November 13, 2022 by Mike Dashney

For the fifth straight Edmonton Oilers game, the team that scored the first goal, not only won every game, but lead for the entirety of each game.

Fortunately for the visiting squad, Tyson Barrie struck first as the Oilers beat the Florida Panthers 4-2 on Saturday. The Oilers leading scorer from the back picked a fine contest to score his second and third goals of the season. Barrie’s second of the game came four seconds into a power play at 6:53 of the third period to give Edmonton the lead for good.

The Oilers budding young goaltender Stuart Skinner made 40 saves and was the difference in this game. Skinner settled the ship for the Oilers who were outshot 16-0 until Ryan Nugent-Hopkins registered Edmonton’s first shot at 8:53 of the opening frame.

Call Outs:

Dylan Holloway continues to leak chances. I understand that young rookies need to make these mistakes in order to learn how little time and space there is in the NHL, but the leash becomes shorter when it costs your team goals in important games. I’m starting to think that Holloway would be better served playing for the Bakersfield Condors for a while to hone his craft with bigger minutes. For all of Holloway’s efforts, good or bad, he gets to pick up the tab on Saturday evening.

Need to call out every defenseman with the exception of Tyson Barrie. According to Natural Stat Trick, Darnell Nurse was on the ice for two high danger chances for and nine against (seven of which were at even strength). His relative scoring chances (SCF%rel) for the game was –42.5%.

The penalty kill surrendered a goal against for the 14th in 16 games, a trend that needs to end soon. The Oilers were seconds away from escaping without a blemish on Saturday.

Standouts:

Skinner stole this game for his team. Bottom line. According to Natural Stat Trick Skinner stopped 97% of the shots he faces 5v5 and eleven of the 12 high-danger shots against. “I thought it was a goaltender’s duel early in the game,’’
said Head Coach Jay Woodcroft during his interview on Oilers TV on Saturday. “Stuart held the fort for us.”

Connor McDavid leads the team in penalty kill time on ice for the second straight game, and averaged more time than any other teammate during the road trip.

Warren Foegele continues to play with a newfound bravura and contributed to the scoresheet again. This time he did it by starting his own play stripping the puck of one of the best puck protectors in the league in Alexander Barkov, which led to the game-winning goal.

Shout Outs:

Edmonton’s fourth line all had a hand in contributing to the Oilers’ first goal of the game. Nice passing by Derek Ryan and Mattias Janmark with a screen in front by Klim Kostin.

Injured Edmonton forward Evander Kane drove from Tampa to Sunrise to rejoin his team after having major surgery on his injured left wrist.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins potted an empty net goal to help keep McDavid’s point streak alive at 10 games. The Oilers head home with a split of their four-game road trip after coming to South Florida with losses in four of their previous five games.

“It’s big for our team,’’ said Barrie following the game on Saturday. “We’ve kind of been up and down, up and down. We want to find some consistency in our game. So, you know, after a game in Carolina, where we maybe feel like we didn’t have our best It was nice to come back and have a good performance.”

Edmonton spoiled the return of Aaron Ekblad and Matthew Tkachuk to the Florida lineup.