The Edmonton Oilers were coming into Buffalo off a rough 4–2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. In the first half of their weekend matinee back-to-back, Edmonton went back to Stuart Skinner. Meanwhile, the Buffalo Sabres were starting Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, a young netminder who came into the game ranking first in the league in Goals Saved Above Expected since January 1.
Edmonton immediately opens the scoring
The reunited Ryan McLeod-Leon Draisiaitl-Warren Foegele line starts the game out with a bang. Foegele makes a great seam pass to Draisaitl who draws the defence up and sends a spin-o-rama down to the post for McLeod. Luukkonen doesn’t take a lot of depth on Draisaitl which allows him to get back to the post, but McLeod is able to beat him through his glove side arm seal on the post.
Foe-GOAL!
Foegele makes a nice play defending the power play entry for Buffalo leading to a pressured two-on-zero going the other way. Foegele makes an early pass to McLeod which gets Luukkonen to commit to the ice with the slide. McLeod gives it right back where Foegele is able to get it over Luukkonen’s outstretched pad. It was going to be a tough play regardless but Luukkonen had no chance once he left his feet on the first pass.
Thompson gets the Sabres first goal
Bowen Byram takes a shot from the high slot with a good location. Skinner makes a good save shrugging off the shot but that inevitably creates a rebound that results in a scramble. Skinner recovers to Tage Thompson’s original location but when Vicent Desharnais breaks that up and bats the puck towards the point, Skinner thinks he has time to recover to his feet. Problem with that comes when Ryan Nugent-Hopkins bats the puck down (not a bad play in itself) and it lands right on Thompson’s stick for the shot while Skinner is still recovering. Tough play.
Buffalo ties it up
This is a bad goal and should be stopped by Skinner. Jacob Bryson wheels around the right wing and is kind of in a dead zone. Darnell Nurse is playing halfway between the puck carrier and his check, taking away the short side lane but fading away as the backhand shot is released. It’s pretty clear Skinner doesn’t get a good look, but for a softer shot that is centre-cut, Skinner should be able to get to position and make the save.
Buffalo gets a goal called off
Owen Power gets the puck on the half board and none of the Oilers on the ice show any pressure on him as he drives towards the net. It should be Nurse’s guy based on the defensive call outs early in the clip but he doesn’t move toward Power at all. Instead, he lets Power walk in and pick his corner, attempting to block the shot at the last minute. This probably does more harm than good, as it’s a lot easier to track the puck with a clean lane. In terms of the release, it’s a perfect shot just above the pad off the far post and in that Skinner can’t catch up to as he partially pulls off the release.
Shootout results
Thompson walks in slowly, and goes from backhand to forehand to push the puck away from his body before immediately ripping a shot off the post and in just above the pad. This is perfectly executed on one of the toughest shootouts moves for goalies.
McDavid walks in slow as he usually does, but there’s far less stick handles and misdirections that typical. There’s a shot fake with his shoulders, but it doesn’t get Luukkonen moving the wrong way, so the Sabres netminder is able to follow McDavid across the net to make the save.
Alex Tuch goes forehand backhand then back to his forehand with a bit of pace. Skinner partially bites on the backhand but is able to keep an edge in an attempt to push back to the glove side, but that commitment gives Tuch enough space to go high far side.
Nugent-Hopkins goes in and looks to make the same move that Thompson scored with, with the backhand to forehand extended and going far side, but it’s on Luukkonen’s blocker as a lefty. There looks to be a bit of space, but Luukkonen ends up completely sprawled out while the shot misses the net.
The Oilers couldn’t manage a win
After coming out strong in the first, the Oilers were extremely flat for the rest of the game. The shots were 32 to 27 in favour of Edmonton, but the all-situations expected goals were 3.31 to 3.26 in favour of the Sabres (per EvolvingHockey) in a game that the Oilers should have handily taken. Luukkonen was excellent from start to finish. Skinner’s second goal against was bad, but he made up for it with numerous big stops throughout the game, including a save off Tuch right after that second goal and additional point-blank saves to close regulation and overtime. Even if Power’s overtime marker had counted, he would have finished above expected, which should be good enough to give Edmonton’s roster a chance to win.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
