The Edmonton Oilers came into Wednesday night’s matchup with the Washington Capitals fresh off a four-game eastern road swing where the team went 2–1–1, including a finale in Pittsburgh where the team shutout the Penguins 4–0. Meanwhile the Capitals were just starting their northwest road swing. They were blanked in Winnipeg on Monday 3–0, with the game in Edmonton marking the start of a back-to-back. Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch started Stuart Skinner, while Spencer Carburry started Darcy Kuemper, with presumptive starter Charlie Lindgren taking the more winnable game in Seattle on Thursday.
Capitals Goal 1
Stecher bats away the Jensen point shot that was going wide and it ends up just below the hashmark. Miroshnichenko blindly takes a slap shot towards the net. As this is happening, Skinner goes down into reverse vertical-horizontal (RVH) sealing the short side, while Stecher steps in front of him so he can’t see the release. The shot ends up being perfect, off the far post and in, with no reaction coming from either Oiler. Skinner is guilty of going into RVH too high in the zone but Stecher also gets a bit lost in the unfamiliar defensive zone coverage.
Capitals Goal 2
Desharnais does a great job blocking the original Oveckin shot which was going far side. However, the rebound ends up going directly to McMichael. Skinner picks this up and makes a good rotation and push but as he’s moving to the new angle just off the inside hash mark, his glove side bad and stick jam on Nurse, who’s battling at the net front, causing him to spin and sprawl while not covering a ton of net. An unlucky sequence of events that just happened to be the second shot of the game after a first-shot goal.
Skinner’s first save of the game
On the third shot on goal, Skinner goes down off the initial release with traffic in front, but quickly realizes it was actually a pass to the back door where Nurse has vacated Ovechkin. Skinner sets the angle well and then realizes he doesn’t have time for a regular push and dives across, tracking the puck right into his blocker and subsequently covering up with his glove.
Best save of the game
Bouchard and Ceci allow a 2-on-2 free access to the middle, with Fehervary driving the middle while Strome collects the puck. McDavid’s former junior teammate delays, allowing Ovechkin to drive the back door. Skinner is following Strome and ends up looking through traffic but picks up the pass late. He reacts by rotating his upper body and pushing his glove towards the puck as much as he can, cutting down the angle and making the save.
Skinner turns shaky start into solid performance
The game started off poorly for both goalies. The Oilers were up 2–0 within the first 5 minutes, but both of Washington’s first two shots ended up behind Skinner. However, only the Oilers’ netminder was able to turn it around, as Kuemper was beaten repeatedly for 7, although he was not the primary culprit for that. Meanwhile, Stuart Skinner dialled in and made some high-danger saves, leading to a positive goals saved above expected on a night where it could have very easily gone sideways for him.
