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New York Times
26-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
LeBrun: Nobody demands perfection from Stuart Skinner — but this is the version the Oilers need
EDMONTON — The harsh view of Stuart Skinner is that he's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. Brilliance on some nights, not so much on others. The more positive view is that there's also a chance you're seeing the most confident version of the Edmonton Oilers netminder, timed up perfectly with the most crucial time of the year. Advertisement The Oilers are two wins away from a return trip to the Stanley Cup Final, courtesy of Skinner's outstanding performance in their Game 3 victory over Dallas on Sunday afternoon, and perhaps the last question mark about this seasoned playoff roster is being answered. Perhaps. Just not 100 percent for sure. Because if there's one comment that gets reiterated the most when I talk to people with other NHL teams about the Oilers surging in this playoff run, it's whether they can get the better version of Skinner just long enough to pull this whole thing off. 'I get why they think that,' Martin Brodeur, the NHL's all-time winningest netminder, told The Athletic via text message Sunday when asked about Skinner's doubters. 'But in wins, he's been great. It's a grind for goalies in the playoffs. The reset really helped him out. Finally found his groove now. It's amazing how people are critical of goalies in conference finals. It's quite an achievement to get there; only four guys still standing after all.' Another Hockey Hall of Fame goalie, five-time Stanley Cup champion, Grant Fuhr, said via text: 'I do think he has steadied things down. It looks a lot like last year, where he had some tough games but was very resilient and bounced back.' It reminds me a bit of Darcy Kuemper with the 2022 Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche. No one was expecting him to be the single biggest reason that the Avs reached the promised land; he just needed to be steady enough not to drop a grenade on their journey. On Sunday afternoon at Rogers Place, the Oilers got more than what they normally need from Skinner. He stole some big moments in the middle of the game, when the Oilers were being outplayed by the Stars. He was named the game's first star for his 33-save effort. He was spectacular by any measure in his team's 6-1 win. Advertisement 'I thought we were fortunate to be up after 40 (minutes), but I thought Stu did a great job,' said Oilers superstar captain Connor McDavid. 'We played really solid in front of him in Game 2 and not so solid tonight. He gave us a chance to get our legs into it. And gave us a chance to win.' That included a 21-shot barrage in the second period by the Stars, who could only beat him once. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Stars had a 16-4 scoring-chance advantage in the middle period. 'They brought a ton of speed, they got a lot of O-zone time, had some good chances,' Skinner said. 'At that point, we're just trying to keep things at zero, keep things at bay. We knew that was going to happen. They were down 2-0 at that point and we knew they were going to come out hard and give everything that they had. They definitely did that. They were definitely the better team in the second period.' The body language in the last two games has said it all. Skinner is feeling it. A shutout in Game 2, a big-time performance in Game 3. Can he keep it rolling? 'I wish I felt it all the time,' Skinner said of being in that zone right now. 'That's just something that comes with it. For myself, coming out of last game, too, I felt really good. I'm just trying to do my best to keep that going.' Just over a month ago, he lost the net after being pumped for 11 goals in the opening two games of the first-round series against the Kings. An injury to Calvin Pickard re-opened the door for Skinner on May 10. He hasn't looked back. 'Having (to sit) on the bench for a while seems to be a pretty good remedy for lots of players,' an NHL goalie coach said via text message Sunday. 'I also believe that a goalie in today's game, especially, is largely a function of his team, and (the Oilers) must be playing a very solid defensive game.' Advertisement I asked Skinner on Sunday if that time on the bench, while agonizing, allowed him to reset and come back with some confidence. 'I felt confident before, but yeah, that's the life of an NHL goaltender,' he said. 'Picks was fantastic coming in, obviously. It gave me a chance to work on some things. Clear the head a little bit. But yeah, I've been confident the whole time, even when I came back — first game we lost and I let in four (goals). I let in five against Dallas (in Game 1). It hasn't all been perfect.'' No one's asking for perfection. Just a steady presence back there. One thing that's apparent from being around the Oilers the last few years is how much his teammates cheer for this guy. 'Everybody has times where you feel good about your job and times when you don't, and it just amplifies when it's the goalie because he's the last line of defense,' Oilers winger Zach Hyman said. 