The Edmonton Oilers are second in the NHL in xGF at 5 on 5 but sit 16th in actual goals for. They have the 8th lowest PDO in the NHL. Put all of these elements together and it suggests that the Oilers would eventually break open and score goals in bunches. We saw that begin to happen in their game on Saturday night against arguably their biggest Canadian rival at the moment in the Vancouver Canucks.

Draisaitl, Perry, Arvidsson, Brown x2, McDavid, and Kulak all got on the board against the Canucks and after watching plenty of games where the Oilers should have 3 or 4 goals and only had 1, it was nice to see things go the other way. Obviously we will not see that type of offensive output on a nightly basis, but hopefully Edmonton is starting to get back to a balance of scoring at the pace that the underlying numbers suggest.

There was some noise made at Stuart Skinner looking visibly angry at his team following the victory, triggered specifically by the goal against on the late Vancouver powerplay. There are a couple ways to read into the moment; the first being that Skinner was frustrated at his team (specifically) Nurse for the shoddy work on the penalty kill, the second being that he was frustrated at himself for allowing that final goal.

Looking at both potential reasons; the penalty kill has been brutal for the Oilers all season and while there are many reasons, the play of Darnell Nurse has been a large factor. His lack of any type of urgency on that final penalty kill and failure to pick up any man was a large factor in that goal being scored.

Darnell Nurse has been on the ice for roughly 50% of the Oilers PK minutes all season... he has been on the ice for 81% of the goals scored against Edmonton.

The second potential reason for the frustration may simply be his own struggles with his game. Skinner has been inconsistent to start the season for the Oilers and while I still do not believe he has cost his team any wins, he also has not played well enough.

Either way, I don't hate seeing this from the Oilers netminder. Even in a 7-3 victory, Skinner is getting angry at a level of play he views as not good enough. That is the type of mentality that winning teams have. A win in November really does not mean much in the grand scheme of an NHL season. However, getting into a habit of acceptable play and standards starting now that will carry over into May, June, and beyond is exactly what the goal for this organization should be.

Thanks for reading.

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