Post-Game Talk: McDavid hated that goal

[OilerTyler]

Are we ever going to know why the refs just decided that Kane wasn’t bleeding even though there was obviously blood?

Because a 4 minute PP at that point in the game would've given us too much of an advantage. Refs constantly ignore blatant penalties to influence the result of the game and it just so happened this one was more obvious than most because it was a black and white call.

The Oilers have the third worst penalty differential in the league this season (ahead of Anaheim and San Jose) despite being the fifth highest scoring team. We should stop expecting to get calls at this point.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

That Thomas shot was picked clean like Bouchard does. Those are tough ones to stop for any goalie.

Skinner did his job and then some last night. Made some big saves at crucial points of the game.

Thomas also had all day to walk in and pick his spot. The defenders should have challenged him.

 

[nabob]

Ceci and Nurse playef it perfect. This was 100% on Skinner.

I learn alot about hockey in GDTs

If Ceci was a forward he be a combination of Connor Brown’s offense and Nail Yakupov’s defense.

 

[Canovin]

McDavid defers to Drai so much that goalies automatically know what to expect. It's like 5% chance McDavid shoots and just slide to the left to cover Drai's shot.

 

[TopShelfGloveSide]

Honestly, the first two goals weren't even that bad. It's just that everybody is so on edge about Skinner (including myself) that every goal is his fault in the heat of the moment. Maybe the Thomas shot could have been stopped but that was a bullet and he had very little chance on the Buchnevich goal, that was piss poor D coverage and the play happened fast.

Maybe but hard to defend 2 goals on 3 shots. Most goalies would be getting criticized at that point.

 

[Fourier]

Uhh... Actually it does happen a lot.

Over the past two seasons, Skinner is 56 - 27 - 7, with a .910.

For perspective, this is a goalie in his 2nd full season who was supposed to be the back-up right now.

Since Nov. 11th, Skinner is 26 - 8 - 1 (the "winningest" goalie in the League), with a .914. (His .914 is the 7th best in the League over that time of 29 goalies with 25 or more games.)

Over the past 3.5 months, Skinner has more wins and a better save percentage than Swayman, Shesterkin, Demko, Binnington, Georgiev... and Vasilevsky, who, now that Tampa is coming down to earth, is being exposed as a very average goalie (which he always was, in my opinion).

As I've said a few times before, some of you just have incredibly unrealistic expectations of goalies.

One stat I like for goaltending is the Quality Start Stat. This is the percentage of games that a goalie plays where his sv% is above league average. Historically a QS% of over .600 is considered to be very good. Anything under .500 is viewed as being problematic.

One of the reasons I like this stat for Oiler goalies is that as a team the Oilers tend to win a very high percentage of games where their goalie has a QS. For example, this year the Oiler record is 23-2-0 in when Skinner has a QS. Pickard is 3-1-0 in his QS's. That is a combined 26-3-0 or roughly a 90% win rate.

This year the QS% for the goalies you mention above and a few others for this year and for their career in parentheses are:
Skinner .595 (.583) Over the last two years .600
Swayman .688 (.667)
Shesterkin .615 (.656)
Demko .644 (.570)
Georgiev .438 (.533)
Binnington .600 (.527)
Vasilevsky .514 (.569)
Saros .532 (.608)
Hellebuyck .690 (.584)
Markstrom .676 (.536)
Gibson .583 (.544)
Samsonov .407 (.486)
Talbot .618 (.548)
Hill .667 (.563)
Ingram .600 (.587)
Merzlikins .485 (.482)


The league average is typically around .530

Lots of numbers here but what this suggests to me is that Skinner is indeed good more often than he is bad. And in fact, his rate of good games is comparable with all but a handful of the best goalies in the league. His problem, and too often the Oiler's goalies problem though is that when he/they is/are off he can be a team killer.

In fact, the Oilers win almost every game that Skinner has a .860+sv%. Unfortunately, he is below .860 more than some of his peers. For me what Skinner need to do is reduce the number of really bad games he has. If he can do that then for his salary he is actually a very good asset.

