Skinner gets 3rd playoff shutout, Oilers even Western Final with Game 2 win against Stars

DALLAS -- Stuart Skinner made 25 saves for his third shutout of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the Edmonton Oilers tied the Western Conference Final series with a 3-0 win against the Dallas Stars in Game 2 at American Airlines Center on Friday.

“It's like I said at the beginning of playoffs, it's a roller coaster. There's a lot of highs, lots of lows. Sometimes the score doesn't always tell everybody exactly how the game unfolded,” Skinner said. “I think a few minutes where we didn't play our best, and it looks a lot worse than what it was. So, for us just going back to tonight is really just playing the same game, doing the same thing, and just putting on our work boots and getting to work.”

Game 3 of the best-of-7 series is in Edmonton on Sunday (3 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, ESPN+, ABC).

“As players you don’t have enough appreciation for how a goalie battles. You trust he’s going to do his job back there and battle and try to see the puck and make every save he can and he did that tonight. He made every save. That’s a good night for a goalie,” Edmonton forward Connor McDavid said. “Forwards are coming back really hard, everyone is selling out blocking shots. It’s that time of year, that’s what it takes. It’s fun to watch.”

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a goal and an assist, Brett Kulak and Connor Brown each scored and Evan Bouchard had two assists for Edmonton, which is the No. 3 seed from the Pacific Division.

"I mean, obviously, you come down to a road city like this and they're going to make it tough and going home with a split is a good thing and we now have the home ice advantage going home here,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “Game 3 in front of our crowd, that building is going to be electric, we know that, so it's going be a lot of fun to play there, the series is a long way from [over] and we got to dig in here.”

Jake Oettinger made 22 saves for Dallas, which is the No. 2 seed from the Central Division. The Stars had won seven straight home playoff games going into Game 2.

“I liked our game better tonight than I did Game 1 and we won Game 1,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “I thought we give up that power-play goal, first goal is important in this series. We take a penalty and they score on the first power play, so we’re playing from behind. Then it’s a pretty even game for a big chunk of the game. Their second goal, we block a shot and it bounces right on their stick and they stick it into the net. The third goal is a tip at the front of the net. We had some looks too where [Skinner] made some saves. Sure, when you get shut out, you can do a better job in front of their goalie. But I don’t think the score was as dramatically reflective of the game as [perceived], but that’s just my opinion."

Dallas center Roope Hintz did not return to the game after being slashed in the left leg by Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse 3:46 into the third period. DeBoer did not have an update on his status after the game.

Nugent-Hopkins gave Edmonton a 1-0 lead at 5:51 of the first period when he redirected a puck from the crease to the right of Oettinger on the power play.

“I think we had looks. They did a good job blocking and kinda taking away the inside of the ice on us. But still, I think we had some looks. They just weren't going in for us,” Dallas forward Mason Marchment said. “For the most part, we just gotta keep working and getting in behind them and playing in behind them. They don't wanna play behind them. They want you to make plays in front of them and go the other way. So we gotta do a better job of getting in behind them and hanging onto pucks.”

Kulak made it 2-0 at 15:23 in the second period on a shot from the high slot. He collected his own rebound after it was initially blocked by Dallas forward Mikko Rantanen.

“Scoring goals, it’s all around the blue paint. You need bodies there,” Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch said. “Very rarely are you going to beat a goalie from distance and if you do, someone usually has to be right in front of him. I think we did a pretty good job of that in Game 1 and tonight also. But to beat any good goaltender in the NHL, and this is a good goaltender, you need to have traffic around there and you need to pay a price to be around the net.”

Brown extended the lead to 3-0 at 16:36 when he deflected a shot by Nugent-Hopkins from the left face-off circle.

“I think we would like to score first every game and that’s ultimately the goal. We don’t want to be going down 1-0 in every game, which it’s been a lot of that and too much of that. Obviously, that’s, I guess, the focus for next game,” Dallas forward Wyatt Johnston said. “We’ve played a lot of playoff hockey the last three years. We know we’ve just got to be able to match that in those situations. Obviously, not the game we wanted. But they’re long series, and the most important one’s the next one.”

NOTES: Skinner tied the Edmonton franchise record for most shutouts in a single postseason (Curtis Joseph, 1998). … Bouchard leads the League in scoring in the postseason by a defenseman (15 points; five goals, 10 assists). … All five of Dallas' Finnish players (Mikael Granlund, Miro Heiskanen, Esa Lindell, Hintz and Rantanen) started Game 2. It marked the first time in a regular-season or playoff game since the NHL began tracking starters in 1997-98 that all five skaters starting were from Finland.