Stanley Cup Playoffs Day 35: Skinner, Oilers blank Stars to tie series

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are back, which means that for the next two months, we’ll get non-stop exciting action in the NHL as we witness history in another team looking to win a championship. Here at Daily Faceoff, we’ll be keeping you in the loop of everything that happened in the playoffs, every day until the Stanley Cup is hoisted in June.

There were many facets of the Edmonton Oilers game that could have been blamed for Game 1’s blown lead to the Dallas Stars. Their discipline. Their penalty kill. Stuart Skinner. It wasn’t a pretty game for Edmonton, but they had to learn from it and put on a better performance in Game 2.

And Game 2 was certainly much more improved. The Oilers only gave the Stars two power plays (compared to the five that the Stars took themselves). The Oilers killed both penalties. And not only did they not allow a power play goal, they didn’t allow a goal period, with the Skinner stopping all 24 shots that he faced in a 3-0 win.

It wasn’t a dominant or stifling performance from Edmonton, but it was consistent and it got the job done, particularly in the first two periods, much like Game 1. They outshot the Stars 23-16 in that span, and had a 13-6 edge in high-danger scoring chances and a 2.97-1.68 edge in expected goals.

They were also rewarded with actual goals. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins opened the scoring just six minutes into the first period with a power play marker, and then late in the second period, Brett Kulak and Connor Brown scored just 73 seconds apart to make it 3-0.

The Stars did take over a bit more in the third, but the Oilers managed to hang on this time and not allow anything past Skinner, although it helped that he was also making some excellent saves in the process.

And to make matters worse for the Stars, they lost Roope Hintz in the third period as well, although we don’t quite know the extent of his injury yet.

The Oilers held onto that 3-0 lead and didn’t need to add to it to win. With that, they tie the series and head back to Edmonton with home-ice advantage in what has now become a best-of-five series. Meanwhile, Skinner continues his random trend of either getting shutouts or having a sub-.833 save percentage in the playoffs with his third shutout of the playoffs.