Tough loss, but there's a lot of the usual HFOil 'after a loss' hyperbole going on.
Look, there's 2 camps. The camp that says we lost because Skinner sucked and the camp that says we lost because our D sucked. I would counter and say that both camps are right. If Skinner just makes one or two tough saves (Or lets in a stinker or two less) we win. If the D doesn't play with more holes than the Titanic, we win. Despite 2 of the 3 pillars of a game (3 of 4 if you count our special teams not being good this game), we still put up 5 and only lost by 1 against the defending champs.
I take solace in the fact that overall, both the things that were so bad tonight (Goaltending and Defence) have actually been pretty good as of late, and we've beaten some pretty good teams in this run. If we get back to form against Boston, then then we can keep going and this can be a bump on the road. If the bad goaltending and D continue, then maybe we can start thinking of grabbing some pitchforks.
Just my 2 cents anyway.
One of the problems is the Oilers kinda expect teams to back off when they hit them with a haymaker, which in fairness is how 99% of these games are supposed to go.
Teams don't respect Skinner and know he's a fraud so they keep coming at us which is not normal.
Vegas played that game down 5-0 like almost no team you see down 5-0 ... most teams call it off at 5-0 ... they kept coming because they played like a team that believed they would break Skinner, and they were almost right.
Same thing tonight, Florida shrugged off an mini avalanche of 3 rapid goals that probably in other situations would sink them and cause them to play down.
But teams don't do that for us because they know Skinner's reputation and know he can be had. In Edmonton some fans and media types view him with rose colored glasses, but the rest of the league, people view him like Team Canada does ... a phony and a fraud.
It's something our team is going to have to learn, you CANNOT let up with a lead or when you think you have full momentum in a game (even at freaking 5-0) because other teams aren't mentally rattled, they play like they know Skinner will cough up a freebie at least once or twice, and they're largely correct.
