Fresh off losing twice in Buffalo on Saturday, the Edmonton Oilers were in Pittsburgh Sunday morning to play the Penguins. The Pens had also played on Saturday in Boston, where Alex Nedeljkovic gave up five goals on 23 shots in a 5–1 loss. In a rematch of last Sunday’s game, the Oilers were once again going with Calvin Pickard while the Penguins were switching it up with Tristan Jarry.
McDavid opens the scoring
Kris Letang turns it over to Connor McDavid at the blue line, who has a wide open lane to walk in on Jarry and pick his spot. Jarry is at the top of his crease and square, but McDavid able to drift slightly towards the blocker post to open some space to beat Jarry to his right.
Oilers get a second goal
Evan Bouchard feeds Mattias Ekholm across the top for a one timer from a relatively harmless location. The danger with the chance comes from Pens’ defenceman John Ludvig, who gets tangled up with Jarry, not allowing the netminder to make the push to the new position. Ludvig then crosses in front of Jarry taking away the sightline, so having never picked up the puck, Jarry never gets to the shortside post to seal off the shot.
Nurse gets the third for the Oilers
McDavid gets the puck coming off the half wall and all four low defenders get drawn towards him, leaving Darnell Nurse wide open to drive down the slot. Jarry rotates early to Nurse, but takes a shuffle step, so he’s just starting set and settle as Nurse takes the shot. This causes him to drift forward and a bit and collapse on the release, which lets Nurse beat him once again over his blocker.
Nurse scores his second of the night
Ekholm gives the puck to Nurse who finds a seam in the middle of the penalty kill after the penalty just expires. Corey Perry is setting a perfect screen in front of Jarry, who correctly is looking around the screen to the shooter’s stick side. Nurse recognizes this and shoots high glove, and Jarry can’t pick it up on the other side of the screen. This is a relatively harmless play without Perry.
A shared shutout victory
It counts as a team shutout due to the shared minutes from when Stuart Skinner (who didn’t face a shot) entered the game while Calvin Pickard was taken out by the concussion spotters at the end of the second, but this was Pickard’s game. He stopped all 41 shots that the Penguins sent his way. It’s a solid result for the back up. Having said that, the Penguins didn’t generate a whole lot of quality looks.
The best chance in the NHL’s compilation of Pickard’s top saves of the game came with just over a minute left in the game, where’s he able to set after a pass to the slot and follow the change of direction back to the original short side post. The rest were straight line attacks where Pickard was able to stay square without opening any holes.
It was a solid start for the Oilers, as Pickard was able to give them another two points while getting Skinner some much needed rest down the stretch drive. I still don’t think he brings enough to stay competitive in a playoff series, but if he can string together more starts like this, it will allow Skinner to be at the top of his game come playoff time with some extra rest.
Meanwhile Jarry gave up four, but I thought he was very good throughout the game. It’s clear the Penguins are labouring through the remainder of the season, but goaltending has been far from their issue.
