Edmonton Oilers make a statement with a Game 2 shutout against the Dallas Stars

The Edmonton Oilers won Game 2 of their series against the Dallas Stars with a commanding performance, shutting them out 3–0.

Except for at least one foolish penalty, Edmonton put on an absolute clinic last night. However, I for one second don’t think that that was Dallas’s best work, Edmonton would beat up on any team in a seven-game series while playing like that.

Here are the main takeaways of the game as I see them:

Excellent 5v5 play for Edmonton

The Game 1 loss in this Dallas series was a case of missing Edmonton penalty kill, or a case of great Dallas power play, or a case of disgruntled refs, or maybe all three together. One thing that we can be darn sure of is that Dallas won because of their power play chances. The trio of goals that Dallas scored in extremely quick succession brought them to a two goal lead and they never looked back.

If we look at the underlying statistics of the 5v5 gameplay though, they show a much different game. Edmonton had a significant advantage in CF%, xGF%, SCF%, and led in essentially every other on-ice metric.

Even looking at the obvious, in 5v5 play that game was tied 2–2. According to moneypuck.com‘s “Deserve To Win O’Meter”, Edmonton wins that game 67.8% of the time.

This game was a whole lot more of the same. It wasn’t pure dominance, but they were clearly the better team at even strength. Edmonton scored two of their three goals 5v5, but it was the second and third goal, making it 3–0 that really took the life out of Dallas. The Stars didn’t resuscitate until the last eight minutes of the third, and then only briefly.

On paper the Stars appear to be the more threatening team, but last night was the exact opposite, Dallas didn’t look like they deserved to be there.

Stuart Skinner has turned a corner

AND HE ISN’T LOOKING BACK!

These playoffs have truly been a tale of two Stuart Skinners. Skinner has now played seven playoff games this year and his save percentage has either been 1.000 or below .834–he has either let four or more passed him or none at all. Every single win he has under his belt is a shutout, and that’s just a crazy stat to be reporting.

Whatever the past has been, and the recent past has been extremely impressive, Skinner looked great last night. In blatant contrast to how he looks when he is off his game, he looked extremely confident, square to the shooter and out challenging the shot, especially against shots from around the face-off circles.

He made great saves on Ivan Dadonov, and Wyatt Johnston, and of course that ridiculous goal line save on an Esa Lindell rebound. Lindell will surely be seeing a therapist later, and a cardiologist sooner, in life for the robbery he experienced.

This is especially impressive considering the way the playoffs started for Skinner. He quickly lost the net to Calvin Pickard in the L.A. series, then lost his first game back against Vegas. It would be fair to expect him to be shaky and uncertain in his return but instead he has recorded three shutouts in his last four games.

With play like that the Oilers can’t help but win!

A diamond in the rough

I’d just like to take a minute to appreciate the spectacular play of Connor Brown, who is playing at a nearly 50-point regular season pace these playoffs. The tip-in last night was one of the most devious I have ever seen. More important than that is his play in the corners, his great penalty kill work, and his overall energy. There were moments last night when it seemed like Dallas just didn’t want the puck, but it may have just looked that way because Brown was outworking them so fiercely.

It’s players like Brown, Mattias Janmark, Vasily Podkolzin, Adam Henrique, Zach Hyman, and Kasperi Kapanen that truly make a team a playoff team and as good as Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins are, they just cannot do it all themselves.

Don’t forget that Game 3 of this series is a matinee this Sunday afternoon in Edmonton.

stats from NHL.com, moneypuck.com, and naturalstatrick.com