Edmonton Oilers' Corey Perry 'pissed' he didn't fight after Skinner hit
The Edmonton Oilers are holding their breath after goaltender Stuart Skinner left last night’s game with an apparent injury.
It was a tough night for the Oilers, who spotted a 4-0 lead to the Dallas Stars and mounted a late comeback that came up just short in a 4-3 loss. On top of that, Edmonton had to deal with multiple injury scares, with both Zach Hyman and Evan Bouchard going down the tunnel at points.
This is, of course, on top of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl already being out with injuries.
While those players could return to action, the one who didn’t was Skinner, who took an accidental knee to the head from Stars superstar Mikko Rantanen in the third period.
Stuart Skinner has left the game for the Oilers, going down after making contact with Mikko Rantanen pic.twitter.com/OSCMd2PvxH
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) March 27, 2025
The response after the hit was pretty tame, with no Oilers player going after Rantanen, which is almost a given in hockey, regardless of whether the hit was intentional. Corey Perry, in particular, was not happy with how he reacted to the play.
“I was pissed at myself,” Perry told reporters. “I was on the ice when Rantanen hit Skinner, and that’s on me. I should never let that happen… I didn’t see what happened, I saw Stu go down and everyone standing around.
“I didn’t see it until afterwards and I was pretty pissed at myself that I didn’t see it.”
"Other guys have to step up. Can't fill every hole with one player, especially with those guys out. It's good to see everybody came back & hopefully Stu's good."
Corey Perry on the #Oilers facing injuries throughout the game vs. Dallas. @Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/sEMENmscFi
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) March 27, 2025
That wasn’t the only drama involving an Oilers goalie on the night. Calvin Pickard came on in relief of Skinner to finish the game and was almost immediately hit by Sam Steel, who crashed the net on a rush.
This time, it was Jake Walman who took exception as he went after Steel. Both players wound up getting penalties on the play. When Perry was asked if the team was doing enough to protect their goalies, he was once again very candid with reporters.
“We’ll talk about that internally,” Perry said.
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch confirmed that Skinner would not be travelling on Edmonton’s quick road trip to Seattle to play the Kraken tonight. Edmonton is expected to call up a goaltender from the AHL in time for that game.