Oilers’ Stanley Cup hopes are swirling with Stuart Skinner cracking under pressure

EDMONTON — That sound you hear? That’s the Edmonton Oilers’ season swirling in the bowl with Stuart Skinner jiggling the toilet handle.

The Oilers are swimming in you-know-what in the deep end of that pool now after Sunday’s 4-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks, and the problem is, there doesn’t seem to be a life raft in sight.

The Oilers did nothing more than watch as their captain and the best player on the planet was viciously cross-checked twice at the final horn. Their depth scoring is nonexistent. Their biggest advantage in the series – the gulf in special teams – isn’t getting enough opportunities.

And, oh yeah, the Oilers now have a full blown crisis of confidence in goal.

Skinner was yanked from Game 3 after allowing four goals on 15 shots, which dropped his series save percentage to a staggering .793. His minus-5.7 expected goals saved these playoffs is second worst to only Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck, which is why the Oilers are two losses away from joining the Jets. Skinner ceded the crease to Calvin Pickard to make his Stanley Cup playoff debut in the third period.

“Yes, we need more saves,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch acknowledged postgame. 

Knoblauch refused to commit to starting Skinner in Game 4 on Tuesday night when the Oilers try to avoid falling behind 3-1 in this best-of-seven, all-Canadian series. Perhaps with good reason. 

The evidence is overwhelming now that Skinner shows signs of cracking under pressure – with some eerily similar vibes of Mitch Marner in Toronto. Both have been dynamic and critical regular season performers, but heavy has been the burden of chasing Lord Stanley’s ghost in your hometown. Both help get you to the playoffs but aren’t helping you win.

How bad is it? Skinner not only has the worst numbers of any netminder to start a game in Oilers postseason history. But he is also the NHL’s worst playoff performer in the salary cap era by a sizable margin. Of all 69 goalies since 2005 with at least 15 playoff appearances, Skinner ranks dead last in save percentage with an .881 mark in 20 games. He’s worse than Kari Lehtonen’s .887 (19 games) and Nikolai Khabibulin’s .898 (15 games) – and that’s not a small sample size.

It’s impossible to know what Skinner is thinking or feeling. The Oilers did not make Skinner available to speak to the media postgame.

The simple fact is this: Skinner is getting the wheels beaten off him by Arturs Silovs in this second round series. Who had that on their bingo card?

He wasn’t on anyone’s radar to come in and steal the spotlight. Silovs played a grand total of nine NHL games prior to this postseason. He turned in a confident and resounding 42-save performance on Sunday night to push his playoff save percentage to .908 this spring. 

Canucks coach Rick Tocchet described The Laidback Latvian as “low maintenance,” which is an ultra compliment. But he’s actually taken that to another level. Silovs has been living in a team-owned condo near Rogers Arena for a few weeks since his March call-up, but every day has gotten woken up at 5 o’clock by the sun in the morning since his spartan place didn’t have blackout blinds. The Canucks scrambled to get him those blinds installed last week when he finally spoke up – you know, as their clear starter.

“The kid is giving us games,” Tocchet said. “It’s a big stage and he’s not blinking.”

Consider the juxtaposition: Tocchet had a similar choice as Knoblauch in Game 1. The Canucks trailed the Oilers, 4-2, at the second intermission, the same score as Game 3 at the second ice cut. Silovs looked a little shaky on a couple of the goals. But Tocchet stuck with him, even when his team might’ve used a jolt, even when it might’ve been helpful for Casey DeSmith to knock the rust off.

“You give the hook to a goalie in different situations, you give the team momentum, things like that. I don’t think he deserved to come out. I think the guys kind of rallied around him and said ‘Hey, we got you,’ just like he had our back,” Tocchet explained. “Arty is playing like it’s his net right now. He was excellent.”

Knoblauch didn’t have a choice. It was clear for all 18,347 to see that Skinner is maybe the only reason they trail in this series.

Yes, the Oilers did generate enough quality looks. They hit four posts. They had a questionable review where it wasn’t possible to find conclusive evidence that Corey Perry’s putback completely crossed the goal line.

But is it too much to ask to get a save every once in a while to bail you out? That’s what Silovs did. Go and rewind his three-save sequence in the dying seconds of the second period, or his pad save on a Leon Draisaitl rush.

The Oilers couldn’t get a stop in Game 1 as they gagged on a three-goal lead. And they couldn’t buy one on Sunday. The situation pressed Edmonton’s core into logging some of the most minutes in regulation playoff games as forwards in recent history. Connor McDavid (29:42 total) and Draisaitl (29:04) each played 13 of the 20 minutes in the third period. That isn’t sustainable.

“We can’t play them 30 minutes every night,” Knoblauch agreed. “They’ve been doing well, but yes, we can’t be pushing them that much.”

The Oilers’ season isn’t sustainable with this level of goaltending. Who will start in goal on Tuesday night? That much is murky. This series isn’t over, not by any stretch. But what is becoming crystal clear is these Oilers don’t seem to be in the same class as the other side of the Western Conference bracket, and that’s the realization that has to be eating at Oil Country more than falling short to the Canucks.