TAMPA — You can argue that the Edmonton Oilers don’t need to acquire a goaltender — and we have made that assertion more than most this season.
Or you may be in the burgeoning group that believes Stuart Skinner needs some help in the Oiler nets if they are to go anywhere come playoff time. That he is simply an average goaltender this season, and average won’t cut it come May and June.
But what you can’t dispute is the look in head coach Kris Knoblauch’s eyes as he described a crippling 2-1 Lightning goal on the opening shift of the second period by Brandon Hagel.
The wrap-around gave Tampa the only lead it would need in a 4-1 win, an entire game turning around what everyone who watches the sport would judge to be a soft goal, with Skinner painfully slow to come across his crease.
“I’m not saying it’s a terrible goal,” began Knoblauch. “It’s one you want him to make more times than not.”
I’ve been doing this for 35 years: When a coach tells you he’s “not saying it’s a terrible goal,” what he is actually saying is that it was a terrible goal.
It came on the first shift of the second period, after an evenly played first period that ended at 1-1. Just 29 seconds into Period 2, Tampa had all the momentum.
“It was a pretty even first period, and now you put a team on their heels,” assessed Tampa (and Team Canada) head coach Jon Cooper. “A team that, I mean, it’s a hell of a team, but they’re struggling coming out of the break.
“Let’s put them behind again and make them go back to chasing the game. That was a huge goal to get, 30 seconds in.”
Back to Knoblauch:
“It was tough, especially the time the game. We come out against the team that’s playing really well right now, in their building, it’s 1-1. And then that happens the first shift.
“It’s deflating.”
-
-
NHL on Sportsnet
Livestream Hockey Night in Canada, Scotiabank Wednesday Night Hockey, the Oilers, Flames, Canucks, out-of-market matchups, the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the NHL Draft.
That’s is perhaps the best descriptor of Skinner’s game that we can conjure up: Deflating.
His numbers this season — .898 saves percentage, a 2.84 goals against — are down from a season ago: .905 and 2.62.
He was a top six or seven goalie in the NHL from mid-November on last season, where today Skinner ranks somewhere in the mid-20’s among starters, in a 32-team league.
It’s not as much that his game has been mid, it’s that Skinner at the top of his game can carry a team to the Stanley Cup last season. At just 70 or 80 per cent of that, how can it possibly take a team as far again this spring?
Skinner made numerous quality saves on Grade A Tampa chances Tuesday, in a game where the high-danger chances were 13-4 in Tampa’s favour according to Natural Stat Trick. But none of those matter when the axis shifts on a soft, confidence-sapping goal, at a time when his team is “fragile” according to Knoblauch, and in need of a backbone in the crease.
“That second goal is a funky goal. I don’t know how it got in,” said defenceman Mattias Ekholm. “I think Stu may want that back.
“The third goal, (Mattias) Janmark goes down, courageous, to block a heavy one-timer. And somehow it goes off of something, bounces off the ice, off (Skinner’s) glove and in the net.”
Goaltending, of course, is simply a microcosm of a game in which good play begets good breaks. And poor play comes hand in hand with bad bounces and unlucky deflections.
Right now Skinner, like his team, skates off as the second-best goalie on the ice every night. No matter that his team couldn’t score a goal at five-on-five Tuesday, or that Evan Bouchard inexplicably failed to help his goalie on that Hagel wrap-around, despite being in perfect position to thwart Hagel’s effort.
No matter how loose this Oilers team has played in a season-high four-game losing streak, it can’t be everyone else’s fault all the time.
Even good teams need their goalies to bail them out, to keep them in a tough game once in a while.
Skinner knows it and his teammates know it, though they’d never say so publicly. And general manager Stan Bowman has to see it, as he looks down from above at a team whose warts are being exposed on a road trip through some of the toughest buildings out East.
The Oilers had a meagre 36 shot attempts, to 67 by the Lightning. They’ve allowed 17 goals in three games on this trip, lit up three games in a row with their first trip back into Sunrise since Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final on tap for Thursday.
“We will reign it in,” promised Zach Hyman, whose game has disappeared alongside Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’, Connor McDavid’s and so many others. “This is a group that’s been through a ton of adversity. This isn’t our first rodeo with this. Nobody wants to go through it, but we know to claw our way back.”
He disputed any assertion that this lineup may not be able to play with the big boys.
“Three weeks ago when we were the hottest team in the league, there have been no personnel changes (since then). So I don’t there’s anything to infer there. This is a group with all the pieces,” Hyman said.
“We’re a fragile group right now. Confidence is a little hard right now,” admitted Knoblauch. “Everyone’s discouraged. They put a lot of pressure on themselves to win; they view themselves as one of the best (teams) in the league.
“We’ve got to be able to respond and push back.”
