EDMONTON, Alberta — When the Edmonton Oilers traded for goalie Ben Scrivens on Jan. 15, they hoped he would help bring some consistency to the position.
They never expected a performance like the one he gave Wednesday night.
Scrivens stopped 59 shots, an NHL regular-season record for saves in a shutout, leading the Oilers to a 3-0 victory over the San Jose Sharks.
“Hats off to the goaltender. He was tremendous,” San Jose coach Todd McLellan said. “Heck of a performance. In all my years in the league, I don’t think I’ve seen that. We attempted 100 shots on goal. That doesn’t happen very often.”
Scrivens topped the previous mark set by Phoenix’s Mike Smith, who stopped 54 shots in a 2-0 victory over Columbus on April 3, 2012.
The Sharks matched the record for shots against the Oilers, accomplished by the New York Rangers in a 4-3 loss in 1993. This time, the recently acquired Scrivens turned away all 59 — a team record for saves — as Edmonton won its third straight.
Scrivens stopped 20 shots in the first, 22 in the second and 17 in the third.
“I had an awful, awful warmup. It was an inauspicious start to it,” he said. “It’s one of those things where you try not to look at the forest while you’re in the trees. You try to focus on the process and give yourself a chance to make that save, and when the puck drops again, you try to focus on the next one and don’t try to get too far ahead of yourself.”
Scrivens made his fourth start for the Oilers and won his second game. He went into the game with an 8-7-4 record overall, a 2.03 goals against average and .930 save percentage.
Obtained from Los Angeles, Scrivens got in front of point-blank shots, close-in deflections, goalmouth scrambles and rebounds his defensemen failed to cover.
The Sharks, 7-3-0 in their previous 10 games, dominated play — but they had nothing to show for it.
“I was seeing the puck well,” Scrivens said. “We got extremely lucky with a couple of posts in the second.”
Justin Schultz, Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall scored for Edmonton, which took 27 shots.
“That’s how I thought our skaters were playing the game. They were watching Ben play,” said Oilers coach Dallas Eakins, who wasn’t particularly happy despite the win. “It was an incredible thing to watch. I’ve never seen that before. I’m so happy for Ben and proud of him, and then you’re mad at the same time.”
Check out some of Scrivens’ best stops in the video below.
