Post-Game Talk: Oilers win by the Skin of their teeth

[oobga]

There’s a difference between a goalie giving himself the best chance to stop a shot with good technique but still getting beat anyway because of an elite shot, and a goalie not even giving himself the best chance to stop any shot because of poor technique.

I don’t see how anyone can’t deny Skinner totally froze on a shot that never happened. The right leg kicking forward after the pass is already made shows how much he psyched himself out. Was a big error that costed him any chance to make the save. He has not been in the zone much at all this season.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Thank you for the reply and the photos! However, these photos miss the useless sideways turn that took crucial time which is why Skinner is so badly late at the time of the shot. The strange movement can be clearly seen from the video and others have noticed it too here.

It wasn't a clean look. The play included a neutral zone turnover by Bouchard. Ekholm over committing at the blueline which created an odd man rush. Bouchard with soft gap control. The Oiler forward late on weak side coverage. And a goal scorer one-time goalscorer who is 72 percentile in finishing firing a bar down shot.

Credit the shooter, a guy whose career shooting percentage is 12.5%. Skinner got beat, didn't look good, and didn't have good team structure/support.

 

[CanadasTeam99]

I don’t see how anyone can’t deny Skinner totally froze on a shot that never happened. The right leg kicking forward after the pass is already made shows how much he psyched himself out. Was a big error that costed him any chance to make the save. He has not been in the zone much at all this season.

Remember what he said in game #1 after an entire off season to prepare?

"The game looked too fast for me". Something like that

That is when I knew we were cooked. I already knew were cooked with Skinner anyways, but this just added to it.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

I don’t see how anyone can’t deny Skinner totally froze on a shot that never happened. The right leg kicking forward after the pass is already made shows how much he psyched himself out. Was a big error that costed him any chance to make the save. He has not been in the zone much at all this season.

Skinner doesn't stop pucks in a vacuum. The play included a neutral zone turnover by Bouchard. Ekholm over committing at the blueline which created an odd man rush. Bouchard then follows with soft gap control giving the puck holder a wide open high danger look. Unfortunately the Islander rookie forward sees a wide open sniper teammate and feeds a sweet dish that is one timed bar down by their team's goal scorer who is 72 percentile in finishing. Oiler weak side forward support was late giving a second open look for the wrong guy.

Credit the shooter, a guy whose career shooting percentage is 12.5%. That's how anyone can view this play if one looks at the sequences that lead to Skinner getting beat and not looking 'good.' Skinner got beat, didn't look good, and didn't have 'good' team structure/support.

https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/new-york-islanders/latest-news/maxim-tsyplakov-new-york-islanders-nhl-assists-kyle-palmieri-brock-nelson-assists-per-60

 

[Soundwave]

weird you mention Adin Hill and his .879 save %, who's worse than Skinner this year


throwing assets at "maybes" is just as risky as allowing Skinner to work himself out of it

No it isn't. It gives you another option, it's like saying "I'd rather drown than have any kind of option B because option B isn't 100%".

Doesn't matter if Hill is having a poor start to the season, does their 2023 Cup banner come down because of it? Oh no? They still get to keep that? How much would the Oilers pay to have one of those?

Vegas did some actual work and gave themselves options in net when there wasn't a clear cut no.1. They have a Cup to go with it because they took a shot on an under the radar goalie who had OK numbers on bad Arizona/San Jose teams and bought low.

Whoever made the call to bring in Hill should be given a massive raise.

The Oilers management are lazy when looking for goaltending, they'd rather just anoint someone the answer because he has a fun mustache and was born near Edmonton.

Just honestly f*** it and bring back Talbot. He is better than Skinner, always was, always has been, is again this year. If Skinner played on LA McDavid/Drai would've lit his ass up like a Christmas tree far worse than that Edm-LA series last spring.

 

[Scrapin Ice]

Skinner doesn't stop pucks in a vacuum. The play included a neutral zone turnover by Bouchard. Ekholm over committing at the blueline which created an odd man rush. Bouchard then follows with soft gap control giving the puck holder a wide open high danger look. Unfortunately the Islander rookie forward sees a wide open sniper teammate and feeds a sweet dish that is one timed bar down by their team's goal scorer who is 72 percentile in finishing. Oiler weak side forward support was late giving a second open look for the wrong guy.

