Wednesday’s matchup between the Edmonton Oilers and Dallas Stars was a highly anticipated showdown between two of the Western Conference’s best teams. Dallas had bested Edmonton in their first matchup in Alberta during the Jay Woodcroft era, while the Oilers beat the Stars in overtime in Texas 4–3 in February. Each goalie on today’s roster had a start in the season series thus far. Peter Deboer went with Jake Oettinger, who has been starting to find his game as of late. Kris Knoblauch made a somewhat puzzling decision to go with Calvin Pickard, who won in February despite a lack luster performance and ample rest on the schedule ahead for Stuart Skinner.
Dallas opens the scoring
Leon Draisaitl turns the puck over in the neutral zone, leading to Dallas’ fourth line getting numbers the other way. It turns into a two-on-one with Darnell Nurse lying down, allowing Sam Steel to get the puck to Radek Faksa who can slide it home. Pickard is not square to Steel, and is taking a c cut back as the pass is released, which makes his push harder. He pushed flat, with his shoulders staying square up ice, and never actually fully gets into a butterfly for the slide, leaving a massive opening for the five hole. It’s a two-on-one, but this is an extremely stoppable goal.
Seguin scores on the power play
Dallas runs the same play that the Ottawa Senators ran on the Oilers, with the puck going down to the goal line then directly across for a one timer. When the puck goes down to Heiskanen, Pickard drifts back to his post rather than making a direct push. This leaves him behind the play, as he’s still moving to the post as the puck goes by him. This results in another blind, flat push without rotation, where Pickard’s back is actually facing the release, with it looking closer than it is as he starts to come around with the puck already in the net. Nurse also looks awful on the play, as he took a look at Tyler Seguin but still came nowhere close to blocking the pass lane.
Johnston scores his 30th
Nurse makes an absolutely horrible pinch as the Johnston penalty expires leading to a four-on-one against Ekholm. The veteran dman actually does a really good job defending the play, which had turned into more of a three-on-one, taking away the pass to the right wing and part of the shot lane. This leads to a short pass to Wyatt Johnston, who is on his strong side without a one time option. Pickard once again gets little rotation before making the push, so his shoulders are square up ice which leaves large parts of the short side open. He also drops his glove and doesn’t it extend it towards the release as he moves, while also pulling away from the release on reaction, making matters worse.
Stars’ captain scores
Johnston knocks the clearing attempt out of the air, leading to a Dallas chance with nearly ever Oiler out of position. Pickard was relaxed before the break up, so he’s late setting up to Johnston. This delay cascades, as he’s still moving and not square to Logan Stankoven when he releases the puck. This delay doesn’t allow him to rotate at all towards Jamie Benn’s blade, and Pickard can’t project his blocker towards the puck to prevent it from going under. Bad play by Leon Draisaitl to give the Stars the chance, but Pickard’s skating ability catches up to him once again.
Dallas gets their fifth
Cody Ceci knocks down Faksa, who while trying to centre the puck, has it deflect off Ekholm and towards Pickard. Pickard is already in paddle down reverse vh, so this should be pretty easy to control into the corner to set up one of the three Oilers already there. Instead it gets punched out to the slot on a tee for local product Steel. The biggest benefit of reverse vh is that it allows you to use the post as an anchor to push laterally. Pickard opts to recover to his feet before pushing flat across the crease and stretching out when that push runs out of steam, allowing Steel to beat him to the far post and go over top. Steel has been a regular at Edmonton area goalie clinics, so he would know exactly what triggers to wait for when moving across the net front.
Oettinger shutout
The Oilers put 35 pucks on net, but they didn’t generate a ton of quality, as shown by the brief highlight pack for Oettinger’s shutout. The first clip has Ryan Nugent-Hopkins back hand a puck directly into the crest while Oettinger maintains post coverage. The second is a great save off a Sam Carrick breakaway where Oettinger is able to get a right toe. Third clip has McDavid hit Oettinger’s body as he blocks it and moves to the rebound. Probably the Oilers’ best chance is the third clip, where Evander Kane puts it into the Stars’ crest after a centering feed from Warren Foegele.
Summary
The Stars were clearly the better team on the night. They generated far more quality chances overall and deserved to win that game. However, the entire night wasn’t like that. Both teams were playing at a high pace, both carrying possesion for stretches until the score got away from the Oilers. Large parts of that can be attributed to bone headed mistakes, with Nurse and Draisaitl being particularly bad offenders on the night.
However, Pickard was part of the reason Dallas was able to get that momentum. As has been the case for large parts of the year, when the pace of play picks up, Pickard’s skating ability breaks down. On nearly ever goal, he had delay in his skating movements which left him behind the play and pushing flat, leaving gapping nets by not being square nor in position. I thought Stuart Skinner should have started this game based on the quality of opposition and the ample rest opportunities available down the stretch. Based on how the Oilers collapsed in transition, it likely doesn’t affect the result, but it certainly would have been a more competitive game based on the way Pickard played each situation.
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