Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers goalies had a staring contest and here's why it started
For much of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers, the storyline centred around the two teams’ goalies.
Oilers starter Stuart Skinner headed into the contest a perfect 6-0 in Game 4s in his career, and looking to add another big W to his playoff resume.
While the Oilers pulled off the overtime win, it was backup Calvin Pickard who came in with Edmonton down 3-0 after the first period in hopes of sparking a comeback. On the other side of the ice, Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky gave up five goals for just the second time through 21 postseason games this year.
And it appears that maybe some of the performances between the three goalies taking part in the game could’ve been explained by a little pregame telepathy.
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Sportsnet and TNT cameras caught Pickard and Skinner in a warm-up staring contest with Panthers backup Vitek Vanecek, which appears to have started when the Florida netminder went over to the centre-ice line to try to throw the Oilers off their game.
Vitek Vanecek is back with the pregame shenanigans, messing with Stuart Skinner before Game 4 š pic.twitter.com/wpC4nsYUyF
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) June 12, 2025
With Skinner’s usual pregame routine including a stop by the midway line for a bit of visualization and meditation, Vanecek went to mimic him, before later seeing Pickard also get in on the action.
In a postgame interview, Pickard explained his point of view on the whole matter.
“I was a little rusty, I haven’t chirped in a while,” Pickard said to the TNT panel. “It doesn’t bother [Skinner]. The backup was thinking about getting in his head… but it’s just gamesmanship, I guess.”
While the point of Vanecek bothering Skinner can be debated after
With Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final slated for Saturday night in Edmonton, we can only wonder what sorts of shenanigans will be going down at Rogers Place this weekend.