Credit the shooter, a guy whose career shooting percentage is 12.5%. That's how anyone can view this play if one looks at the sequences that lead to Skinner getting beat and not looking 'good.' Skinner got beat, didn't look good, and didn't have 'good' team structure/support.

https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/new-york-islanders/latest-news/maxim-tsyplakov-new-york-islanders-nhl-assists-kyle-palmieri-brock-nelson-assists-per-60

Its a numbers game. Last year we were weak down the right side but improving a bit as the year went along. This year Bouchard has had a disasterous start on both sides of the puck plus Ceci who was far from ideal is still far better than Stecher/Dermott/Emberson.
So being a far amount weaker down one side is something opposing coaches can easily see and focus on.

 

[oobga]

Skinner doesn't stop pucks in a vacuum. The play included a neutral zone turnover by Bouchard. Ekholm over committing at the blueline which created an odd man rush. Bouchard then follows with soft gap control giving the puck holder a wide open high danger look. Unfortunately the Islander rookie forward sees a wide open sniper teammate and feeds a sweet dish that is one timed bar down by their team's goal scorer who is 72 percentile in finishing. Oiler weak side forward support was late giving a second open look for the wrong guy.

Credit the shooter, a guy whose career shooting percentage is 12.5%. That's how anyone can view this play if one looks at the sequences that lead to Skinner getting beat and not looking 'good.' Skinner got beat, didn't look good, and didn't have 'good' team structure/support.

https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/new-york-islanders/latest-news/maxim-tsyplakov-new-york-islanders-nhl-assists-kyle-palmieri-brock-nelson-assists-per-60

I mean, Skinner would have given himself the same chance to stop that shot if he just sat down on the ice and closed his eyes. It's not unreasonable to expect the goalie to be able to read a 2 on 1 situation and consider the possibility of a pass. As soon as Ekholm gambled and lost, it was a 2 on 1.

Yeah, other mistakes were made, but that was a pretty poor display by Skinner that aligns with a long pattern of a weakness in his game. it's worth talking about and pointing out.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

I mean, Skinner would have given himself the same chance to stop that shot if he just sat down on the ice and closed his eyes. It's not unreasonable to expect the goalie to be able to read a 2 on 1 situation and consider the possibility of a pass. As soon as Ekholm gambled and lost, it was a 2 on 1.

Yeah, other mistakes were made, but that was a pretty poor display by Skinner that aligns with a long pattern of a weakness in his game. it's worth talking about and pointing out.

Funny. Maybe. But had his teammates made any number of better decisions in front of him a kill shot one timer by a top percentile finisher doesn't happen. Lots of hypotheticals starting with Bouchard not throwing away an open zone exit to create a neutral zone transition play. Ekholm going for a skate to engage at the blueline. Weakside winger support skating hard on the turnover to take away the Palmeri cross ice pass option Reality was a sequence of bad decisions that led to a flailing goaltender who can't stop a bar down cross ice one-timer from one of two wide open high danger shot options.

I'm all for talking about average to mediocre goaltending. It's largely a systemic issue for this franchise. I also believe it's fair to view the situational play and mistakes that add up to end in the Oilers net. I love Ekholm but watching him on his knees on the empty net tying goal after his bad blueline read on the Palmieri kill shot. Worth pointing out as well.

 

[oobga]

Funny. Maybe. But had his teammates made any number of better decisions in front of him a kill shot one timer by a top percentile finisher doesn't happen. Lots of hypotheticals starting with Bouchard not throwing away an open zone exit to create a neutral zone transition play. Ekholm going for a skate to engage at the blueline. Weakside winger support skating hard on the turnover to take away the Palmeri cross ice pass option Reality was a sequence of bad decisions that led to a flailing goaltender who can't stop a bar down cross ice one-timer from one of two wide open high danger shot options.

