this in college hockey sometimes, at the NCAA level, where your third goaltender, who may never play a game in college, gets tossed in for the last four or five minutes, just because of the hard work they’ve put in. This one’s a little bit different because, like Jay Woodcroft said, it’s an experience. Berlin was doing homework four hours before the game, Tyler. This is wild stuff. But it’s just really cool, and I loved, in the line afterwards, you can see Jack Campbell come over and be so excited for Matt Berlin. Like you said, some of the parallels — being Stuart Skinner’s minor hockey teammate. It’s really cool. He’s from Edmonton, he plays for U Alberta, it couldn’t have been any better.

Watch the full episode here: