It's no secret that I have always been a fan of Stuart Skinner and one of the individuals who tells people to get their hand off the panic button when it comes to the Oilers netminders... that being said, his body of work this season is not instilling confidence. This tweet pretty much sums things up:

Against the top 2 teams in each division this season, Edmonton is now 1-8-2 and have been outscored 45-27.

— Chris Jastrzembski (@Chris_Jast) February 23, 2025

Hockey arguments generally become fairly black and white. In the case of Stuart Skinner there is the argument that "Skinner is playing bad and isn't a starting goaltender" and "no goalie would be able to win with the Oilers team playing like they did over the weekend." The answer usually lies somewhere in the middle.

The Oilers played two brutal games back to back on the weekend and looked like a team still on vacation and it is going to be very tough to win many games playing like that. However, the issue between the pipes is every turnover and every high quality chance against was ending up in the back of the net. 32 goalies this season have played 1200 minutes at 5 on 5 this season. Stuart Skinner has the 6th worst High Danger SV% at 8.05% As a comparable, Connor Hellebuyck has the 3rd best at 0.863%.

A few notable names on that list Jake Oettinger has the 3rd worst a 0.798%. Igor Shesterkin has the 9th worst at 0.813%. Adin Hill has the 2nd worst at 0.794%. Two of those goalies are considered among the best in the NHL and the other was dominant on route to the Golden Knights winning their first Stanley Cup. Goalies are voodoo and just because one if playing poorly now, doesn't mean they will be next season.

Therein lies the concern with Stuart Skinner. Skinner is the last home grown, drafted and developed goalie with starting potential the Oilers have had since Devan Dubnyk. At that time the Oilers were a brutal team but Dubnyk still posted solid numbers, until 13/14 when he posted a 0.894SV%. He ended up in Minnesota a year later where he posted above 0.916SV% for the next six straight seasons. That is the danger on giving up on Skinner now. At only 26 years of age, Skinner certainly has plenty of time to grow and improve and this could be chalked up to simply a bad year.

The problem the Edmonton Oilers have is this is a team that is trying to win a Cup right now and they can't afford to have a starting goalie who is having a bad year and their backup solution in Calvin Pickard has shown to be serviceable at best and not the type of netminder that anyone should feel confident in as playing in playoff games. This season the goaltending absolutely must be addressed.

In a perfect world the Oilers bring in someone like Gibson or Vejmelka, both have decent numbers this season playing on teams that are far worse than the Oilers defensively. Then going into the playoffs you have a Gibson-Skinner or Vejmelka-Skinner tandem where you have two reasonable bets to play in games.

We know that Gibson doesn't want to come to a situation where he isn't the automatic starter and I could see a trade situation where Edmonton moves Skinner in the deal to acquire Gibson. That is not the route I want to see the Oilers take because I do believe that if Skinner is traded, Oilers fans will watch him become a legitimate starter for another team, just as Devan Dubnyk did.

Goaltending is an issue for the Oilers this year and arguably their most concerning one. It will be up to Stan Bowman and Jeff Jackson to find a way to address it that not only sets them up for success for this season, but also for many years to come.

Thanks for reading.

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