The Edmonton Oilers defeated the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday night to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but it was probably a lot closer than the Oilers would have liked.
Although the game was back and forth with a solid effort from both teams on the ice, it would be a catastrophic mistake from Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner that would keep the Kings close late in the game. That mistake from Skinner was a routine clearing attempt that went horribly wrong and resulted in a goal for the Kings.
First let’s take a look at the play in real time:
This clearly looked like a horrific play on the part of Skinner, but thanks to one sharp-eyed observer watching on Saturday night we now know that it was nothing of the sort.
Kevin Woodley, who deserves all the credit in the world for noticing this, was quick to notice upon zooming in on the play that Skinner’s stick had actually broken on the play.
Here’s another look in slow motion:
Another sharp-eyed observer in Derek Schlereth noticed that the stick had actually been broken by a Kings player, Adrian Kempe to be exact.
So while Stuart Skinner was catching plenty of heat for his ‘big mistake’ it turns out it wasn’t a mistake at all, but just a very unfortunate series of events.
