The Edmonton Oilers are rolling through the middle third of this National Hockey League season like Shaq through the buffet, just trying to keep up to The Team That Never Loses, the Vegas Golden Knights.
“We’ve had some pretty solid games,” said Skinner, who deftly potted his seventh of the season off a handy pass from Kasperi Kapanen. “We want to keep working on the good things in our game, and try to keep this thing rolling.”
On the second night of a back to back — the Oilers beat Anaheim by a 3-2 score in Edmonton the night before — the Oilers were the better team by miles, outshooting Seattle 32-17. The Kraken had just 10 shots on net through the opening 40 minutes.
“We knew coming into that they put a lot on net,” said Nugent-Hopkins, who has goals in three straight and four in his last five games. “So to keep them at 10 through two shows a lot of good signs.”
Yup — the Oilers have found their groove. Their execution is excellent, players are where they’re supposed to be no matter which direction the puck is moving, and it’s difficult for the opposition to score when the blue and orange team has the puck as much as they have over the past six or eight weeks.
“It’s just been getting better,” head coach Kris Knoblauch said of his team’s play. “After the (Christmas) break, the first two games that we played in L.A. and Anaheim, I thought we looked like we were coming back from a break. But tonight it was really good.”
The win holds Edmonton six points back of Vegas in the Pacific, and in a tie for second spot with Los Angeles. Since Nov. 22, the Golden Knights, Kings and Oilers are three of the top four teams in the NHL along with Washington.
The Oilers stayed the night in Seattle and will fly to Boston on Sunday. They’ll practice at Boston University on Monday before a Tuesday game against the Bruins, then the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks on this road trip.
The Oilers have been a .625 road team this season. Since Nov. 8, their .750 points percentage is tops in the NHL.
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Give Jeff Skinner some credit. It wasn’t supposed to go this way when he signed on to be Leon Draisaitl’s left winger back on July 1.
We knew that Skinner had played over 1,000 NHL games without ever playing in a playoff game. But what we perhaps neglected to deduce was, that meant he’d never played like Edmonton, that knows how to win, has been to a Cup Final, and plans on getting back again soon.
The standard here in Edmonton is miles higher than it would when Skinner’s Carolina Hurricanes were missing the post-season, or when he was toiling away on the hapless Buffalo Sabres. And the game he rolled out in Edmonton to start the season immediately drew the ire of the coaching staff, and saw Skinner dropped from the top-six.
He has a no-movement clause, so he can’t go down to the farm. Sending Skinner down to the fourth line to learn what it takes to be helpful to a team at this stage of its evolution is as close as it gets to sending him down to work on his game.
Skinner isn’t whining, he’s working on his craft, and when he does get a chance he’s got the hands of a 35-goal man, a luxury very few teams have on their fourth line. He played with Derek Ryan and Kapanen Saturday.
“An absolute professional,” Knoblauch said of Skinner. “He’s been really solid for us all year.”
Corey Perry took a night off as Ryan got into a game, and the three of them put together an important goal that gave the Oilers a 2-0 first period lead.
“A lot of depth, a lot of good players,” Skinner said of the Oilers bottom-six. “Wherever you’re playing, there’s going to be guys that make plays.”
OIL SPILLS — Draisaitl set up Vasily Podkolzin for the game-opening goal just 57 seconds into the game, stretching his points streak to 14 games (12-15-26). Edmonton is 11-2-1 over that stretch … The Oilers become the first team ever to beat the Kraken in seven consecutive games … Seattle is now 0-5 against teams on the back end of a back-to-back … On Friday against Anaheim, Draisaitl moved past Glenn Anderson into fifth place on the Oilers all-time scoring list, with 907 career points. Up next, Mark Messier (1,034), who was passed last week by Connor McDavid … McDavid went pointless in both ends of this back to back, and the Oilers still collected four points … Connor Brown had another assist, for points in five his past six games, and 5-13-18 in his last 26 games. This is his best stretch ever as an Oiler.
