Article content There have been 16 goals scored in eight-and-a-half periods over the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final, but if you’re thinking of pointing the finger at the goalies, forget it. Stu Skinner and Sergei Bobrovsky have been under siege. “I don’t think we talk about the two goalies enough in this series. There’s been some great saves on high-end chances at both ends. There’s some world-class shooters here and there’s really good shots that don’t look like much at the time but when you watch the video later…I’m telling you, both goalies have been outstanding,” said Florida coach Paul Maurice after the first two exhilarating OT games to kick things off in Edmonton before Game 3 in Florida Monday night. “We’ve had a 4-3 game and a 5-4 game, and both teams are playing well defensively. That’s how good the offence has been and with that… I’m behind the bench, I’m thinking the games could be 8-7 and we could still be happy with the game because of great goal-tending.” No argument from Oiler coach Kris Knoblauch. “I thought Stu had a tremendous Game 2, a couple of breakaways (goals) and another on a shot that was going wide except it hit one of our defencemen’s body,”said Knoblauch. “Stu’s been phenomenal for us since coming back in the Vegas series.” Bobrovsky has faced 92 shots in two games and stopped 84, with only one he would definitely like back, the shot from Viktor Arvidsson in Game 1 that he misplayed with his glove. But, not much bothers Bob. “He’s kind of this zen dude in net,” said Maurice Skinner, also Mr. Placid most of the time, has handled 74 shots and stopped 66, with only the Brad Marchand OT winner looking a little awkward as Marchand dribbled a shot through his pads on the breakaway. Bob made a fantastic save on Bouchard on a 3-on-2 early in the second with the Oilers trying to get up by two goals (4-2). Skinner earlier robbed Marchand in OT with a snow-angel pad save, in alone, to keep it tied. Public Enemy No. 1 Florida centre Sam Bennett has a lot of “accidental on purpose” about him, especially when there’s a goalie around, but if you are in Oiler Nation, you probably can’t totally cast large stones here. Oiler winger Corey Perry has fallen on a few goalies in a career that might get him to the Hall of Fame. That said, backing up and falling on the left leg of Skinner in the wild first period in Game 2 looked premeditated, even if Bennett pleaded ignorance about any intended malice, post-game and all he got was a slap-on-the-wrist minor penalty. Presumably, the NHL’s Dept of Player Safety (we use the term safety very loosely by some of their decisions) is paying attention to Mr. Bennett. “I was pushed (by Mattias Ekholm). I think the goalie kicked out my heel that made me fall,” said Bennett, who didn’t have his hand on a bible as he took the stand, though. The real heel in Oiler Nation is clearly Bennett, but we digress. Maybe Kevin Bieksa put it best after the first 20 minutes. “There’s an awful lot going on out there and not around the puck,” he said. Like when Bennett casually kicked Ekholm’s fallen stick away just as the Oiler defenceman was bending down to grab the twig, with Florida scoring on a power play in the first frame. Tracking a prospect While the Oilers have rolled into the Cup final, London Knights’ right-shot centre Sam O’Reilly, their first-round 2024 pick after they traded up with Philadelphia to take him at No. 32, was dynamite for the London Knights in their recent Memorial Cup victory. He had 71 points in 62 league games, 22 in 17 OHL playoff games and five points in five Memorial Cup games as the Knights won it all. He was fifth in Memorial Cup points. “I really like Sam. He plays hard and he’s smart. I think after one more year in junior, he could be ready (NHL),” said Craig Button, TSN’s draft guru, who didn’t dispute the idea that Sam O’Reilly plays a similar style to Ryan O’Reilly. The Oiler draft pick has third-line NHL centre written all over him. Get on your horse, Gus Florida’s Gustav Forsling, Sweden’s best D man heading into the Olympics, had a tremendous Game 2 with his skating and his terrific stick on Oiler rush chances, on top of his dives to block shots. “He’s one of the elite skating defencemen in our league, and most of those elite guys have a completely offensive bent,” said Maurice. “If you skate that well as a young man, you’re