'For him to be able to battle back the way he has is just really impressive. I think a lot of people were counting him out. He came in again and has been phenomenal and he's a big reason we're up 2-1.' Skinner is probably the most polarizing player for the Oilers' fan base. Large sections of fans wanted a goalie upgrade before the March 7 trade deadline. Oilers general manager Stan Bowman never really tried. He believed his goaltending was good enough. But there also was the question of where exactly this goalie upgrade might come from. Name a top-10 goalie in the NHL who was available. Was John Gibson from the Anaheim Ducks going to be an upgrade? He was willing to come to Edmonton, but the Oilers' front office didn't see a guaranteed upgrade there. So they stuck with Skinner and Pickard, both of whom have won big games in these playoffs. And the one thing the Oilers know is that Skinner has the ability to bounce back from shaky performances. Advertisement 'Last year, I was impressed that when he did have a bad game, how well he responded right away,' Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch said Sunday when asked what he's learned from Skinner since he got here last season. 'That's not easy for any player, especially the goalie. And a goalie in his hometown in this market, I think he's done a really good job. … 'Just impressed (how) he manages the expectations, playing in front of a good team. Yeah, when we do need him, he comes through,' Knoblauch said. 'And tonight, there was a lot of work for him. He was busy.' A year ago, Skinner outplayed Jake Oettinger in the Western Conference final. Three games into this series, the same trend is developing, although Oettinger can quickly change that script Tuesday night in Game 4. 'Listen, we wouldn't be sitting here in the conference finals without Jake Oettinger and how he's played,' Stars head coach Pete DeBoer said when asked about his goalie's performance. 'Tonight was one of those games where they were opportunistic and once they got the lead, we're pushing to get back in and there's grade-As going the other way. One thing I know about Jake Oettinger, for me, he's one of the best response goalies in the league. I know he's not going to drag around tonight's game.'' I suspect DeBoer is right about that. The Stars' goalie will bounce back. But if Skinner stays dialed in, will it matter? Have the Oilers really put all the pieces together? 'Yes,' said a rival Western Conference team executive via text message Sunday. 'I think they win it all. They will be more prepared for Florida this time.' Whoa, there's still lots of hockey left in this Western Conference final. But that gives you an idea of the impression the Oilers are making right now. (Photo of Stuart Skinner: Codie McLachlan / Getty Images)
Washington Post
31-03-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
In an NCAA tournament of complaints, Duke and Alabama bring beauty
NEWARK — The pep bands disembarked all the way from Provo and Tuscaloosa and Tucson and Durham, and they took their places behind the baselines as ever, and they played as adeptly as ever, and they typified the March Madness fabric as ever, except that maybe they should have taken Thursday night off and hopped the trains to Manhattan and then Brooklyn for some college-aged revelry. Maybe they wouldn't have minded the redirection. It's just that what the East Region Sweet 16 seemed to need Thursday night — and what the Elite Eight bout between Duke and Alabama might need come Saturday night — would be symphonies. That's because after a sports nation really good at grousing spent the early week grousing about this NCAA tournament and its lack of Cinderellas and photo-finishes, Alabama and Duke and even their prey provided a different reason to tune in to men's college basketball. How about some beauty worthy of violins? What basketball beauty played in the hockey arena here. Even the statue of Martin Brodeur outdoors might have pivoted to appreciate. Four teams shot 131 for 259, or almost 50.6 percent. With Alabama's 113-88 win over BYU and then Duke's 100-93 win over Arizona, the Sweet 16 had its first twin 100-point games since the holy-mercy Mideast Region of 1970, when Artis Gilmore's Jacksonville Dolphins nudged Iowa, 104-103, and Adolph Rupp's latest wow of a Kentucky bested Notre Dame, 109-99. Come a Thursday all these decades later, neither game tested the buzzer, but both games vested the gorgeous. Even the box scores told of triumph over the harsh concept of putting a basketball through a hoop while other more-than-capable people try to prevent same. The star freshman from Maine, 6-foot-9 Cooper Flagg of Duke, so striking in person with his kinetic ease, played 36 minutes with 30 points and 9-for-19 shooting and 3-for-5 three-point shooting and 9-for-10 free throw shooting and seven assists and six rebounds and three blocks and one steal and one measly turnover. His coach, Jon Scheyer, previously an assistant to Mike Krzyzewski, called it 'one of the best tournament performances I've ever coached or been a part of.' The more entrenched Mark Sears of Alabama, a senior who piloted a Final Four berth last year, lent the earlier evening a gorgeous parade of splashes with his 11 for 18 