I'm all for talking about average to mediocre goaltending. It's largely a systemic issue for this franchise. I also believe it's fair to view the situational play and mistakes that add up to end in the Oilers net. I love Ekholm but watching him on his knees on the empty net tying goal after his bad blueline read on the Palmieri kill shot. Worth pointing out as well.

yeah, I don't fault Skinner for the other goals. The 3 guys watching a guy in the slot put in the tying one was brutal.

Ek's minutes have gone up this year. Bouch's too. They are both starting to play like they are putting too much pressure on themselves to be the guys doing everything on the back end. Leading to a lot of overzealous plays. Might be something with a lot of guys on the team, our lack of being able to finish has to be getting in players heads a bit, but it burns a lot faster when defensemen are doing it.

 

[Drivesaitl]

weird you mention Adin Hill and his .879 save %, who's worse than Skinner this year


throwing assets at "maybes" is just as risky as allowing Skinner to work himself out of it

How does Skinner work himself out of having piss poor mobility, puck handling, bad rebound control, poor butterfly form etc? The working through Skinner problems is always requring the team to play airtight hockey and eliminate virtually everything to allow Skinner to get to 2GA games. The trouble with the formula is it always leads the Oilers to at some point be running on fumes Last game was a picture perfect example of how much more effort is requred to get the W due to Skinner constantly giving goals back the the Islanders who had hardly anything going on the day. In this way you may win the battle occasionally because you get 4 superstar goals but its longterm untenable and you lose the war eventually.

I just don't get this notion that Skinner works himself out of it. He has occasional games where he finds luck and ways to compensate for his shortcomings. But most of what we see when Skinner is having "good stretches" is the team doing it for him. To a degree that tires the team.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

yeah, I don't fault Skinner for the other goals. The 3 guys watching a guy in the slot put in the tying one was brutal.

Ek's minutes have gone up this year. Bouch's too. They are both starting to play like they are putting too much pressure on themselves to be the guys doing everything on the back end. Leading to a lot of overzealous plays. Might be something with a lot of guys on the team, our lack of being able to finish has to be getting in players heads a bit, but it burns a lot faster when defensemen are doing it.

I have more issue with Skinner on the goal scored where he goes behind the net but doesn't play the puck. His d-men need certainty from their goaltender. As well, I have issues with Skinner's bad habit to push out pucks into high danger areas instead of covering them. He can create unnecessary chaos with his poor processing.

I'm not sure about Ekholm Bouchard putting too much pressure on themselves. Maybe Bouchard with the pending contract has more wobbles in his game. The Stack Five heavily tilt the ice and do so in part with smart, aggressive plays by Bouchard and Ekholm. That said, with this season's slow start they haven't been immune to that mindset leading to quality, not necessarily quantity, rush attacks the other way.

Knoblauch has managed the d-corp losses through deployment with heavy reliance on top pair and situational use of a middle pair Nurse Kulak while building up Emberson's confidence and experience with third pair time and quality of competition. It required managing the two veteran journeymen playing a largely sheltered 13/13:30 situational play. Add on the team's low scoring and terrible specialty teams and there are a lot of ways this team and its top heavy core has been slow to deliver team results. Mediocre goaltender is a part of the equation too

 

[Drivesaitl]

I credit elite shots/shooters for both goals. The biggest difference in two goals in question is the Oilers soft gap control by Bouchard (after Ekholm gambled at the blueline to create an odd man rush) and their wing support also caught up the ice gave two wide open, high end scoring opportunities - the one that Skinner squared up to stop and then the smart dish to an elite shooter who wired a quality one-timer with no defender threat. The elite NYI tender got beat low glove with a decent defender gapped up to Bouchard.

Very few goaltenders have the athletic ability and flexibility to move laterally to stop the Palmeri one-timer. It's certainly not going to be Skinner facing down two wide open high danger shooter options. Smart dish to feed the Islander's hard shooting, accurate sniper (backed by NHLEdge metrics).

Want to talk big picture. I can agree. But looking at the specific situations last night we'll disagree.

