Stuart Skinner has faced the Los Angeles Kings more than any other team in his career, starting a whopping 14 times over his 135 NHL appearances in the regular season and the playoffs. The Edmonton-born goalie has an 8–4–0 record, with a 2.55 goals against average and .921 save percentage over that span. The worst stretch of those career splits came in last year’s playoffs, where he had a .890 SV% over the six-game series.
Over Skinner’s career, the Kings have largely employed the same personnel group and tactics. Todd McLellan was fired in favour of interim coach Jim Hiller, but the Kings continue to employ the same 1-3-1 neutral zone along with the same type of forward deployment amongst their lines. So how do they attack Skinner and the Oilers and what can we expect to see in the third edition of the Oilers versus Kings Round 1 battle?
The video breakdown of Skinner
With so many games, there have been a lot of videos to sort through with Skinner against L.A. Here are all the specific goal breakdowns from those games.
Based on what happened, there are a couple of key areas where I expect the Kings to attack Skinner.
Post play
Particularly during last year’s playoffs, the Kings have attacked Stuart Skinner through his post play. Skinner primarily uses reverse vertical horizontal with his toe box engaged on the post. He has a big enough frame that fills the net from this position. However, there are a couple of areas where Skinner has got caught.
The first is specific to his glove side. The positioning of the stick is tricky to begin with here, as the netminder usually tries to stop backdoor passes through the crease. For Skinner, this normally brings his stick across to the short side post.
There are three things that can happen here.
When the puck is above the goal line, it pulls his blocker across his body leaving the far side open, as was the case on the overtime goal in Game 3 of last year’s series. The other thing that can happen is the stick can deflect pucks up into the goaltender’s body, which might not be fully sealed, like what happened on the first San Jose goal in Game 80 this season. The final thing that can happen is that it can create holes for passes to bounce through from below the goal line, and create a delay to reseal the five-hole when moving back to the middle.
Normally this post play is a strength for Skinner, save for the odd bad goal that crops up. I’m not expecting this to be an issue during the first round.
Screens
One of Stuart Skinner’s recurring weaknesses has been dealing with screens and traffic. It’s one of the hardest plays in hockey, as shown by Clear Sight Analytics having shots that hit the corners through layered screens scoring at a 40% rate this year in the NHL (via Kevin Woodley on the Jason Gregor Show)
During last year’s playoffs, Skinner was strictly looking over players, which he can at his size and maintain a sightline. However, the Kings would take notice and funnel pucks along the ice and to the low corners, beating Skinner before he was able to get back down to these areas.
There was a lot of the same to start the year for Skinner, but in the second half, I’ve noticed some progression. He’s become better at picking a side to start on, then either staying on that side or shifting to the other side of the traffic and picking up the release on the way. A perfect example of this was the glove save near the end of the first period on Cale Makar in the overtime loss at home in March.
The playoffs can often be a story of getting bodies and pucks to the net, with all the intensity and adrenaline ramped up to a 10. As a result, there’s always going to be traffic for the goalie to navigate. I do feel better about Skinner recently in this regard than I did going into last year’s playoffs.
Lateral plays
Any goalie will tell you that pre-shot puck movement can create the biggest challenges faced in a game, particularly on the rush. It’s simply impossible to be in two places at once, so trying to play the shooter honest will also being able to cover the pass option becomes an extremely tough give and take.
The Kings’ 1-3-1 neutral zone is designed to counter-attack zone entry and exit mistakes from the opposition. The Kings are generally pretty good at drawing the defenceman to the original shooter, which opens up players up for the pass in the middle.
There’s two trends that tend to creep up on plays in open ice generally that trouble Skinner. The first is that he can get beat clean by shots when he doesn’t settle his feet and is trying to make positional adjustments during the release. This was particularly evident in Games 3 and 4 last year, where the Kings were able to beat him down the left wing with shots. This feeds into the second part that plagues him on these chances.
There are instances where Skinner can get too wide and too locked into his stance. This means that his first move to get across on a pass is having to regroup his body so that his weight is balanced so that he can push. This results in counter-rotation, where his upper body is moving away from the direction of the puck as the lower body tries to follow the pass.
Proper rotations and pushes will have the eyes, shoulders, hands, hips and feet all rotate as one, allowing for a stronger push that covers more of the net while moving.
The other thing that happens to Skinner here is that when he feels particularly behind, he lunges with his upper body early, attempting to get as much over as he can. If the opposing shooter has time and recognizes this, he can wait for this to happen, at which point Skinner’s desperation save attempt lands him flat on his stomach and can chip or shoot into the top of the net. Trevor Lewis‘ goal during the regular season paints a good picture of this in action.
The fact that the Oilers have cleaned up their rush defence so much under Paul Coffey and Kris Knoblauch helps minimize the risk of these types of chances. Particularly during the last two matchups at home, it seems like the Oilers figured out how to attack the 1-3-1, and were able to neutralize the Kings’ biggest asset. For Skinner, he seems to have improved at minimizing the counter-rotation in his game. I think part of this is playing more relaxed, as when Skinner perceives that he’s behind the play there’s a bit of panic that sets in as he attempts to get back into the play that undermines his technique.
Skinner’s improved skillset bodes well
Post play, traffic and lateral plays are a good way to beat any goalie, so it’s no surprise that they have been major themes in the Los Angeles Kings’ attack on Stuart Skinner. The second-year starter has played L.A. more than any other team and has posted good results overall, but struggled in the opening round of last year’s playoffs.
Skinner has made some technical improvements, along with some tactical adjustments from the team as a whole that should help cut down on these common areas of attack. The biggest factor that I think will help cut down on the goals against compared to last year’s series is Skinner’s experience running through the playoffs once before. If he can be as calm and collected as he has shown since Kris Knoblauch took over, I expect the Oilers to have success for a third straight year.
Photo by Curtis Comeau/Icon Sportswire
