The 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs continued on Saturday with two more games. Here are some key takeaways from all of the action.
Oilers’ goaltending is still a concern
If you are an Edmonton Oilers fan, there are still a lot of reasons to be optimistic, despite the brutal nature of Saturday’s buzzer-beating 4-3 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl are scoring.
The secondary players are pulling their fair share of the weight.
It is a balanced team at the moment with high-end players doing their thing and depth players winning their minutes.
All of those are essential ingredients for a potential championship team.
There is just one big concern that could render all of that meaningless — the goaltending.
Calvin Pickard had taken over the starting role and pulled off six consecutive wins for the Oilers going into Saturday, but was unable to go after being injured late in the team’s Game 2 win. That put Stuart Skinner back into the lineup for the first time since Game 2 of their first-round series against the Los Angeles Kings, and they got a harsh reminder as to why they needed to make the switch.
It would be unfair to pin the entire result of Saturday’s game on Skinner, but he was not anywhere close to good enough, giving up four goals on 24 shots. Along with the brutal play on the game-winning goal, he also let a William Karlsson shot sneak through him in the second period that probably needed to be stopped.
