Stuart Skinner's struggles reach boiling point for Oilers before injury against Stars

Skinner left the game after taking a hard direct contact to the head and remaining down on the ice for several moments. However, before he left the game, his struggles continued to hurt the Oilers and reached a boiling point.

Skinner left the game with a .809 save percentage and in line for the loss last night. Earlier in the game during a TV timeout, Skinner displayed some rare frustration by lashing out and breaking a stick.

There could've been a chance for a save on any one of the first three goals, but instead, the Oilers found themselves down 4 goals to a cup contending team in the Stars. Skinner was clearly frustrated in his performance leading to a loss.

The Oilers did show some incredible fight to make it a close contest without McDavid and Draisaitl, but again, expecting 5 goals to win against every contending team is a terrible position to be in.

According to some advanced stats like expected goal differential, the Oilers actually outperformed the Stars last night. The difference was, once again, Skinner couldn't keep up to average performance.

In 11 of Skinner's last 13 games, his save percentage has fallen below the average threshold of .900, and in 3 of those games, he's been .840 or below.

When the Oilers match up against quality goalies like Jake Oettinger and Connor Hellebuyck, the discrepancy in performance is simply massive. Skinner needs to be better, but the mistake is on management for not trading for a goalie.

Now the Oilers will be forced to roll out their backup Calvin Pickard in higher stakes matchups, which really won't be much of a drop off from Skinner, but is still an uncertainty.

In year 10 of McDavid's career after making the cup final, this level of uncertainty in the crease is unacceptable.