FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Stuart Skinner, the final goalie union member to be eliminated last June, vividly remembers his message to counterpart Sergei Bobrovsky as they crossed paths in the 2024 handshake line at Florida’s Amerant Ban Arena.
“You’re a massive part of winning the Cup. You stole some games. You made it really hard on us. Congratulations. You really deserve it,” Skinner told the goaltender 10 years his senior.
Ever the pro, Skinner held it together amid the tumbling rats and falling tears.
Out of respect.
“That’s hard to do,” Skinner admitted one June later, “when you’re in the midst of being crushed and in the midst of crying.
“So, in a moment like that, you gotta be a man about it, and be kind to everybody. I mean, it’s one of the best days of their lives. So, I’m not gonna have my own little pity party with him.”
Elite sports are hard. Hoisting the Stanley Cup while filling the toughest and most unique mental position of all team sports might be the hardest.
So, no, there will be no pity for Skinner, nor backup Calvin Pickard for that matter, if the Edmonton Oilers can’t gather themselves after Saturday’s uninspired performance and summon a two-game win streak that would be the stuff of legend.
But there should be a level of understanding here that just as Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl frequently make hockey look like an unfair competition, the gap between the Florida Panthers’ goaltending and Edmonton’s is huge.
In one corner, you have the $10-million man, a no-doubt future Hall of Famer, posting a .912 save percentage in a series that arguably features the two most dangerous offence creators on the planet.
In the other, you have a lovable local kid who was plying his trade in the ECHL just five years ago and an equally affable six-team, 33-year-old journeyman who make $3.6 million combined.
Neither Skinner nor Pickard — Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch’s choices facing the threat of handshakes Tuesday in Sunrise — has managed a save percentage above .879 in this Final.
There’s a bit of get-what-you-pay-for going on here. There’s also a bit of get-what-you-can-afford and some banking on run support that hasn’t shown up early at all or often enough.
So, while Florida coach Paul Maurice hasn’t so much as been asked “Who’s starting?” for four rounds, and Cats backup Vitek Vanecek’s big moment was staring at Skinner in warmups, Knoblauch has flipped his goalie thrice already. And he may well do so a fourth time, going back to Skinner after Pickard gave up four at home in Game 5.
“That’s a conversation with the staff, our goaltending coach Dustin Schwartz, but with all the assistants, the general manager and kind of weigh in how everyone feels and what’s best moving forward,” Knoblauch said Sunday via Zoom, before the Oil loaded two sets of pads on a flight to Fort Lauderdale.
“It’s not an easy decision. We’ve got two goalies that have shown that they can play extremely well, win hockey games, and we feel that no matter who we choose, they can win the game.”
Now’s about when you dust off the ol’ adage: if you have two starting goalies, you don’t have one.
Put it this way: only one of these teams had to shut down chatter that it would hunt for a new goalie at the trade deadline. For the other? A new starter is a nonstarter.
“I mean, he’s an incredible, elite player who gets totally underappreciated, taken for granted by us, I guess, because he’s so consistent,” Maurice said of Bobrovsky, now 15-7, including a couple overtime losses.
“If one gets by him that he doesn’t like, it has nothing to do with what’s going to happen next. His ability to focus is trained. Maybe it’s a talent, I dunno. I just know he puts so much time into his focus and his ability, and then the experience he has. So, there’s a calmness that comes with Sergei that spreads throughout the team.”
Despite the elevated threat the Oilers trot out, Bobrovsky’s .912 save percentage in this series mirrors the .912 he has throughout this post-season. And that tops his Cup-winning .906 of a year ago. (The NHL’s league average in the regular season: .900). Not bad for a 36-year-old.
“Thirty-six? That’s young,” Skinner said, just before the series began.
“He’s one of the best goalies in the world. Been in the Stanley Cup Finals three times now in a row. Impressive goalie. Skates well. Technically, I don’t think there’s much wrong with him.”
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Skinner paused to correct that sentence.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him, in my perspective. He’s exceptional. I remember in the lineup last year, too, how kind he was to somebody who just lost. So, nothing but love to him.”
Love is nice.
A little revenge would be better.
Besting brick-wall Bob is no easy feat, though. Yet Skinner still has a chance to play the gracious winner in this week’s handshake line.
“I would love that,” Skinner said.
“Absolutely, yeah. I mean, that’s the dream, right? But at the same time, we got a lot of work to do here.”
