The 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs continued on Saturday with two extra video games. Listed here are some key takeaways from the entire motion.
Oilers’ goaltending continues to be a priority
If you’re an Edmonton Oilers fan, there are nonetheless quite a lot of causes to be optimistic, regardless of 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 gamers are pulling their justifiable share of the burden.
It’s a balanced group in the mean time with high-end gamers doing their factor and depth gamers profitable their minutes.
All of these are important elements for a possible championship group.
There is only one massive concern that might render all of that meaningless — the goaltending.
Calvin Pickard had taken over the beginning position and pulled off six consecutive wins for the Oilers going into Saturday, however was unable to go after being injured late within the group’s Sport 2 win. That put Stuart Skinner again into the lineup for the primary time since Sport 2 of their first-round collection in opposition to the Los Angeles Kings, they usually received a harsh reminder as to why they wanted to make the change.
It might be unfair to pin your complete results of Saturday’s sport on Skinner, however he was not wherever near ok, giving up 4 objectives on 24 pictures. Together with the brutal play on the game-winning purpose, he additionally let a William Karlsson shot sneak by way of him within the second interval that most likely wanted to be stopped.