Edmonton Oilers Playoff Thoughts: Round 2, Game 5

“I decided to play this position, so it’s completely my fault” – Stuart Skinner after the Edmonton Oilers Game 4

Nobody needed Monday night’s win more than the guy between the pipes. If you’re an Edmonton Oilers fan on social media, you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t use social media apps, bless your heart. It’s no secret that Skinner didn’t exactly have a great regular season, and that worried a huge chunk of the fanbase heading into these Playoffs. Allowing 11 goals in the first two games of the first round didn’t set the scene for a redemption story, and Game 3 of this round on Saturday made us wonder how we could become doctors to heal Calvin Pickard’s injury. But after a controversial loss, he came up with a solid 23 save shutout performance to give his team the 3-1 series lead, and bring back the Rogers Place chants of “STUUUUUUUUUU!”

All season long, the 26-year-old, third year netminder has added his name to the list of polarizing players for this franchise in the last decade. Members of Oilers media will excuse him from every goal against, and Oilers fans will blame him for every goal against. What I’ve tried doing in my articles is point out times when I do think a goal should’ve been prevented by him, as well as point out when I think someone else might deserve more tough love. I may sound crazy, but to be honest, I actually disliked the other goals he allowed in Game 3 more than the hyperbolic Game 3 winner. If he stopped two of those, there may’ve been a greater chance of seeing an Overtime period. The Golden Knights could’ve still won, but the reaction wouldn’t be as chaotic. One media guy on Twitter made a claim that “Nobody in this market wants him to succeed, everyone hates him”, and it certainly stirred the pot. I agree that some fans take frustration too far, can be overly cynical and make it personal. Healthy disagreements are normal, but we should all draw the line at verbal abuse. Instead of posting “Where are the Skinner haters now?”, let’s wait until the series is officially over. Let’s wait until the entire Playoffs are officially over. One big win is still just one win, build on that.

It’s absolutely true that you can’t always pin every issue on one guy in a team game. You also can’t always exempt one guy from constructive criticism in a team game. More often than not, I forgive goalies when it comes to screens and deflections. I blame Skinner for a goal when he can’t control an easy rebound, and the broadcast team says it was a deceptive shot. There’s also been times where he’s not pulled from the net during a bad game, so it made bad starts acceptable. Saying that doesn’t mean I condone the players in front allowing some of the easiest scoring chances, which are things I’ve also called out in the past. I’m just calling a spade a spade, because that’s what every fan, writer or analyst should do. Not every game, but once in a blue moon, you need a game where your goalie bails out your mistakes. Around the 4Nations break, he had a .904 SV%, above the league average, and I was happy. Then he started playing worse again, and I wasn’t happy. After Game 4, Skinner’s save percentage for this postseason went from .817 to .857. If that number keeps increasing, so does his team’s chances of winning. Fans, or even casual observers, just want consistency with both on ice play and off ice coverage. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

After Monday night, Skinner has a career record of 5-0, 1.32GAA, .953 SV% a 2 shutouts in Game 4s. “Mr. Game 4”, as Kevin Bieksa put it on the Sportsnet broadcast. Since last year’s Playoffs, he has a 4-11, .857 SV% and 0 SO record in Games 1-3. The overwhelming contrast is his 11-1 record with a .942 SV% and 2 SO in Games 4-7. That lone loss, though… Ouch. There has to be some sort of scientific study done on this goaltender. He clearly prefers the second half of a series over the first half. That can either be a good thing or a scary thing, depending on which team is leading and by how many games, or if the teams are tied. It’s good because you need some form of short term memory in the Playoffs, and scary because you can never afford scheduled losses in the Playoffs. You shouldn’t always plan on going down 2-0 or 3-0 because of these 180 degree goalies stats you have. He’s had a lot of good experiences for someone with a rushed development curve, through no fault of his own. Earlier in the season, whenever someone said that Skinner is good at bouncing back, there was a bit of truth to that. But moving forward, if Stu is still an Oiler next season, he really needs to work on having better starts. Please don’t be such a stressful player for fans.

Anyway, Game 5. A chance to clinch the series and head over to Round 3. The fourth win is the hardest to get in every series. The Oilers already have 2 wins in Vegas, can they get another one when it counts most? The keys to the game are…

Edmonton Oilers Thoughts

Rinse And Repeat: Shifting gears away from the goaltending, Edmonton’s Game 4 defensive play was a country mile better than their Game 3 defensive play. There were no bad line changes, no careless giveaways and nobody was overcommitting to shot blocks. Kasperi Kapanen and Troy Stecher made good Oilers Playoff debuts. This is how you develop killer instinct in an elimination game. Don’t get in over your heads, don’t mentally assume you’ve already won. Monday was their best game in this postseason, don’t toss that hard work in the garbage and don’t forget what you did well.

Hillside: Adin Hill was rattled in the first period of Game 4. Despite allowing a third period goal, he was more composed in the last 40 minutes. I don’t expect him to slash or shove opposing players again. Even though his stats aren’t great, this is still a championship winning goaltender. He’ll be looking for a bounce back game of his own, so don’t let up on scoring chances. Force him to make difficult saves, set something up around the boards like both of Adam Henrique’s goals the other night.

Man Advantage: The Oilers are still 1/9 on the powerplay in this series, whereas the Golden Knights are 3/12. Huge props to Elliotte Friedman calling out the referees for giving Edmonton an extra minor penalty, even though Brayden McNabb pushed Evander Kane over Adin Hill and everybody went after him after the second goal was scored. I wonder if we can expect more feistiness and rough stuff tonight. Will that lead to more penalties or will officials “let them play”?