Good morning, everyone, and a happy Monday to you all. I’ve got a fresh mailbag ready to go, after taking your questions and sending them to the crew for their take on whatever’s on your mind. This week, we’re discussing the Stuart Skinner, the Oilers’ penalty kill, Darnell Nurse’s slash, and more. If you’ve got a question you’d like to ask, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk, and I’ll get to you as soon as I can.

I think it gets overblown. If the team plays poorly, and he is part of it, yet most only look to him as the blame. Skinner is very resilient and right now he’s playing great. The four remaining goalies their numbers aren’t that much different.

Bobrovsky: .911Sv% and 2.12 GAA.
Andersen: .907Sv% and 2.01 GAA.
Oettinger: .906Sv% and 2.76 GAA.
Skinner: .902Sv% and 2.66 GAA.

And in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, Skinner has the best numbers:

Skinner: .936Sv% and 1.64 GAA.
Bobrovsky: .915Sv% and 2.08 GAA.
Oettinger: .905Sv% and 2.62 GAA.
Andersen: .885Sv% and 2.26 GAA.

Sure, at times you’d want Skinner to be a bit more consistent, but you can say that about a lot of other goalies and a lot of players.

I mean, you’d love to have a goalie who, game in and game out, gives you .910 goaltending but the problem is that there are very few goalies in the league who can do that. The position is very volatile and while Skinner’s floor is very low, he’s shown once again in these playoffs that when he is on, he is more than capable of stealing games for the Oilers. I won’t call it an issue but I hope that as he gets more experienced, he finds a way to raise his floor a little bit.

Is he the boom or bust or the team? It feels like the team collapses around him, and then he takes the blame on me, especially regarding the penalty kill. Stuart Skinner has a high ceiling and can steal a game from time to time. Unfortunately, some people want him to do it every night, and he’s incapable.

Wins are what matter most and he’s been getting them. His Game 3 performance was very impressive, finding the middle ground of his game. He looks dialed in right now.

There’s no doubt that Skinner has been up-and-down through the playoffs, but I’d also argue that the team in front of him can be just as chaotic. I’m sure we’ve all seen how the Oilers allow more quality shots from the slot than nearly any other post-season team, so a big part of his struggles, I believe, are tied to the play in front of him.

They have improved after a dreadful start v. LA. Game 1 v. Dallas will hurt their overall % for a long time. They allowed three goals on four chances. In the other seven games v. VGK and DAL they only allowed three PP goals. The PK cost them Game 1, but it hasn’t been an issue in other games. The Game 3 loss to Vegas the PK didn’t allow a goal. When the PK is good they attack as a unit. Blocking more shots will help, and getting clears when they have possession is key.

They miss on a lot of opportunities to clear pucks out and that’s why I’m happy they’ve started playing Evan Bouchard on the PK. He’s good at that. I want to see them keep getting more aggressive as well. When they’re passive, that’s when they allow a lot of their dangerous looks.

They changed their style midway through the Vegas series, so I don’t like to look at the number as a whole. It was 59.3% after eight games, but in the last five games, it’s 75%. Still, it’s not an ideal number, but when you consider they’ve only allowed a power play goal in one of those five games, it’s not the worst. The kill in the third period of the Dallas game was overblown. The Stars executed perfectly, and the bigger problem was the penalties taken, more than the kills. In Game 2, they adjusted well, preventing passes to the top and forcing easier shots on goal for Stu. Also, they allowed Skinner to see the puck more, which they didn’t in Game 1.

Mattias Ekholm getting healthy would be a big boost to that unit, but I’ve noticed they’ve been at their worst on it when they’re playing passively. Being harder on the puck carrier forces mistakes.

I think they chase a little bit too much instead of giving teams more time on the perimeter. When the aggressive play works, the puck is often chipped out of the zone. But when it doesn’t work, there are clear lanes that open up in the coverage that we keep getting burned on.

Skinner’s best game is better and right now he’s at the top of his game. Pickard hasn’t practice with the team yet, and when he does return, he’ll have been out over three, maybe four, weeks. I’m not putting him in at that time. I’d stick with Skinner.

This one is a no brainer for me. It is Skinner’s net. He’s been very good since getting the net back and I think with the way that the Oilers are playing, going with the high-ceiling option is the play. A confident Skinner gives them the best chance to win.

It’s Skinner’s crease now. Sorry Cal.

It’s Skinner’s all the way.

As much as I love Calvin Pickard, it’s back to being Skinner’s net unless he gives it up again. More importantly, I just want Pickard to get healthy in case we do need him again.

It is a slash you see often in the NHL. It was a clear penalty. It turns out it was very well-placed. I thought it was a tad ridiculous how many people thought Hintz was faking. It clearly got him in the right spot. Often guys will get slashed in a similar place, but there isn’t enough damage to see the player miss a game. It was also embarrassing for some to claim it should be a suspension. If you want that to be a suspension, then the league will have to start calling slashes much more severely. If you want that, that is fine, but slashes to the skates/ankles occur every game.

It was a two-minute slashing minor. Was it a dirty play? Sure. Nurse knew what he was doing slashing Hintz on the foot. Was there intent to injure? I won’t go that far. The result sucks, you never want to see a guy go down, but plays like that happen quite a bit during the playoffs. Hintz also cross checked Nurse right before. He was willing to engage.

Darnell Nurse slashed Roope Hintz in an awkward spot. He probably meant to get him across the shin pads, more than where he made contact. I’m excited to see Jamie Benn and Mason Marchment try to do something about it in games to come, putting the Oilers on more power plays.

I don’t even think it was a two-minute penalty and I’ll stand by that. Those types of slashes happen all game long, and the only reason Nurse slashed him was that Hintz had just fed him a cross-check in the back.

It was a dumb penalty to take, but the slash was never going to be a major or a suspension. It’s unfortunate that Hintz must have gotten hit on the laces or something, but I had a very hard time believing the NHL was going to give him anything other than the two minutes he deserved. The bigger problem, though, was that it was a bad decision by Nurse in the first place.

They don’t have a game breaker. They also don’t have the players to play different ways. They can’t match Florida’s mix of skilled nastiness. It is a bad matchup for them. I don’t put much stock into the 2009 or 2019 teams, but the 2023 and 2025 Hurricanes clearly don’t matchup to Florida. They need someone like Zach Hyman, Evander Kane or Sam Bennett in their top six to give them an added dimension.

It’s brutal. I think they really benefit from being in the Metro Division. The two teams they played on their way to the ECF were both very flawed. They don’t need to go through a team as good as Tampa or Toronto.

They refuse to play their good players. Jacob Slavin, who is widely known as an elite shutdown defenceman, played 23 minutes in Game 2 while 40-year-old Brent Burns came close to 30 minutes. Jordan Martinook played in 25 shifts in Game 2, but they only gave Andrei Svechnikov, their leading goalscorer, 22 shifts. Just so you know, Martinook played more shifts than Leon Draisaitl in Game 2.

I’ll reference Brock Seguin’s tweet here on this one. There’s been a lot of turnover from that 2019 team, but not a ton from the 2023 group. Since Rod Brind’Amour took over in 2018-19, they have the second most regular season wins, making the playoffs in each season, but just can’t find a way to win the big ones. One has to wonder if a new voice is needed there.

They’re the Toronto Maple Leafs of the conference finals. Same players, same coaches, same results.

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