"I can do a lot better": Oilers' Skinner blames himself after another loss
Goaltending was once again the story of last night’s Edmonton Oilers loss to the Vancouver Canucks.
Despite absolutely dominating the Canucks 21-8 on the shot clock in the first period, the Oilers somehow found themselves down 3-1 heading into intermission. Thatcher Demko was incredible in the Vancouver net, while the Oilers struggled to get a save out of Stuart Skinner.
The culprit was goals off the rush, which have plagued the Oilers all season long.
3ļøā£ GOALS IN 3ļøā£ STRAIGHT GAMES! š„ pic.twitter.com/0xuMa1Chsx
— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) November 7, 2023
The final score wound up 6-2 in Vancouver’s favour, with Skinner turning in a .833 save percentage. After the game, much of the talk surrounding the team was on goaltending and how much it has contributed to Edmonton’s terrible start to the season.
“Let in a couple of goals pretty quick and it kind of just killed us a bit,” Skinner told media following the game. “It’s a tough loss.”
"Tough loss."
Stuart Skinner assesses tonightās defeat in Vancouver.@Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/C3TP0PEIif
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) November 7, 2023
Skinner’s record fell to 1-4-1 on the season with the loss. As it stands, his .856 save percentage ranks second-last in the league among goalies who have played at least five games. Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Ilya Samsonov is just .01 worse than Skinner.
Poor defending or not, the lack of a timely save is killing Edmonton’s ability to stay in hockey games.
“I can do a lot better to help my team out,” Skinner admitted. “I’m the goalie, my job is to stop the puck and I let in six, so that’s not a good recipe to win games.
“It’s hard because these guys are working their bags off. They did such a good job, especially in the first period we had like 18 shots after I think seven minutes, it was pretty impressive.”
It would be pretty easy to sit back and say that the Oilers just ran into a red-hot goalie in Thatcher Demko, who leads the league in just about every major goalie stat right now, but Skinner wasn’t going to take the easy way out.
“Demko obviously did a great job,” said Skinner. “But that’s the guy I gotta beat out, I gotta beat out the other goaltender, and I didn’t do that tonight.”
Despite another poor result for Skinner, it is safe to say that the net will be his for the foreseeable future. The Oilers have reportedly run out of patience with veteran Jack Campbell and are now shifting towards giving Skinner a run of games.
We’ll see if that remains true when the Oilers head to San Jose to take on the league-worst Sharks on Thursday.