The Edmonton Oilers and Buffalo Sabres squared off for a little matinee action at Rogers Place on Saturday afternoon, and even though it wasn’t the prettiest effort we’ve ever seen, the boys still managed to grind out a 3-2 win.

As weird as this may sound, the Oilers would not have been in this game without Stuart Skinner. Stu was fantastic from start to finish, and the Oilers needed him to be. On one of Buffalo’s power plays, they put eight shots on net, and they could have been in real trouble had it not been for Skinner being dialled in. It was one of those games where the Oilers looked like they thought winning would be easy, and the result was a long list of grade-A chances that Skinner had to deal with.

The good news is that he was up for the challenge and gave his teammates a chance to win, even though they could have easily been down by a field goal or more. Had it not been for Skinner’s brilliance between the pipes, we would have been talking about a loss to one of the league’s worst teams, but they ended up with two points because their goalie was dialled in. Sometimes you need your netminder to steal one, and I would absolutely classify this win as one of those nights. What I am curious to find out, though, is if anyone wh0 says Skinner can’t make big saves when the team needs him are willing to give him flowers for that performance. I would say he earned it after 39 saves and a .951 save percentage.

If you think I’m not going to give Ryan Nugent-Hopkins props for scoring his 14th goal to tie the game at two apiece, then you’re either new here or don’t understand how pumped I am that the guy is turning his season around. Not done there, Nugent-Hopkins ended up with the game-winner after taking a backdoor pass and lifting it over James Reimer’s glove hand. With the pair of goals, Nugent-Hopkins has now registered seven points (4G, 3A) in his last six games, and I love how he’s been stepping up over the last couple of months after producing only a single goal through the first 19 games.

I know I keep repeating myself over and over with this point, but I cannot stress enough how important it is for this team to have him rolling the way he is now. Even though he’ll never get the love and attention that McDavid and Draisaitl get ahead of him in the lineup, he’s showing with this current run exactly why he’s still a critical piece in the Oilers’ top six. So, to see him get a greasy goal to tie up the game for the second time was the exact kind of contribution we needed from him. I know I’m not talking out of school when I say that he’s playing his best hockey of the season right now, and I’ll be praying to the Gords that he’s able to keep it going.

I don’t know what it is about a good revenge goal that I love so much, but I had a feeling that Jeff Skinner would get one against the team that just bought him out. Not only did I say he would score in Saturday’s GDB, but I also threw a few dimes on it just for good measure. So, as you can imagine, I was pretty pumped when he popped one late in the first period to tie the game at one apiece. Not only did I win some decent cash on the goal, but I was excited for him because you know how good that must have felt.

There’s little doubt that Jeff Skinner isn’t having the season a lot of us hoped he would when he signed on July 1st, but to see him get a big moment like he got against the Sabres was a nice chance of pace from the usual noise surrounding him. And who knows if we’ll ever get more out of him than we’re getting right now, but on this Saturday, at least for a moment, Jeff Skinner was the guy we needed him to be. Even if it’s only one game, I loved seeing him get that success.

I know this has nothing to do with the game, but I want to shout out the amazing crew who watched the Oilers game with us at the Jasper Park Lodge. Despite being a small group, there was a lot of energy in the room and that always makes for a fun game day experience. Not only was it great to watch the boys come up with a big win but to do it in that setting was an extra layer of wonderful. The people who come to this event every year are always so amazing, and it really does make the weekend.

1. Ladies and gentlemen, Connor McDavid will be back in the lineup next game. I missed him, and I’m excited to see him back in the mix.

2. Why are the Oilers so bad with the empty net? I don’t know what it is about this team and missing opportunities to close games out with an ENG, but they just cannot bury those pucks.

3. The Oilers’ special teams struggled mightily on Saturday afternoon. On the PK, the boys ended up being a perfect 3-for-3 but they struggled to defend the pressure that Buffalo was heaping on them in waves. They didn’t fare much better on the power play either, and got shut out in the lone opportunity they had with the man advantage.

4. The NHL’s boxscore said that the Oilers only gave the puck away 15 times, but I don’t think that number is very accurate.

5. Hey… Ryan McLeod didn’t score!

6. Do I love daylight faceoff stats as much as when the games are played at night? Yes. Yes, I do. Thankfully, the Oilers won 50.8% of them.

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