Wins in hockey aren’t all drawn up equally.

Sometimes you blow a team out with a big offensive performance. Sometimes you get a few lucky bounces that go your way. Sometimes you grind out a close, low-scoring game where not much is happening, and your goaltender steals a performance against a team that has now been shutout in their first three home games of the year.

Beggars can’t be choosers, and in the case of the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night, the latter of those three scenarios played out as Stuart Skinner stood on his head and slammed the door on the New York Rangers for a 2-0 win.

“Goaltending certainly helped us, but, you know, it takes a little more pressure off when you heading on the road when you win your first one, you know, obviously coming here playing against the Rangers wasn’t going to be an easy one,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch.

It was about as ugly of a win as you could imagine, with MoneyPuck’s “Deserve To Win O’Meter” signalling that 85 percent of the time a game like that was played, the Rangers come out on top. But 15 percent of the time, it works 100 percent of the time, and the Oilers get to kick-start their five-game road trip in the win column.

As both teams plotted along, struggling to generate much offence through the first half of the game, things picked up in the latter half. That’s thanks to some great neutral zone play by Kasperi Kapanen to turn over a puck and feed Trent Frederic streaking into the offensive zone. Frederic made no mistake firing a wrist shot that beat Igor Shesterkin for what would be the game-winning goal.

And while Adam Henrique was able to ice the game with an empty-netter in the third period — Edmonton’s second in as many games — it was the performance of Skinner that had everyone talking.

“I think he moved really well,” said Knoblauch. “There was definitely a lot of scoring chances against us, more than we would like to give up, but he played a really strong game and not easy saves.”

A game like this could’ve gone one of two ways. The Oilers, as they may have done in years past, could’ve found a way to lose this game, or they could’ve found a way to gut out the win, as they did, and head into Game 2 of the trip Thursday feeling relieved they didn’t squander it.

“The fact that we snuck out, got the two points, you know, just makes everyone feel a little bit better about themselves and can feel a little more confident playing the next one,” said Knoblauch.

Echoing the sentiment was the man of the hour, Stuart Skinner.

“I think it’s really good for just our morale in general — being able to fight one off, being able to battle grind, you know, win a game and in just a hard way,” said Skinner. “I think that was a man’s game out there and, you know, we’re the way that the guys played, you know, they deserved getting the two points tonight.”

The Oilers will get some reinforcements as the road trip progresses. Jake Walman is expected to play his first regular season game of the year when the team travels to Long Island — and as the road trip continues with stops to face the New Jersey Devils, Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa Senators, Mattias Janmark and Alec Regula are expected to return, too.

Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the Daily Faceoff DFS Hockey Report. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.