“Straight to bed”: Skinner had no interest in celebrating Oilers’ Game 1 win

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Edmonton Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner wasn’t looking to do much celebrating following last night’s win over the Dallas Stars.

Skinner came up huge for the Oilers last night, kicking aside 31 of the 33 shots he faced in a 3-2 win in double overtime. Several of those stops came on high-quality opportunities, including an early breakaway chance from Evgenii Dadonov, followed by a rebound save immediately afterward on Jamie Benn.

After some back-and-forth play throughout, the Oilers were able to win it less than a minute into the second overtime frame thanks to Connor McDavid deflecting home a centring pass from Evan Bouchard.

Despite the thrilling finish, Skinner wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep.

“Straight to bed. I’m going straight to bed,” Skinner said. “I might cold tub for 20 minutes.”

While playing over 20 extra minutes is exhausting in itself, what certainly played a part in fatiguing Skinner was the four-minute minor he and his teammates were forced to kill off early in the first overtime. The 25-year-old was quick to praise the efforts of what has been an excellent penalty-killing group for the Oilers this postseason.

“It was massive getting that PK done,” Skinner said. “Four minutes for them. I don’t think they got a power play goal tonight, so that was just a big effort from those guys. We were just able to use that momentum and carried it into the second overtime.”

The Oilers were indeed able to get through this one without giving up a power play goal, killing all five opportunities the Stars had on the man advantage. By doing so, their penalty kill has improved to 92.5% through 13 games this postseason, which leads all NHL teams. They’ll be hoping to continue that trend in Game 2, which is set to get underway tomorrow at 6 pm MT.

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