 

[frag2]

Nurse is dragging down Ceci

can't tell if sarcastic but in all honesty, people love to shit on ceci [rightfully so] but nurse has been just as bad this season. just all around stupid plays

kudos to skinner this game...still dont trust him for playoffs though.
but till then

 

[oljimmy]

One stat I like for goaltending is the Quality Start Stat. This is the percentage of games that a goalie plays where his sv% is above league average. Historically a QS% of over .600 is considered to be very good. Anything under .500 is viewed as being problematic.

One of the reasons I like this stat for Oiler goalies is that as a team the Oilers tend to win a very high percentage of games where their goalie has a QS. For example, this year the Oiler record is 23-2-0 in when Skinner has a QS. Pickard is 3-1-0 in his QS's. That is a combined 26-3-0 or roughly a 90% win rate.

This year the QS% for the goalies you mention above and a few others for this year and for their career in parentheses are:
Skinner .595 (.583) Over the last two years .600
Swayman .688 (.667)
Shesterkin .615 (.656)
Demko .644 (.570)
Georgiev .438 (.533)
Binnington .600 (.527)
Vasilevsky .514 (.569)
Saros .532 (.608)
Hellebuyck .690 (.584)
Markstrom .676 (.536)
Gibson .583 (.544)
Samsonov .407 (.486)
Talbot .618 (.548)
Hill .667 (.563)
Ingram .600 (.587)
Merzlikins .485 (.482)


The league average is typically around .530

Lots of numbers here but what this suggests to me is that Skinner is indeed good more often than he is bad. And in fact, his rate of good games is comparable with all but a handful of the best goalies in the league. His problem, and too often the Oiler's goalies problem though is that when he/they is/are off he can be a team killer.

In fact, the Oilers win almost every game that Skinner has a .860+sv%. Unfortunately, he is below .860 more than some of his peers. For me what Skinner need to do is reduce the number of really bad games he has. If he can do that then for his salary he is actually a very good asset.

And something we tend to forget: I believe that on that list Skinner and Swayman are the only 25 year-olds. Most are significantly older. If he continues on his trajectory he will be a solid, Franchise #1 in 2-3 years. Of course, we need him now, but that would still be an extremely significant achievement for a franchise that hasn't developed a starter since Grant Fuhr.

 

[Soundwave]

And something we tend to forget: I believe that on that list Skinner and Swayman are the only 25 year-olds. Most are significantly older. If he continues on his trajectory he will be a solid, Franchise #1 in 2-3 years. Of course, we need him now, but that would still be an extremely significant achievement for a franchise that hasn't developed a starter since Grant Fuhr.

We don't have 2 or 3 years for him to figure this out. He needs to go toe to toe with the Adin Hill's and Connor Hellebuyck's of the world this year quite possibly and not get his lunch money taken from him or we're out in the 1st or 2nd round.

The Grant Fuhr this and Grant Fuhr that stuff needs to stop. He doesn't play anything like Grant Fuhr. His play style is much closer to a Mikko Koskinen. He's a goalie that primarily relies on his size and being square to the puck to make saves, his game movement wise is very slow and mediocre, Fuhr was the complete opposite.

 

[Fourier]

And something we tend to forget: I believe that on that list Skinner and Swayman are the only 25 year-olds. Most are significantly older. If he continues on his trajectory he will be a solid, Franchise #1 in 2-3 years. Of course, we need him now, but that would still be an extremely significant achievement for a franchise that hasn't developed a starter since Grant Fuhr.

I should say though that he still scares me. His lows are just killers and are still too frequent. I think he can win in the playoffs but I am not betting my house on it.

 

[K1984]

Nurse played that fine. Ceci's the one who f***ed up big time and it's something he's been doing a lot of recently. I think it's pretty obvious they should look at upgrading him. He doesn't provide offence, he's not a good puck mover, he's not a good puck retriever, and his net front play isn't great either. At this point I'm starting to think someone like Sean Walker would be a fairly noticeable upgrade because he can skate to retrieve pucks and can move the puck. But Philly just keeps hanging around in the playoff picture in the East.

