The Edmonton Oilers came into Wednesday’s game off a big win against the Los Angeles Kings on Monday. That didn’t take away from the matchup with the St. Louis Blues. The Blues are still in the thick of the playoff race, coming unto the game five points back of the Nashville Predators sitting in the final wild card spot. A win would not only push the Oilers to within one point of Vegas with two games in hand, but might force Doug Armstrong’s hand in dealing some of his assets, including potential Edmonton targets Pavel Buchnevich and Colton Parayko.
The Blues started Jordan Binnington against Stuart Skinner for the Oilers.
Blues first goal
When the puck gets sent over to Robert Thomas, the Oilers are in good position. Darnell Nurse has the far side lane, Skinner has a sightline on the short side and there’s limited pass options. However, Nurse keeps drifting towards the puck. eventually crossing Skinner’s sight line out of the far side. Thomas recognizes this, pulling the puck around Nurse and going bar down on the blocker side. Ideally Skinner would have made an adjustment to the far side lane, but the Oilers have long held that the goalie takes the short side and the block takes the far side while short handed.
Buchnevich gets the second goal
The puck gets dumped into the corner after a phanned shot from an open Thomas who should be covered by Cody Ceci. Both Nurse and Ceci chase the puck behind the goal line. Thomas is able to retrieve it, and make a quick pass to Jordan Kyrou who is directly behind the net. Skinner opens a window while staying on the short side post to gain a visual, but Kyrou makes a quick play to pass to Pavel Buchnevich on the short side before that can happen going the other way. Skinner is in a good position because he originally maintained that short side coverage, and starts to collapse on the initial shot trajectory low blocker side. However, the shot goes off Leon Draisaitl’s shaft and into the top corner on the glove side. Not much Skinner could have done here.
Hyman gets the Oilers first
Connor McDavid hits Zach Hyman at the net front for what looks like an attempted one timer but Nick Leddy breaks up the attempt. Jordan Binnington is sliding over for the first shot and does a really good job to recover by hitting the far post and push back. However, the puck goes past his outstretched pad and Hyman has an empty net.
Hyman gets his second of the night
Bouchard makes an elite breakout pass to spring McDavid and Hyman on a two-on-one while the Blues change. Hyman gets the puck to McDavid early, who looks like he’s going to shoot until Justin Faulk completely abandons Hyman to pressure the Oilers’ captain. Hyman lets the pass travel far enough so the puck is past Binnington’s glove, who had made a good push, and is able to chip it over the pad for the goal.
Oilers win in overtime
McDavid breaks into the zone with a ton of speed, turning the corner on Kyrou and having the angle of Colton Parayko. Due to trying to follow McDavid, Binnington has a ton of momentum going back to his post. As McDavid approaches the bottom of the circle, Binnington starts to flatten out to respect a pass option and tries to slide into his post with his skate on the post. However, it looks like misses mark, causing what he thought would be a relatively easy shoulder save to glance off his equipment and pop into the far side of the net.
Summary
It looked like it was going to be a rough outing early, but Skinner settled into the game to steal one for the Oilers. Between his two-on-zero save in the third, or numerous stop in overtime, the homegrown product gave the Oilers a chance to win. The Oilers didn’t create a lot of volume with quality on Binnington, but a big stop off a Draisaitl one timer kept it close.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
