Edmonton Oilers: Bringing Back The Same Goalies

There’s a former Italian soccer player named Gennaro Gattuso, who began his coaching career after his playing days were over. He has a viral and funny moment where, during a media availability, he said, “Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe sh**”; obviously referring to the soccer team he coached at the time. Even though the quote is from a different sport, and you can only find those couple of seconds, not the entire interview, it perfectly encapsulates a general opinion about the Edmonton Oilers when it comes to their goaltending. Most people agree to liking Calvin Pickard as the backup, but it’s the starter whose added his name to a long list of polarizing players in this franchise.

26 years old, drafted 78th overall in 2017 and a WHL champion the year after, Stuart Skinner looked to be Edmonton’s future in net. But many streaks of inconsistency have made him the biggest question mark once again. And here I am about to attempt giving the more moderate, neutral, centrist take. Members of Oilers media tend to resist pointing out when he might’ve played a below-average game and sound like they try painstakingly to downplay a goal that he really shouldn’t have allowed. Half the Oilers fanbase is quick to blame him for every loss and react to every goal against as if other teams don’t also score goals. I think the former point is what makes a fan’s eyes roll more than just the quality of the goaltending itself. No matter how much you may like a player, there are instances where you have to tell it like it is.

During the first period of a road game in Buffalo on March 10th of this year, Tage Thompson skated into the offensive zone and took a shot on net. Skinner couldn’t grab the rebound from the ice surface, and then the loose puck was put in the net. I’m not taking anything away from Thompson; he’s a very good forward. But when the team’s Sportsnet broadcast pinned the goal on a “hard, deceptive shot”, we shouldn’t pretend that they aren’t a tad biased for the goalies. It doesn’t take being an avid hockey viewer or historian to recognize that was really bad rebound control on Stu’s part. I know the third Sabres goal that night became a Twitter meme, but the goal I’m referencing was much worse, in my opinion. Cole Caufield scored a similar goal for Montreal against Stu a couple of nights prior. If the puck hits your front profile, it should just be a save and nothing else. During Game 6 of this year’s Cup Final, the Oilers were down 2-0 late in the second period. Carter Verhaeghe took a shot that had the velocity of two people playing catch with a baseball. Skinner just batted the puck with his blocker, it innocently flew down to Sasha Barkov, and he fed Sam Reinhart waiting beside the net to make it 3-0. If that didn’t happen, perhaps Edmonton wouldn’t need to have an extra attacker twice with half a period left in regulation. They may not have allowed two empty net goals, and the one goal they did score in the last minute may’ve made things more interesting. Could the Oilers have somehow pulled off another comeback win? Would they feel they could’ve gotten another goal before the 10-minute mark of the third period? We’ll never know because of that horribly deflating goal.

So I spent that whole last paragraph roasting two goals against, now I’ll spend this one rationalizing a more heartbreaking goal against. There’s a video on the Florida Panthers’ YouTube channel that shows 8 different angles of the Game 7 Stanley Cup-winning goal in 2024. When you have a chance, I encourage you to look for that video and then watch the fifth angle at 0.25 playback speed. A lot of fans blame Skinner for it, but Reinhart’s shot hit Leon Draisaitl’s stick. You can even notice the slight movement in Draisaitl’s blade after the puck left Reinhart’s blade. Leon was just trying to backcheck, which is what you ideally want your star players to do in a championship game. Don Cherry had points like this when he still had his Coach’s Corner segment, and it’s one of the few times I’ve agreed with his hockey takes. In back-to-back road games against the New York teams this past season, I noted that the Oilers scored goals where the puck deflected off sticks. This is how players want to help their goalies, but actually prove to be doing too much when it happens. Sometimes it pays off, and sometimes goalies hate it. I even remember some tweets from this past season where, if an Oilers goalie allowed a soft one, a fan would say something like “There wasn’t even a deflection”. And an Oilers media person mocked a goal allowed by John Gibson, who many fans wanted, but wouldn’t take into account the deflection off a defenseman leading to that goal. You can’t just pick and choose when you think an argument is valid or invalid. Also, on that Cup winning goal, Brett Kulak should’ve stayed in front of Reinhart to take away that shooting lane.

For the criticism that Stuart Skinner should rightfully get, it’s also fair to sympathize with the situation he was brought into. He was never supposed to become Edmonton’s #1 goalie as early as he did. Jack Campbell was a complete bust of a free agent signing, and Skinner needed to save the day as a rookie in 2023. Had he not, the Oilers wouldn’t have even made the Playoffs that season, and I still feel he was robbed of the Calder trophy. That same season also featured a hill that I’ll die on for as long as I follow this team. Campbell came in relief of Skinner during Game 4 of Round 1 after the Oilers went down 3-0 after the first period. He made good saves and was a big part of the comeback win. I’m not saying they’d have 100% won the Cup if they gave Soup more starts after that. But it was at least worth a try instead of burning out a rookie goaltender much more. You never know if Jack Campbell would’ve also felt more confident about his play afterwards. I know fans don’t like that Pickard needed to come in for Stu in two straight postseasons, but I honestly didn’t mind having two goalies win us games. That’s the job of a backup goalie, after all. That’s why every team has a tandem and not just one goalie.

What I will argue in regards to that is Skinner almost never gets pulled after a bad start to a game. I’m not suggesting it should happen every game, but since the whole team prides itself(a little too much)on handling adversity and being confident in making big comebacks, it’s made frequent bad starts acceptable. Sometimes, you hear the broadcast team say, “Remember that save if they come back,” while already being down by three or four goals. In the game before the 4 Nations break, when he was finally pulled, I tweeted it was a lesson he should’ve gotten sooner. Someone retweeted that, expressing how mad they were about the decision, when all I really did was try not to be totally biased for one side. Draisaitl had to sit out during the third period at the very beginning of this season because he wasn’t playing well. Then he was on the ice for Overtime and scored the game-winner. A leaguewide example is the Tampa Bay Lightning making Brayden Point a healthy scratch after he missed a team meeting. We like to say “It’s a team game” when we don’t approve of our favourite players being scapegoated. That phrase is a two-way street; no player, even a superstar, is above being held accountable… in a team game.