put into offensive situations, like being a power play guy but he’s taken that skill and applied it to the defensive side of the game.” “To fully appreciate it, you have to be down at ice-level to see how fast Connor McDavid is and Leon Draisaitl. The Oilers have a really fast team overall, and he (Forsling) excels at that game,” said Maurice. This ‘n that: For all of Bennett’s villainous behaviour, he’s a heckuva player, and a surefire Canadian Olympian next February in Italy, unless he gets hurt. He leads the playoffs with 13 goals, 12 on the road in the Panthers’ 12 away games. That’s an NHL record for road goals in a playoff season. Thoughts of him getting, say, $9 million AAV for seven or eight years as a free-agent July 1 are probably misguided, though, because he’s a No. 2 C, not a No. 1. The Panthers are most likely not paying him more than Sam Reinhart’s $8.63m AAV… That Darnell Nurse-Brett Kulak second D pairing isn’t working through the first two games, and they need a shake-up. Best idea: move lefty Jake Walman (plus 11), the Oilers second-best defenceman behind Bouchard, alongside Nurse and have the lefty-righty with Kulak and John Klingberg in the third pair, but off Sunday’s practic,e Paul Coffey isn’t listening. He threw all the pairs in a blender. Nurse with Bouchard, Walman with Kulak, Ekholm and Klingberg. On game day? Likely TBD… Connor Brown doesn’t seem as energetic on the third line as he was before he took that hard hit from Alex Petrovic in the Dallas series and possibly suffered some concussion-type issues… Is it just me, or are we all waiting for Trent Frederic to show more, and wondering if that high ankle sprain is still compromising his play? One goal and four points and only 19 shots in 18 playoff games. He’s a big body and the Oilers are likely trying to re-sign him before he hits free-agency July 1, but there aren’t a lot of thumping hits… Reinhart, who took an open-ice hit from Carolina’s Sebastian Aho in round 3, has been a shadow of his usual dangerous self through the first two games with no points and -3. He missed the net cleanly on an OT breakaway in Game 2, unlike him. It looked like he hurt his left hip or leg on the Aho smack. Florida captain Sasha Barkov, Reinhart’s linemate, hasn’t arrived in the series yet, either, but he’s not hurt. He has zip for points and is -4… Sad news that former Oilers first-round pick winger Scott Metcalfe passed suddenly on Friday at 58. Metcalfe was the 20th overall pick in the ’85 draft, but he had little chance of cracking the powerhouse Oilers in those days, and he only got into two Oiler games before they traded him to Buffalo for defenceman Steve Dykstra in 1988. Metcalfe played just 19 NHL games (17 for the Sabres), over 500 AHL games, and several years in Europe… Aaron Ekblad, who took a shot off the back of his left hand by Nurse in OT and looked in major distress as he tried to get off, is fine according to Maurice, but of course, we don’t force coaches to take lie detector tests in the playoffs. The Panthers could have been called for too many men on the play because Ekblad was five feet from the bench when the defender jumped on for him and got in the way of Arvidsson along the boards, but the zebras took a pass on calling it… The Oilers signed Euro free-agent forward Viljami Marjala, who became a free agent June 1 when the Buffalo Sabres chose not to sign the drafted player in the two-year window after taking him from Quebec (junior) Remparts in 2023. He played junior for Patrick Roy with the Blues’ Zach Bolduc as a teammate. He’s small (176 pounds), but the LW/C did have 52 points for TPS Turku, 12th in scoring, no mean feat for a 22-year-old, who was going to play for Karpat in the Liiga until the Oilers came calling. He’s a passer (44 assists, eight goals)… Oiler farmhand Drake Caggiula won’t be back. Word is he is looking at Switzerland… Oilers didn’t see enough upside in their draft D Luca Munzenberger over four years of college (Vermont), and he’s likely signing in his home country, Germany. Bookmark our website and support our journalism:Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here. You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun. Share this Story : The Oilers' Skinner and Panthers' Bobrovsky have been solid, despite the scoreboard Copy Link Email X Reddit Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr