Stuart Skinner under fire for 'avoiding' Oilers in Penguins win

The Stuart Skinner saga with the Edmonton Oilers was well-documented. The goaltender led the Oilers to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals, but fans still felt like he wasn’t good enough to get them over the hump. If the puck had bounced a different way a couple of times, Skinner would be a back-to-back champion, but instead, the Oilers traded him to the Pittsburgh Penguins to make Tristan Jarry their new starting goalie.

When the move happened, many saw it as a lateral one at best. The issue with Jarry was that he had some injury concerns, and his numbers over the past 12 months weren’t much better than Skinner’s. The Oilers massively overpaid to get a similar goalie in their crease.

The gripping storyline of trading two starting goaltenders for each other is their eventual face-off. The Oilers’ matchup in Pittsburgh ended in a victory for Edmonton, and the Oilers lit up Skinner for five goals. Everyone was looking forward to Skinner’s return to Edmonton, with him possibly having a chance at retribution.

However, when the time came for it to happen on Thursday night, Skinner was sitting on the bench as the backup.

The decision for Skinner to start against Calgary on the Alberta swing instead of Edmonton raised some eyebrows, including Oilers reporter Ryan Rishaug on the "Got Yer’ Back" podcast.

“I like Stu Skinner. I’m not trying to be overly hard on him. When I heard he wasn’t playing tonight, that he was playing in Calgary, I was like, ‘huh?’ Would the organization not have wanted to give him this start if he wanted it? So, it could read as he took the option to play in Calgary.”

Rishaug then went on to say that he would have hoped Skinner would have been champing at the bit to play his old team, and while he doesn’t know if Skinner petitioned for or against playing, if he didn’t want in, what does that say?

Analyst and former NHL’er Rob Brown argued that it wouldn’t have been up to Skinner and that the Penguins made the choice based on their best odds of winning in Alberta on back-to-backs, and that Skinner’s last start against

Stuart Skinner and the Penguins get the last laugh

The Penguins aren’t going to apologize for the decision for Skinner to sit on the bench. Pittsburgh dominated Edmonton through the whole game, which included Jarry allowing three goals on his first four shots.