{"id":220870,"date":"2025-10-17T23:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T23:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/220870\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T23:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T23:13:09","slug":"pre-game-report-oilers-at-devils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/220870\/","title":{"rendered":"PRE-GAME REPORT: Oilers at Devils"},"content":{"rendered":"

While it is still very early in the 2025-26 NHL season, the Oilers have not been capitalizing on their high-danger scoring chances, owning a 8.3 percent shooting percentage in those situations that ranks the lowest in the League. But they’ve been aided by impressive goaltending from Stuart Skinner, who’s 3.2 Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) ranks seventh among netminders who’ve made at least two appearances this season, as per MoneyPuck<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Skinner is one victory away from reaching 100 career wins, which would make him the third-fastest goalie in Oilers franchise history to reach the mark ahead of Cam Talbot (212), with his next appearance being the 177th of his career.<\/p>\n

Skinner is 0-3-0 in his career against the Devils with a 4.08 GAA and .871 save percentage, but Pickard has enjoyed more success in five games versus New Jersey that’ve seen him post a 4-1-0 record, 1.79 GAA and .929 SV% with one shutout.<\/p>\n

Skinner and Pickard are expected to split this weekend’s matin\u00e9es against the Devils on Saturday and the Red Wings on Sunday, with the projected starter at Prudential Center to be revealed during warmups after the Oilers had a scheduled team day off on Friday with no full-team practice.<\/p>\n

Jake Allen will likely be between the pipes for the Devils on Saturday because of the injury sustained by Jacob Markstrom, which is expected to keep him out of the lineup for two weeks. Allen pitched a 31-save shutout against the Oilers at Rogers Place last season in a 3-0 victory before backstopping them to a 3-2 win at Prudential Center, completing the season sweep that saw Leon Draisaitl and Evan Bouchard score two goals apiece in both head-to-head meetings.<\/p>\n

The Oilers could receive a boost on Saturday in the return of defenceman Jake Walman, who’s yet to appear this season due to an undisclosed injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While it is still very early in the 2025-26 NHL season, the Oilers have not been capitalizing on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-220870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}