The Edmonton Oilers came into the first half of their back-to-back with a chance to bury Seattle in their quest for a Pacific Division playoff spot while also moving ahead of Vegas for second, currently sitting with home ice. Stuart Skinner started for the Oilers coming off two excellent starts earlier in the week against Los Angeles and St. Louis. Dave Hakstol countered with Philip Grubauer, who shut out the Pittsburgh Penguins in his first start since returning from injury. Here’s how the goals broke down:
Edmonton opens up the scoring
Connor McDavid picks up the partial breakup, which caused the Seattle defenders to turn up ice trying to create in transition. Grubauer takes extra ice respecting the shot. Leon Draisaitl got lost in coverage and Grubauer doesn’t pick him up either, leaving a wide open net after Grubauer doesn’t get rotated to the angle as he tries to push across.
Draisaitl with his second
Grubauer looks to the inside (far side) as Brett Kulak takes the shot. Draisaitl and Jamie Oleksiak drift through the shooting lane while the puck is en route, with Grubauer never picking it upon the far side for the short side goal.
Seattle gets a goal
Jared McCann makes a seam pass to Eeli Tolvanen, who was looking to one time it before the pass comes into his skates. Skinner is maybe a tad late on the initial pass, but takes a good line back to his post and is able to bump out as Tolvanen handles. Tolvanen goes to make a pass to the backdoor to Alex Wennberg, but Darnell Nurse decides to try play goalie—there are way too many goals that happen due to this tendency, which both takes away his own goalie’s eyes and creates bad bounces. It ends up deflecting it through Skinner’s five-hole, who had opened up trying to reach the pass before it gets to the back door, where Cody Ceci was tying up his guy, albeit arriving late.
Various Skinner saves
Jordan Eberle gets the cross ice pass from Yanni Gourde on the four-on-three a bit behind him, but regains position to fire off a shot or pass to the back door. Skinner bites on the faked shot as Eberle goes to his back hand. However, Skinner keeps closing on the shot, leading with his blocker almost directly over top of the release to cut down the angle as he dives into position.
The puck goes behind the net, with three Oilers chasing one Kraken player, leaving McCann wide open in the slot. The puck gets to McCann with Skinner down on his post in reverse VH, he bumps out off his post after setting angle, taking as much depth as he can.
Skinner made three massive saves in the final minute while killing the six-on-four. Right off the draw, Vince Dunn feeds Tolvanen for a one timer against the grain, where Skinner is able to get across on his feet, set with good depth, then make the pad save with the rebound in a good spot.
The second comes off a broken play after a partial block on a Dunn one timer from the point. The puck bounces around in the slot before leaking to Eberle at the side of the net. Skinner is able to maintain his edges, rotate and lead with his blocker and pad before the rest of his body follows behind.
With six seconds left, Tolvanen gets another chance at a one-timer. The original Dunn pass was obscured by three Oilers in the lane, as is the shot from Tolvanen with Mattias Ekholm out front, but Skinner once again beats the pass on his feet and is able to react with his right leg while Vincent Desharnais ties up Eberle to prevent a rebound opportunity.
Skinner absolutely stole the show
Seattle was the better team throughout the game. However, Skinner simply stole the game for the Oilers. The Kraken created numerous high danger looks, and Edmonton’s home grown starter met the challenge on all of them. After coming out of the All-Star break slow, Skinner’s play has returned to the form we saw during the winning streak this past week, in which he was one of the league’s best goalies. If Skinner is able to continue beating plays of his feet and reacting directly to the puck, he’ll continue having the immense levels of success his hot streaks have seen.
Photo by Derek Cain/Icon Sportswire
