There may not be anyone more upset about the hit Mikko Rantanen laid on Edmonton Oilers netminder Stuart Skinner than Corey Perry.
The play in question came with 13 and a half minutes left in the third period of Wednesday night’s game between the Oilers and Dallas Stars, when Rantanen clipped Skinner in the head with his knee. Skinner had been down in the butterfly before jumping up trying to make a save, but his momentum took him to the ice before Rantanen’s knee made contact.
Stuart Skinner goes down and exits the game after Rantanen makes contact with him in the head.
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Skinner left the game and wouldn’t return, leaving Calvin Pickard to enter the game and play out the rest of the 4-3 loss.
When asked after the game if he was comfortable with the Oilers’ response, veteran winger Corey Perry pointed the finger at himself.
“I was pissed at myself. I didn’t see what happened,” he said after the game. “I was on the ice when Rantanen hit Skinner and that’s on me. I should never let that happen. I didn’t see what happened. I saw Stu go down and everyone was standing around. I didn’t see it until afterwards, and I was pretty pissed at myself I didn’t see it.”
It’s not the first time that Skinner has left a game after taking a hit from opposing players. In fact, just last week he was forced from a game against the Winnipeg Jets after Gabriel Vilardi bumped into Skinner with concussion spotters swiftly removing him from the game.
Perry was questioned further about whether or not the Oilers as a whole are responding well enough to these situations and his answer was brief: “We’ll talk about that internally.”
After the game, Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch didn’t have an update on Skinner’s condition, but said he wasn’t expected to join the team on their trip to Seattle, where they are set to face the Kraken Thursday night. That opens the door to a recall from the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors, who on Wednesday night lost to the Colorado Eagles 3-2 in Bakersfield.
Goaltending prospect Olivier Rodrigue got the start in that game, and the Condors are scheduled to play both Friday night and Saturday night.
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.