Overall miscues occur. The Oilers made few, and when they did Skinner wasn't stopping a beachball. To wit the Islanders had two good offensive sequences in third period, they had 3HDSC and Skinner was scored on both times and allowing the third HDSC through terrible rebound control. Perfection largely doesn't exist. You mitigate and suppress chances/shots allowed and the Oilers did that impeccably, good as it gets the last 2 games completely limiting the opposition and their chances. Skinner still gives up 6 goals on around HDSC. So I don't understand in this fixation on what the team did in front on a few occasions when overall the team in front was impeccable. The Occams razor in this is that anytime theres a breakdwon we're getting a goal light flashing. This was the trouble last season too to start. Goaltending, and mostly Skinner jeopardized our season start last season and doing it again.

The Islanders allowed 15HDSC and were flat out caught passing the puck to Oilers superstars on several occasions in own zone. It was a gongshow performance by the Islanders and their goalie still held it to 3 regulation GA and was the only reason Islander were even in this. Again reverse goalies and we put up a ten spot on Skinner. That bad.

 

[McDNicks17]

With Skinner being statistically the worst goalie in the league at rushes with east-west passes, I'm surprised they haven't tried playing them differently.

They legitimately might be better off laying out the red carpet for the puck-carrier and giving them an almost partial breakaway rather than letting them pass across ice.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Overall miscues occur. The Oilers made few, and when they did Skinner wasn't stopping a beachball. To wit the Islanders had two good offensive sequences in third period, they had 3HDSC and Skinner was scored on both times and allowing the third HDSC through terrible rebound control. Perfection largely doesn't exist. You mitigate and suppress chances/shots allowed and the Oilers did that impeccably, good as it gets the last 2 games completely limiting the opposition and their chances. Skinner still gives up 6 goals on around HDSC. So I don't understand in this fixation on what the team did in front on a few occasions when overall the team in front was impeccable. The Occams razor in this is that anytime theres a breakdwon we're getting a goal light flashing. This was the trouble last season too to start. Goaltending, and mostly Skinner jeopardized our season start last season and doing it again.

The Islanders allowed 15HDSC and were flat out caught passing the puck to Oilers superstars on several occasions in own zone. It was a gongshow performance by the Islanders and their goalie still held it to 3 regulation GA and was the only reason Islander were even in this. Again reverse goalies and we put up a ten spot on Skinner. That bad.

Perfection doesn't exist. The Islanders got what they paid for in their elite goaltender and took the limited opportunities afforded by Oiler mistakes to score. He's essentially their Leon Draisaitl salary and player value. There's about 4-5 elite goaltenders in the NHL of which I count Sorokin as one.

The empty net tying goal again was a sequence of mistakes, clean face-off loss; Bouchard with soft gap control; Ekholm for some reason on his knees instead of aggressively denying high danger ice for the shooter. If that had been Nurse many posters would lose their shit.

The Oilers are among the league's elite in tilting the ice. It stands to reason with their cap heavy investment in elite offensive talent and the best generational player of the modern era. But they still give up quality, not necessarily quantity, of high danger opportunities. Skinner will never be Grant Fuhr and we don't disagree that he is an average to below average goaltender. Oilers threw money and term at Jack Campbell whose epic meltdown led to a cheap, inexperienced Skinner getting next man up. It's an imperfect bet for an organization that has chosen to spend its money creating goals. Unfortunately they also never prioritized drafting pedigree goaltender prospects either burning up 9 or 10 draft picks over a decade until Skinner kept his head above water.

So, they can either trade for a bonafide upgrade or live with some inconsistency in net because they've valued goal production over suppression.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Perfection doesn't exist. The Islanders got what they paid for in their elite goaltender and took the limited opportunities afforded by Oiler mistakes to score. He's essentially their Leon Draisaitl salary and player value. There's about 4-5 elite goaltenders in the NHL of which I count Sorokin as one.

The empty net tying goal again was a sequence of mistakes, clean face-off loss; Bouchard with soft gap control; Ekholm for some reason on his knees instead of aggressively denying high danger ice for the shooter. If that had been Nurse many posters would lose their shit.

