Edmonton Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner was able to shake off a scary-looking collision with Boston Bruins defender Nikita Zadorov, and it doesn’t appear he has any hard feelings.
The hulking six-foot-six Zadorov absolutely bulldozed Skinner while on a partial break in the first period. He powered straight through the Edmonton goaltender and even knocked him out of the game for a bit as a concussion spotter wanted to make sure he was okay.
Skinner turned out to be more than okay as he was able to return in the second period and pitched a 26-save shutout in a 4-0 victory, his second of the season. After the game, reporters asked about the collision and, more specifically, the lack of response from any of his teammates on the play.
Stu didn’t seem to be all that bothered.
“I wasn’t too worried about it, [Zadorov] is also eight feet tall so I wasn’t expecting anybody to go fists with him,” Skinner said with a big smile.
“They called down & honestly, it’s a smart call. He got me pretty good.”
Stuart Skinner on the NHL’s concussion spotters pulling him from the #Oilers net in the first period after the Nikita Zadorov collision.@Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/FP0fmuPs8b
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) January 8, 2025
Skinner is no stranger to getting hit this season. There have been multiple occasions where he has been on the wrong end of a collision with an opposing player. Luckily, none of those incidents have resulted in a serious injury of any kind.
He did admit, however, that Zadorov got a big chunk of him on this one.
“He got me pretty good, I think that’s the fifth hit I got this year,” Skinner shrugged. “It’s an NHL play, it happens.”
Sometimes, this type of play can cause a lot of bad blood between a player and a goalie. One only has to look at the Ryan Miller/Milan Lucic debacle back in 2011 to see that. Given the playoff history between Zadorov and the Oilers from last year, when he was a member of the Vancouver Canucks, that would make sense in this case.
Yet, it seems like the two players were able to quickly sort through this before the end of the game.
“He apologized at the start of the second period, which was really nice of him to do,” Skinner explained.
Skinner improved his record to 16-8-3 on the season and, perhaps even more importantly, finally found a way to get his overall save percentage to above .900 for the first time all season. It now reads as .902 through his first 27 games of the season.
The Oilers will hope he can continue to get that to rise as they hunt down the Vegas Golden Knights for the top spot in the Pacific Division.