Stuart Skinner polling up after Rangers victory. Where will the polls go next?

In these municipal-election-fuelled political times, the candidate for downtown ward of O-day’min Stuart Skinner is polling with green arrows up after a scintillating 30-save shutout at the New York Rangers on Tuesday. 

Skinner, of course, was trending with red arrows down in confidence polls a week ago, after the tying-goal-misplay-debacle against the Calgary Flames that led to a shootout loss. 

As a political candidate Skinner has that trustworthy, earnest demeanour, but his conduct at times is a little wild and irrational. He is a wildcard candidate…the soft-spokenness of Peter Lougheed…the drunken wildman of Ralph Klein flailing in the crease.  

I’ll stop the political comparisons because you get the point – but we are three games into a season-long referendum on this Oilers goaltender that is exhausting. 

The Skinner chatter when he is leaky and unsettled in the crease is ratcheted up to 11; when Skinner plays well the defenders return with strong cases for. 

A quick peek at OilersNation right now and there are three headlines with Skinner’s name in the title. Ahem, I guess this one makes it four. 

And I’m not going to tell you much different here in this article, except this: I want a starting goaltender. I do. 

But what I want, and what players are actually available, what Stuart Skinner shows up night to night, are two different things. 

• Taking his whole career as a sample size – Stuart Skinner is somewhere in the tier of 9th-32nd best starting goaltenders in the NHL. 
• Taking his whole career as a sample size – Stuart Skinner is either one of the best goaltenders on a given night, or one of the worst. 
• Taking whole career as a sample size – Stuart Skinner’s variance in performance is among the widest in the NHL. 

He is all the things, and rarely in the middle of those categories. 

In short, he is either very good or very bad. He could be the 16th best goaltender in the NHL. The problem is, he is rarely the 16th best goaltender in the NHL. He is either one of the top-10, or one of the bottom-10, depending on the game. 

Now, consistency is the hardest thing for a professional athlete to achieve. These aren’t machines playing the games, they are humans. I understand that. But how do they chop away at the wide variance of outcomes? How will everyone feel more comfortable with Skinner between the pipes?

“If I play the way I want to play – I’ll feel good,” Skinner said after the Rangers victory, his 99th of his career. 

“You want to carry that on with wins and losses, despite external ideas and thoughts, or whatever else is out there.”

In New York, Skinner was brilliant. On Thursday against the Islanders? Could be a whole different story. 

It’s hugely beneficial for the Oilers organization if Skinner just finds this consistency. With that said, I will want to see Connor Ingram play with the Oilers this season. I will want Stan Bowman to tell me they are exploring every option at goaltender. 

Yes, the Edmonton Oilers have been to two Stanley Cup Finals in a row with Skinner in the mix. But every position is to be evaluated for a team that is so Win Now that the noise will not die. 

I personally hate talking about this because we know the ups and downs of this player. 

Unless, of course, that changes with another Skinner-esque run of a dozen games where he’s 12-1, .948 save percentage, and 1 shutout stretch, while the Oilers ragdolled competition from December 22, 2023, to February 6, 2024. Or is it the playoff stretch of 2025 where he had as many shutouts as above .900 save percentage games? And on, and on.

But at least the municipal election is Monday. This referendum? It will continue after every start, every shot against, polling up, or polling down…