Edmonton Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner’s game today looks light years better than it did two weeks ago when he got the hook in that opening night 6-0 crash and burn loss to Winnipeg Jets.
Skinner, who got the hook after giving up five goals on 13 shots in half a game to kick off the season, has a .915 save percentage and a 2:38 goals against average in his last five games as the Oilers head to Detroit to kick off a three-game road trip. He’ll probably get the start there, with Calvin Pickard going in the back-to-back Monday night in Columbus before they finish in the resurgent Predators in Nashville Wednesday.
Skinner saw half as many shots as rookie Joel Blomqvist (27 to 50) in the 4-0 win over Pittsburgh Friday but he stoned Erik Karlsson, Noel Acciari, and Kris Letang and had to get through two third-period Penguins power plays for his fifth career shutout.
It was only the second time in eight games the Oilers haven’t given up a shortie, and they dug in to make sure Skinner got the perfect night.
“You saw their effort, even when there were 12, 15 seconds left, we were doing everything we could to keep them out of our zone,” said Skinner. “That gives you a lot of pride in the group. We want to do well on our PK. I know the guys were obviously fighting for me but also fighting for a couple of kills, too.”
The last Oilers penalty was to Connor McDavid for slashing Jack St. Ivany, a little payback maybe after the Penguins defenceman hit the Oiler captain hard along the boards earlier in the game.
Cam Talbot should get the Wings goalie start against the Oilers.
Hip, hip, hooray
The Bison King didn’t get a whole lot of ice-time (11 minutes) Friday for Pittsburgh but Jesse Puljujarvi seems to have re-established himself as a regular NHLer after his double hip surgery and major rehab.
“Once again, I’m stating the obvious but the rehab process that he went through was extensive last year. I give Jesse a lot of credit for his sticktoitiveness and resiliency to work through a very difficult circumstance. His speed is noticeably different from last season, he’s been good on the forecheck, he’s a different player for us,” said Pens coach Mike Sullivan, who had Puljujarvi on a line with Kevin Hayes and Noel Acciari Friday.
Wasting the bubbly
An interesting anecdote in Mike Keenan’s new memoir “Iron Mike, My Life Behind the Bench”, involves ex-Oiler Esa Tikkanen and Donald Trump in the dressing room at Madison Square Garden after the Rangers 1994 Stanley Cup win.
Trump somehow got into the winning celebration and Tikky, ever the jokester, gave Trump a champagne shower, wrecking Trump’s coiffed hair.
“Tik was doing an interview and Trump was trying to have a conversation with him, so he turned around and dumped a bottle of champagne over his head,” said Keenan, who was in his office at the time but laughed when Tikkanen told the story.
Seldom an easy path for NHL goalies
The Penguins, who sent goalie Tristan Jarry, the former Oil Kings’ Memorial Cup winner in 2014, back to Pittsburgh to work with their organizational goalie coach Jon Elkin, have now loaned their $5.38 million titular No. 1 tender to their AHL farm team in Wilkes-Barre (conditioning) for the next two weeks.
Is a buyout this summer coming for Jarry, who has three years after this season, left on his contract? They tried to trade him this past summer with no takers.
“This guy (Jarry) has been an important part of our organization for a number of years now. He’s given us a lot of solid goaltending but the first couple of starts for him haven’t been his best. It’s our responsibility to help players through the struggles they inevitably go through.
Players go through challenges,” said Sullivan, before Blomqvist, in his fourth NHL start, was fantastic against the Oilers Friday.
Time to look in the mirror Klim
Enigmatic former Oiler winger Klim Kostin, who was spinning his wheels in St. Louis before he had a revival here for one season before he chased the free-agent money and went to Detroit (two years at $2 million AAV), then was traded to San Jose, was benched the other night against Los Angeles.
He played 5:19 against the Kings, and his coach Ryan Warsofsky disappointed in the 25-year-old’s work ethic.
Kostin has skill and can play a hard-nosed game but just not often enough.
“He just wasn’t giving us much and that’s why he didn’t play,” said Warsofsky, who didn’t play Kostin after the eight-minute mark of the middle period.
This ‘n that
- With so few right-shot D available at the trade deadline, we suspect the Oilers are casting a wider net, including the lefty defensive top 4 defenders, and maybe rejigging their pairs. And, yes, Penguins UFA Marcus Pettersson, 28, would fit here. Contract talks on an extension for him have been put on hold. He’s probably in the $5.025 million AAV range of Dallas’s Esa Lindell on the open market next July. He provides, in the hockey parlance of the day, “length” as a defender at 6’3”. But he’s slight at 177 pounds…
- The Oilers assigned winger Roby Jarventie to Bakersfield after Friday’s game. Jarventie, who came to Oilers for Xavier Bourgault, had a knee issue in camp and didn’t play any games. His $107,000 cap hit comes off the Oiler books now…
- McDavid, 10 points from 1,000, was held off the points sheet Friday for the second time in the eight games. He’s had two games (Carolina, Philly) with two points, and four others with just a single point. Slow start for him, needless to say, just like last season when he had nine points in his first nine games…
- There should be an interesting special-teams battle between Oilers and Wings Sunday. Detroit has second worst PK and Oilers are the worst…
- Wings’ Lucas Raymond, fresh off his $64.6 million eight-year-deal, is a point-a-game player. He has 80 points in his last 90 NHL games…
- With Nick Bjugstad cleared to play (upper-body injury) for Utah, onetime Oiler winger Kailer Yamamoto found himself on waivers and he cleared Saturday, after playing just three games for them in the first month. He’s been sent to their Tucson AHL farm team. A blow but Yamamoto’s minor-league salary is still $500,000, and, let us not forget Red Wings are paying Yamamoto $533,000 this season as part of a buyout…
- Zach Hyman is still looking for his first goal but not only did he have six shots against Blomqvist but five others were missed attempts. He’s close to finally scoring…
- Darnell Nurse had one fight last season (Brenden Dillon) but has had two in the first month, with Michael McCarron (Nashville) and Pettersson Friday night…
- Corey Perry’s career is very much on the back nine, turning 40 in the spring, but one thing he continues to know how to do is get in front of the net. His blot-out-the-sun screen on Blomqvist was why Mattias Ekholm scored on that long PP shot against Pittsburgh…
- Former Oiler D Cody Ceci is averaging almost 22 minutes a night with the beleaguered Sharks. Tough work for Cody…
- Tough start for former Oiler farmhand winger Raphael Lavoie who has one assist and is minus 6 for Henderson, Vegas’s AHL farm team…
- Jasper Weatherby, who was at Oiler camp on a tryout, has signed in Pardubice in the Czech Republic.
Bookmark our website and support our journalism:Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.