At this point even a lateral move is an upgrade. He's totally lost the plot. Between his pinches and aloofness defending around the net it's like he's forgotten how to play hockey.

 

[Fourier]

We don't have 2 or 3 years for him to figure this out. He needs to go toe to toe with the Adin Hill's and Connor Hellebuyck's of the world this year quite possibly and not get his lunch money taken from him or we're out in the 1st or 2nd round.

The Grant Fuhr this and Grant Fuhr that stuff needs to stop. He doesn't play anything like Grant Fuhr. His play style is much closer to a Mikko Koskinen. He's a goalie that primarily relies on his size and being square to the puck to make saves, his game movement wise is very slow and mediocre, Fuhr was the complete opposite.

I share your concern but Adin Hill is an example of a guy with a consistency record no better than Skinners who found his game in the playoffs.

 

[Soundwave]

At this point even a lateral move is an upgrade. He's totally lost the plot. Between his pinches and aloofness defending around the net it's like he's forgotten how to play hockey.

I think he's trying to play up to the challenge Coffey laid down ... the problem is he can't do it.

You need hockey I.Q. to process the game quickly and he doesn't have it, he's struggling in a system that requires him to think.

 

[K1984]

can't tell if sarcastic but in all honesty, people love to shit on ceci [rightfully so] but nurse has been just as bad this season. just all around stupid plays

kudos to skinner this game...still dont trust him for playoffs though.
but till then

I'm very far from a guy that shies away from ripping Nurse when he deserves it, but in this case I feel like the moment he has a d partner that doesn't produce bushels of odd man rushes with dumb pinches and actually knows how to defend in front/behind the net things will be instantly better for him.

 

[Canovin]

I share your concern but Adin Hill is an example of a guy with a consistency record no better than Skinners who found his game in the playoffs.

Adin Hill found his game on a good team in Vegas. If Skinner played for Arizona and San Jose, he'd looked much worse. Skinner is playing on a good Oilers team and his stat is just matching that of Arizona Hill.

Maybe Skinner becomes as good as Vegas Hill one day.

 

[FlameChampion]

can't tell if sarcastic but in all honesty, people love to shit on ceci [rightfully so] but nurse has been just as bad this season. just all around stupid plays

kudos to skinner this game...still dont trust him for playoffs though.
but till then

Kinda sarcastic but kinda not.

Obviously an upgrade on Ceci would be nice. But its unfortunate we need another dman to prop our expensive dman. I don’t think he’s had a great year and I’ll leave at that.

 

[Mr Sakich]

If he could’ve swapped it for an assist I’m sure he would have.

Please start the next few games on time!

I am no body language experts but it is clear he wants out

 

[Soundwave]

Kinda sarcastic but kinda not.

Obviously an upgrade on Ceci would be nice. But its unfortunate we need another dman to prop our expensive dman. I don’t think he’s had a great year and I’ll leave at that.

I mean Vegas only outscored the Oilers 7-1 or 8-1 when Ceci was on the ice in the playoffs last year.

No big deal, right?

 

[SupremeTeam16]

Uhh... Actually it does happen a lot.

Over the past two seasons, Skinner is 56 - 27 - 7, with a .910.

For perspective, this is a goalie in his 2nd full season who was supposed to be the back-up right now.

Since Nov. 11th, Skinner is 26 - 8 - 1 (the "winningest" goalie in the League), with a .914. (His .914 is the 7th best in the League over that time of 29 goalies with 25 or more games.)

Over the past 3.5 months, Skinner has more wins and a better save percentage than Swayman, Shesterkin, Demko, Binnington, Georgiev... and Vasilevsky, who, now that Tampa is coming down to earth, is being exposed as a very average goalie (which he always was, in my opinion).

As I've said a few times before, some of you just have incredibly unrealistic expectations of goalies.

Yeah but if you take out all those stretches of good play, he’s terrible.

 

[TB12]

Skinner will get criticized for the way he lifts the Stanley Cup this June.