overall and his 10 for 16 from downtown and his 34 points and his — maybe this part is the best — eight assists. His coach, Nate Oats, suggested Sears had played 'chess, not checkers,' given how six preceding games with 5-for-35 long-range shooting might have sent onlookers into a lull. Gaze at numbers. Alabama had 27 assists. Duke had 20. Duke shot 33 for 55 with offense so efficient it surely couldn't major in freshmen. (It did.) Alabama shot 35 for 66 with offense that surpassed and thus conjured one of the darling tournament moments of all time: Loyola Marymount. The Crimson Tide's unimaginable 25 for 51 from three-point range surpassed the durable record 21 three-point shots No. 11 seed Loyola Marymount made in its 1990 win over No. 3 seed Michigan by 149-115, one of the most astounding final scores in tournament history. By contrast, Duke, with otherworldly efficiency, shot a sublime 11 for 19 (57.9 percent) from distance. How so-so. 'They were a machine on offense,' Arizona Coach Tommy Lloyd said without the 'machine' part sounding clichéd. 'That was a fun game,' Oats said of his game earlier, 'if you like offense.' People do! And so the match between two programs making second straight Elite Eight appearances does look sumptuous. That's even if it won't include the eternal Caleb Love, the Arizona guard and former North Carolina guard who closed out a five-season career frequenting the heights with a good-grief 35 points on 11 for 21 and 5 for 11 from yonder. That seemed almost subdued given the multi-man deluge Duke (34-3) presented in its 30th win in its past 31, with its mighty accoutrements such as Sion James's 5 for 6 and 16 points or big man Khaman Maluach's 6 for 8 and six rebounds and four blocks and 13 points or Kon Knueppel's 5 for 7 and four rebounds and 20 points. It felt as if the stars had entered the building when they entered at 9:33 p.m. with all their buzz in a land that loves stars, with the biggest star named Flagg. 'His shooting has gotten so much better,' Lloyd said, four months after the teams played in November, a 69-55 Duke win. 'He makes 3 of 5 from three today, 9 of 10 from the free throw line. And just his ability to play-make. They've done a great job. They're a team that they come down, they have a plan, they know what they want to get, and they're able to get it consistently, which is hard to do. We're not a bad defensive team, but they make you feel like it for long stretches today. They've done a really good job creating certainty, and all their young guys have gotten better. Their vets like [Tyrese] Proctor, Sion James — he's impressive — have gotten better.' In their midst, Flagg operates. At barely 18, he seems supernaturally comfortable in his skin and frame. He wows with spins and assists and know-how while never tipping over into inefficiency. He takes a rebound pass from Mason Gillis and takes a few giant steps and jacks a 25-foot three just before halftime, causing momentum. He wriggles unforeseeably through two defenders to make a lob to Maluach. He staggers out of a near-interception with the ball and makes another lob to Maluach. He pairs all of that with unprepossessing quotations such as, 'They put me in some really good spots tonight.' Scheyer says of it all: 'What I've wanted from him is not to defer. I've just wanted him to fully be him, and I thought he was that. He was in his element tonight. He was him. He had just a great personality. He was loose, talking, competitive, the whole thing. So, yeah, he impresses me all the time.' Duke led by 19 with 13:12 left, then led by five with 1:33 left, then held nerve with 23-for-27 free throw shooting et al, so that Scheyer said, 'You know, they're not afraid, and you hope to recruit that, but until they get here you don't really know.' With Sears and his 10 for 16 and Aden Holloway and his 6 for 13, Alabama's 25 threes roared past Loyola Marymount's 35-year record even if Sears's 10 couldn't quite get to the single-game 11 still standing as a March Madness record for Loyola Marymount's Jeff Fryer. 'Yeah,' Sears said in classic launcher dialect, 'even when I was shooting 14 percent my confidence was still high.' Of course, teammate Chris Youngblood said: 'To be honest with you, before y'all talking about 14 percent [in the past six games], I had no idea he was shooting 14 percent because I never really pay attention to — Mark is an incredible player. All I know is when he gets the ball, the defense is collapsing on him, so it doesn't feel like he's shooting 14 percent.' Come pretty Thursday, Sears saw a bucket 'as big as an ocean' even when a pond would have done. The whole thing had Oats remembering watching Loyola Marymount in 1990, and 'Bo Kimble shooting left-handed free throws in honor of Hank' Gathers, the star who had died just before that tournament. And it wound up a night of gorgeous basketball with Oats saying of his players: 'They're supposed to be off their legs as soon as the media gets out of the locker room. Let's get them back to the hotel. Let's get them off their legs. Let's get the recovery started.' That's a prudent idea because who knows what beauty awaits Saturday. It might even call for the bands to keep on reveling in Brooklyn.
