Part of the reason Ward has played so well this season is that all the pressure was removed from him mentally, and partly that he had long bouts of rest as the team tried square peg round hole that is Scott Darling and "starter".
We'll see if Dundon walks the walk re: money if he buys out or buries Darling. Talk is cheap, if Dundon really is talk, look for Darling to suddenly and inexplicably make improvements to his game, get white goalie pads, more confidence, "he was allergic to something in the ice no longer there", etc etc.
Anyway, Skinner had one shift were he looked like he gave a shat, it was after the PP goal to make it 3-2, otherwise he was mailing it in. It's nuts how he went from a near 40 goal season to this nonsense. Faulk cares, his decision making is horrid, partly poor IQ and partly trying to do too much. He needs to get better at skating, otherwise teams are just going to continue heavily forechecking him as he has no power to move the puck himself. Slavin played McDavid pretty well (again), Dahlbeck is still awful. 2nd goal was because Ryan can't receive a basic pass, 3rd because Faulk held on and got forechecked behind the net rather than pass it to a waiting Staal 5 feet away (who was open- the Oil were on a line change). That lateral movement on the Draisaitl one timer was awful by Darling, I still can't get over that. Zykov had one good shift, on the Draisaitl one timer he was busting his butt to play defense, he didn't look particularly slow, but he didn't engage on the boards like you'd hope. I want to see more of him, I'd say, "better player than Rask", but...who?
Williams has the right attitude and is busting his ass despite being on the downswing, but man...twice last night, right in front of my section, Williams had McGinn/Lindy sitting wide open in the slot waiting for a pass, Williams on the boards with the puck (this being the offensive zone). The Oiler is just waiting plaintively for McGinn/Lindy to whack it, they were open, is what I'm saying- and Williams doesn't see them. He does a couple switches, tries to one man it somewhere, God knows, and then loses it without ever seeing the guy wide open in the slot. One of the goals was on him, he pulled that same crap, then tried to pass it to a guy through an Oilers feet, it didn't work which led to a two on one. But he cares, and he's still decent enough that I'm fine with it. Skinner- the guy people wanted to be captain- has given up. Bill Peters, in the interview after the Philly lost, said that there are people on this team who care more than others, Skinner is not one of those players, sadly.