Oilers Shuffle Lineup After Healthy Scratch of Jeff Skinner Before Facing Utah Hockey Club
The Edmonton Oilers are facing the Utah Hockey Club on home ice for a New Year's Eve game, and Coach Knoblauch will be bringing Jeff Skinner back into the lineup while shuffling the bottom six.
Jeff Skinner was named a healthy scratch for the Oilers game against the Anaheim Ducks, a sign of rock bottom for the 32 year old career sniper.
Although the Jeff Skinner experiment hasn't gone too well, Coach Knoblauch won't keep him in the press box for an extended time. According to reports from practice, Skinner is back in tonight, and another player will come out.
The player to sit out before Skinner was Derek Ryan, so it's plausible it could be him again. It's also possible that the Oilers could give a night off to another veteran like Corey Perry.
Jeff Skinner Back in Oilers Lineup, Coach Chooses Not to Reveal Other Changes
The Oilers coach didn't get into more details about the next healthy scratch, probably just keeping his decision close to the vest after the reaction to the Skinner scratch.
Most of the Oilers depth players have played well, and deserve to be in the lineup. Coach Knoblauch referred to just that yesterday, and said it'd be incredibly difficult for Skinner to earn more ice time except for injury.
- Coach Knoblauch
To a degree, the failure of the Jeff Skinner experiment is on Coach Knoblauch for not putting him in a position to succeed. Skinner is a career sniper, but has only played less than 60 minutes of ice time in the top six.
Skinner simply can't be buried on the fourth line for much longer, and if it continues toward trade deadline, a move will be the best path forward for both parties.
Hopefully for tonight's game against Utah, Skinner is motivated to prove he isn't done in Edmonton yet.
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