The Oilers are among the league's elite in tilting the ice. It stands to reason with their cap heavy investment in elite offensive talent and the best generational player of the modern era. But they still give up quality, not necessarily quantity, of high danger opportunities. Skinner will never be Grant Fuhr and we don't disagree that he is an average to below average goaltender. Oilers threw money and term at Jack Campbell whose epic meltdown led to a cheap, inexperienced Skinner getting next man up. It's an imperfect bet for an organization that has chosen to spend its money creating goals. Unfortunately they also never prioritized drafting pedigree goaltender prospects either burning up 9 or 10 draft picks over a decade until Skinner kept his head above water.

So, they can either trade for a bonafide upgrade or live with some inconsistency in net because they've valued goal production over suppression.

Fair but cap wise without wasting so much money on buyouts, overpays etc we could've had a better goalie. Even in our division I'd take any Calgary or Vancouver or Vegas cast off over what we've been having in goal. Does the entire McDrai era have to involve subpar goaltending? sigh. Not so much a response to your post but just frustration with where we are in goal.

 

[Whyme]

Skinner doesn't stop pucks in a vacuum. The play included a neutral zone turnover by Bouchard. Ekholm over committing at the blueline which created an odd man rush. Bouchard then follows with soft gap control giving the puck holder a wide open high danger look. Unfortunately the Islander rookie forward sees a wide open sniper teammate and feeds a sweet dish that is one timed bar down by their team's goal scorer who is 72 percentile in finishing. Oiler weak side forward support was late giving a second open look for the wrong guy.

Credit the shooter, a guy whose career shooting percentage is 12.5%. That's how anyone can view this play if one looks at the sequences that lead to Skinner getting beat and not looking 'good.' Skinner got beat, didn't look good, and didn't have 'good' team structure/support.

https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/new-york-islanders/latest-news/maxim-tsyplakov-new-york-islanders-nhl-assists-kyle-palmieri-brock-nelson-assists-per-60

Yes not discrediting the play or the shooter, but I do think many other goalies still could've caught the puck. Skinner might've as well, but first he was too far on the left to start with. If you draw a line from the puck one can see there's plenty of space on the right but none on the left. I see this a lot from Skinner. I wish I knew how to embed a short video but I'd like to attach the video where he kicks forward and turns to wrong direction. He lost the crucial time there and thus didn't have a chance to catch the shot.

Sorry if I repeated myself, but I think there's just no way to justify what you see from Skinner in this one goal. Other than that I agree with you that there was some nice play and I am also not saying they should or shouldn't replace Skinner, it's just this one goal I'm talking about. But there's certainly some things to work on.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Fair but cap wise without wasting so much money on buyouts, overpays etc we could've had a better goalie. Even in our division I'd take any Calgary or Vancouver or Vegas cast off over what we've been having in goal. Does the entire McDrai era have to involve subpar goaltending? sigh. Not so much a response to your post but just frustration with where we are in goal.

I share the frustration. I've never been high on Skinner as a prospect goaltender being more than being a good back-up maybe growing into an average NHL starting goalie. That development path I imagined lasted about 30 games of the Jack Campbell 'era'.

I would have liked an off-season signing or waiver wire pick up of Lankinen. Just to foster a prospective latent growth potential platoon guy to push Skinner. But this organization chooses cheap and known chemistry guy Pickard. Goaltending has been kinda criminally undervalued forever in Edmonton. Something I've always had issue with.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Yes not discrediting the play or the shooter, but I do think many other goalies still could've caught the puck. Skinner might've as well, but first he was too far on the left to start with. If you draw a line from the puck one can see there's plenty of space on the right but none on the left. I see this a lot from Skinner. I wish I knew how to embed a short video but I'd like to attach the video where he kicks forward and turns to wrong direction. He lost the crucial time there and thus didn't have a chance to catch the shot.

Sorry if I repeated myself, but I think there's just no way to justify what you see from Skinner in this one goal. Other than that I agree with you that there was some nice play and I am also not saying they should or shouldn't replace Skinner, it's just this one goal I'm talking about. But there's certainly some things to work on.

Thanks for your post and respectful conversation. I think we're at the fork in the road with our entrenched opinions. Where you see a hypothetical stop capable of other goaltenders I see an elite NHL finisher wiring a great bar down kill shot. Unfortunately however we view the result, it came about preceded by a string of bad decisions in front of him.