Skinner's late-series track record has him back in Edmonton Oilers net
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While there have been a few of them for Kris Knoblauch, Thursday's Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final was only the biggest game of the year for his Edmonton Oilers.
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But if there is one thing he has shown since becoming the head coach of the club partway through last season, it's that he is never afraid to change things up.
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It's a big reason why he is two-for-two in Stanley Cup Final appearances in his short time as an NHL head coach.
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It doesn't always pay off, of course. But for Knoblauch, things tend to work out more often than not when he pulls the trigger on a defenceman here, a forward there, and — perhaps most effectively over the past two playoff runs — his starting goalie.
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Stuart Skinner might have been coming off a 6-1 loss to the Florida Panthers in Game 3, where he let in five goals on 23 shots before getting the hook. But this wasn't like the previous time in these playoffs, where he opened Round 1 with back-to-back losses before Knoblauch decided to go with backup Calvin Pickard, which hit the switch for the entire team catapult itself back on track with a six-game win streak.
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Long story short, Pickard got hurt, Skinner came back in and puck-stopped the Oilers to three shutouts on the way to wrapping up Rounds 2 and 3 in five games apiece.
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The Florida series is the first time the Oilers fell back-to-back since the first round, but this time, Knoblauch didn't balk and decided to continue the course with Skinner for Game 4.
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He did, however, swap out some skaters, bringing in the little-used Jeff Skinner for Viktor Arvidsson in his forward lines, and Troy Stecher in for John Klingberg on defence.
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'It's obviously a big game. We felt that we have a lot of good players that have been in and out of the lineup,' Knoblauch said following Thursday's morning skate. 'Some players hadn't seen any game action in the series and we felt that we could use a change, have those guys come in and give us a boost.
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'We've seen it throughout the playoffs where we've made alterations to our lineup and it's benefitted us, and it's been difficult to take those guys out. Not that they've been playing poorly, it's just we feel like we've got something with guys who have been out so we're making some adjustments.'
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Just not in net.
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