LAS VEGAS — Stuart Skinner was the Edmonton Oilers’ No. 1 goalie all season, making 50 starts to Calvin Pickard’s 31.
But as Round 2 opens here in Las Vegas with Pickard in between the pipes for Edmonton, does Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch even have a No. 1 anymore?
“Well, right now, I guess our Number 1 is the guy that gets the start, and that’s changing from game to game,” Knoblauch said. “I know there’ll be a time when Stu is back in that net, whether that’s Game 2, Game 4, next round… I don’t know.”
Skinner went 0-2 to open the Round 1 series against Los Angeles, behind a defensively derelict Oilers squad that gave up a ton of clean looks to the Kings. Then Pickard stepped between the pipes, the Oilers stepped up their game and he delivered, becoming the only goaltender in the Stanley Cup Playoffs to string together a 4-0 record.
In a post-season where some of the NHL’s top netminders have posted save percentages well below .900, Knoblauch was asked if splitting the duties may be the way of the future in the NHL.
“Twenty years ago, it was all about one goaltender, and then it started to change,” Knoblauch said. “You look at Vegas’ Stanley Cup, I think they had three goalies that year (Adin Hill, Laurent Broissoit and Logan Thompson all had playoff starts). We’re obviously in that same situation. Last year, we went to Stanley Cup Final, Game 7, and we needed both goalies to get us there.”
As for the skaters, they’re fine with whomever gets the nod.
“Two guys is great. You can always lean on the other guy,” Corey Perry said. “It’s nice to see Picks do what he did last series. But whoever goes tonight goes. It doesn’t matter who’s in net for us, we play the same way.”
Game 1 lineups
The Oilers have dressed the same lineup for four straight games — all wins — for the first time since back in December.
And as the lines have evolved after a season in the Mixmaster, the Oilers have found a way to place a greasy, physical player on each unit. Perry, Evander Kane, Trent Frederic and Vasily Podkolzin bring a physical element to each line, something that should come in handy against the Golden Knights.
“There’s somebody on each line that can get to the front of the net. That’s willing to go to the front of the net,” Perry said. “It’s balanced, and that’s what you (strive for): the balance, and not to lean on the top guys all the time. In playoffs, you need depth to score.”
The other advantage of this newfound depth is that Knoblauch can play Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl together on the top line and still get enough scoring from underneath to win games when the big boys don’t fill the net.
“When you can roll four lines in the playoffs, and get contributions from everybody…?” Perry said. “Your top lines kind of even out their top lines; the top guys kind of wash each other out. It’s the depth guys that are going to really step up and play a big role in how far you can go.”
During the regular season, the Oilers saw 69.9 per cent of their goals scored by someone other than McDavid or Draisaitl. In Round 1 against the Kings, that percentage soared to 81.5 — with the final nine goals coming from everyone else.
No team remaining in the NHL playoffs enters Round 2 with more different goal scorers than the Oilers’ 13.
“There was a lot of uncertainty coming into the playoffs, so many guys coming off injuries: McDavid, Draisaitl, Kane, Frederic, Hyman…” Knoblauch said. “But we were able to get some line regularity in the playoffs, and we pretty much have the same lines across two games — which feels like an eternity with what had gone on the last month of the season.”
Here’s how the Oilers line up:
Draisaitl – McDavid – PerryKane – RNH – HymanFrederic – Henrique – BrownPodkolzin – Janmark – Arvidsson
Nurse – BouchardWalman – KlingbergKulak – Emberson
Pickard
And here is Vegas’s expected set-up:
Karlsson-Eichel-StoneSaad-Hertl-KolesarBarbashev-Roy-SmithOlofsson-Howden-Pearson
McNabb-TheodoreHague-PietrangeloHanifin-Whitecloud
Hill
Loud and louder
T-Mobile Arena is, from the vantage point of a writer, the loudest building in the NHL.
Though the fans are loud and loyal, it has more to do with the Golden Knights’ game presentation. No team cranks the music like Vegas does, and creates a real scene inside the building once the Golden Knights get on a roll.
“Even in regular season, it’s always rowdy,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. “It’s always extremely loud — you definitely feel like you’re in Vegas. It’s a lot of fun to play in regular season, and we got a taste of it a couple years ago in the playoffs.”
Edmonton rolls in with a four-game winning streak intact, and a chance to match their season-high of five games. And they’ve played well here, with a 5-2 mark over the last four regular seasons, going 1-2 here in that Rd. series in ’23.
My pick: Oilers in six.
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