Heading into the regular season the Oilers had a couple of question marks heading into the regular season, the main one was if Skinner could play good enough to get this team back to where it got to last season. In the regular season. In the regular season he had a pretty tough go putting up a SV% of 0.896 and a GAA of 2.81. This was his worst season he has had since he joined the team every other year, he was above 0.900%.
His numbers this post season have been nothing but troubling, in his two games played he has a total of 11 goals and has a SV% of 0.810. Giving Pickard the start in game three was an obvious move. Now with Pickard getting the win last night the only way Skinner gets back into the net is if Pickard plays a terrible game. The fact that he got the win gives he more of a runway than Skinner had.
It is not like Pickard put up top quality numbers last night in his game, but his SV% was better than Skinners and he was actually able to make some big saves that helped keep the Edmonton Oilers in the game. That was the issue with Skinner, every time the Kings had a chance 9/10 times it ended up in the back of the next. Pickard actually made some good saves, especially near the end of the game.
In last year's playoff run Pickard also got in for a couple of games, but was eventually replaced by Skinner again, I do not think that this is going to be the case again this year. When Skinner got pulled last year, he had already won a bunch of games, this year he hasn't won anything and if Pickard is able to get a couple more wins in a row here it is going to be tough for the Oilers coaching staff to move on from him and go back to Skinner.
The Oilers will have the day off today but will once again be back at it tomorrow as they look to even the series. There has not been an official announcement that Pickard will get the start, but if Knoblauch goes back to Skinner for game 4, I think his would be making the completely wrong play. I get the "play who got you there" mentality, but it's the playoffs and Pickard has actually got you a win, so you need to stick with him at least till he gets a loss.