Oilers need a huge Game 2 out of Stuart Skinner

The Edmonton Oilers go into Friday night down 1-0 to the Dallas Stars in their Western Conference Final best-of-seven series. One key for the Oilers heading into Game 2 will be Stuart Skinner, who in the first game of the series gave up five goals in the third period – three on the power play – leading to a 6-3 win for Stars.

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discuss the Oilers’ goaltending situation and what the 26-year-old Skinner can provide the club as they try to even up the series against the Stars.

Tyler Yaremchuk: One thing the Oilers have been good at over the last two postseasons is bouncing back from a loss. In the last two years, the Oilers are 8-4 coming off a loss. What do you need to see tonight from the Oilers to avoid going down 0-2 in Dallas?

Frank Seravalli: Saves from Stuart Skinner. I’ll start and finish there. Look, we talked about this in-depth yesterday, and I don’t want to harp on it too much, but when I listen to Leon Draisaitl say “we need to get a kill,” I think that’s been misconstrued as him being critical of the penalty kill. I view that as him pointing directly at Stuart Skinner and saying, “You gotta get a stop.”

That’s really the bottom line. I’m not saying it’s all on Skinner, because the parade to the penalty box was stupid at times, and definitely there are some weaknesses and or openings in the kill, but as I mentioned to you, it is acceptable to get a save. It’s acceptable, permissible, for your goalie to bail you out.

There just isn’t enough of that from Stuart Skinner.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…