“What about Bouchard?” Fair question, glad you asked. Evan Bouchard is an alternate version of P.K. Subban that doesn’t play in front of Carey Price or Pekka Rinne. I’m not excusing Bouchard’s gaffes, I’ve called them out plenty. But Subban had more freedom to be carefree on the ice because he could be bailed out 90% of the time. Nobody likes seeing players give the puck away, but it’s easier to forget about them when they don’t result in a goal. Plus, come Playoff time, we’re talking more about a gaffe-free Bouchard. You can’t tell your star players not to be assertive, not to take chances. If every mistake winds up in the back of your net, it makes the whole team feel like they can’t even allow one shot on net.

Stu and Picks weren’t the biggest reason for both Final appearances, but they deserve credit for the good moments they had. They weren’t the only reason for both Final losses, but it’s impossible to ignore the worst save percentage in Finals history(.865). Skinner has shown flashes of #1 caliber goaltending, such as outdueling Jake Oettinger in two straight third-round meetings against Dallas, Game 6 of Round 3 in 2024 being the best memory between them. Some fans downplay this by saying Oettinger just played worse. But if the stats for both goalies were in reverse, the people who are 100% never Stu wouldn’t hesitate to solely blame him. He also won us the second round against Vegas with two straight shutouts after Pickard got injured in Game 2 of that series, when he had the #1 job for half the Playoff run. Pickard did come in relief of Skinner in Game 4 against Florida this year, but it was nowhere near Skinner’s fault. Most teams and fans would envy a goalie/tandem that’s been three total games away from at least one Stanley Cup in just his first three NHL seasons. Not many goalies/tandems can say they’ve been that close before. But the pressure to win now mounts even more, and you can only brag about moral victories for so long if inconsistent play doesn’t improve over time. I think the real problem is that Skinner’s just experiencing the sort of young goalie exhaustion that would come with having that big of a responsibility right away. Again, this wart wouldn’t exist if Jack Campbell panned out. All Soup needed to do was be league average at best, and it would’ve been easier for Stu to settle into the NHL without the extra workload.

I always liked having a tandem that makes less than $4M against the salary cap, as the team has won games with it. But it also means you can sometimes expect less than $4M goaltending. Who knows if they’ll acquire another option via a trade or PTO before the season starts. Heck, there were rumours of Edmonton calling Boston about Jeremy Swayman before the 2025 Trade Deadline passed. But if this tandem can, should, or will change, I think it would’ve already happened by now. Skinner’s wife appeared on a podcast and revealed that she received death threats during the season due to Skinner’s play, eerily similar to Ethan Bear receiving racist messages after the first round of the 2021 Playoffs. Even if management is looking into this position, do you think other goalies would feel enticed by those stories? Would they fear their families going through the same thing, should a string of bad games happen? Not even a mafia gang would stoop that low. We should sometimes separate the human being from the athlete. I’m actually amazed Stu didn’t request a trade after that. But I also think Stan Bowman would look to acquire a solid, good enough veteran backup for Skinner rather than replace him. This would ultimately be unfair to Calvin Pickard because he’s admirably done the job that’s been asked of him for as long as he’s been an Oiler, ever since being called up from the AHL in late 2023.

Part of the problem with figuring out how to hold him accountable has to do with sentimentality. He’s homegrown; he grew up an Oilers fan. He’s told stories about going to games at the old Rexall Place, cheering for the team’s past goalies, and about being one of the kids chanting NNNUUUGGGEEE. I think that’s why some in Oil Country are afraid to call a spade a spade when it comes to his play. Even if they don’t outright demand that he be shipped out, they don’t have it in them to give even polite criticism. Mikko Koskinen, a former Oilers goalie and a Finn, was a constant whipping boy in the media. But Mike Smith, being Canadian and “A battler,” was given nicer treatment. Skinner, quite frankly, does too many Mike Smith impressions for my liking. I wish he’d stop playing the puck needlessly as much as he does. Some people have compared Skinner to Devan Dubnyk, another goalie drafted by the Oilers who couldn’t succeed here. But Dubnyk played behind terrible rosters during the Decade of Darkness and still put up respectable numbers before the 2013/2014 season. Skinner plays behind a Cup contender and can barely get his save percentage above .900 most of the time. There are goalies on worse teams who can put up better stats than either of the goalies that our team has. But this summer, when fans pointed this out in a back-and-forth tweet discussion with a journalist, one broadcaster suggested the journalist “ignore the morons”. Must we really resort to name-calling over a sport? Yes, the fans need to be less hyperbolic. But the media also need to teach themselves not to show off too many blatant biases.

Much to the chagrin of most Oilers fans, we still have Stuart Skinner. But we have no other choice than to cheer him on; we have to want him to succeed so that his entire team will succeed. Skinner will be a UFA in the summer of 2026, and most players tend to improve their stats in a contract year to boost their dollars. Having Dustin Schwartz as the Oilers’ goalie coach was a meme within the fanbase for so long. With Peter Aubry now taking that helm, perhaps a new voice in practice really is all he needs. But if even that long-needed change doesn’t help, Stu’s leash should get shorter and shorter, if it didn’t already. After the Game 5 of Round 2, Connor McDavid said of Skinner’s shutout performances, “Hopefully it shuts a lot of people up that were talking about him”. In that case, he’d better continue to shut those people up, or else they’ll never stop talking about him.