Lifted with his back, not his legs. FAT!

 

[Fourier]

Adin Hill found his game on a good team in Vegas. If Skinner played for Arizona and San Jose, he'd looked much worse. Skinner is playing on a good Oilers team and his stat is just matching that of Arizona Hill.

Maybe Skinner becomes as good as Vegas Hill one day.

The last statement I won't quibble with. Skinner makes me nervous. But I am not so sure that I buy the rest of your argument. First of Hill started all of 41 games for the Coyotes in 4 years. So he never had the starter's responsibilities. His standout year was 2019-2020 in terms of sv% with a .918. Now you can claim this this was on a bad team and you would be right. But bad teams don't always have to be bad defensively. The Coyotes issue was scoring, not keeping the puck out of their net, In fact, in that year they had the third lowest GA totals in the league behind only Boston and Dallas. In fact, over the period that Hill was up with Arizona they were often a top 10 team or better in goals against. And since Hill only started 9 games in 2019-2020 their success in keeping the puck out was not really all about him. In fact that year Kuemper had a .928sv% and Rannta had a .921. Arizona played a very stifling style of game back then.

In 2020-21 he started 17 games, the most of his time in Arizona. He had a league average or better sv% in 47.1% of his games. That tells you he was far more inconsistent than Skinner has been. The reality is that Hill never became his team's starter until this year. His regular season last year was solid in terms of sv% but of the 3 goalies that they had who played 10 plus games their sv%' were Hill .915, Brossoit .927, Thompson .915.

 

[TB12]

McDavid is on track to be #1 all time in Oilers GWG by next year. I thought he could do it this year, and there is a small chance he could tie or break the record, but with a down year in scoring goals it's not likely.

Glenn Anderson holds the record at 72.
McDavid now has 67.

If we're talking Glenn Anderson OT winners we need to mention Taylor Hall's funniest comment of all time after Anderson had been around the team and apparently was being kind of a dick to the young guys (shortly after was told to not come around them anymore):

Anderson comes up to Hall and he's saying "Hi, congrats on your first game winner. You only got to get 65 more and you can tie me." Anderson is the Oilers all time leader in game winning goals. And Hallsy goes, "Oh yeah, congratulations on scoring the fourth goal in an 8-3 win in 1985 57 times."

hahahahahahahahahaha

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

That Thomas shot was picked clean like Bouchard does. Those are tough ones to stop for any goalie.

Skinner did his job and then some last night. Made some big saves at crucial points of the game.

Ridiculous if people think that Thomas shot was a Skinner gaffe. Thomas is among NHL elite at mid-range sniping and was given too big a gap by Nurse to fire up his precision snipe. Watching it at game speed versus slow motion gives better context.

Second goal was a stoppable puck but d-zone coverage was a trainwreck with Ceci and Nurse both engaging behind the net and puck passed to Blues behind the net has Skinner thinking he's going far side back door wrap around. Instead Blues forward receives pass and it goes to the vacated net front area where Ceci should be (or wandering Nurse for that matter). Forward support a split second late.

 

[McSpecial DraiBlend]

Predicted 4-2 victory over LA it was 4-1.
Predicted 3-2 victory over StL it was 3-2.

Time to buy a lottery ticket.

Nostradumbass

 

[guymez]

I'm very far from a guy that shies away from ripping Nurse when he deserves it, but in this case I feel like the moment he has a d partner that doesn't produce bushels of odd man rushes with dumb pinches and actually knows how to defend in front/behind the net things will be instantly better for him.

Maybe.
Nurse is his own worst enemy at times. Ceci sure didnt force him to skate with a Vegas forward all the way from the net front to outside the blueline in last years playoffs.
That kind of decision making isnt an isolated incident either. He just doesnt read situations very well at times.
Nurse wanders and he does that of his own accord.
Its really telling when a $9.25M dman needs an upgrade to make him better...instead of him making his D partner better but the reality is that Nurse needs an Ekholm type player to make him a better player. For any team thats a problem but for a contending team with cap issues its an even bigger problem.