The Oilers’ Goalie Problem Isn’t Going Away, Why Edmonton Might Run It Back in Net

The Oilers’ Goalie Problem Isn’t Going Away, Why Edmonton Might Run It Back in Net

i know coming out of the Stanley Cup final everyone thinks they know the elephant in the room Well actually that would just be the Oilers goending On today’s edition of Locked on Oilers we talk about how realistic is it for the Oilers to upgrade in net You are Locked On Oilers your daily podcast on the Edmonton Oilers part of the Locked Onet Your team every day Hello everyone and welcome to this Friday edition of lockdown Oilers I am your host Nick Saris Just wrapped up my third NHL season with the lockdown podcast network I could not be happier to be here I am so grateful and thankful to everyone who has made Lockdown Oilers their first listen of the day Lockdown Oilers is a part of the Lockdown podcast network your team every day And today’s episode is brought to you by our friends over at Game Time where if you download the Game Time app create an account and use code locked on NHL you’ll get $20 off your first purchase So on today’s edition of Lockdown Oilers we’re going to talk all things goending We are going to start laying out the facts of the case what Pickard Skinner numbers are what they mean and what the Oilers need Our second segment we’ll talk about what I expect the Oilers to do as far as goalie And then in our final segment I’ll give you some ideas as to who’s available out there in the goalie market Hint it’s kind of uninspiring So I have been doing hockey content for a while I have been writing podcasting short form video any whatever type of content you can think of I’ve done it in some shape or form for better part of 10 years now since I got to college as a freshman I’m 28 years old now and I have been doing hockey content for a long time And generally speaking I like to think I am getting a better understanding of the game where it’s going As I’m getting older I have more resources I have more experience to draw upon more understanding But goalending goalending is not of science It is not of fact Goalending is the closest you’re going to get to magic and the abstract in the world of professional sports It is such a high variance position It is arguably the most high variance position in all of sports more so than goalie in any other sports with a goalie because of hockeyy’s volatility So for example I want you to think about a given sequence Let’s say a team dumps the puck in from the neutral zone to the offensive zone The forcheer wins that puck They win the foot race from that defenseman They pass it once up the up the wall to either a winger or a pinching defenseman That defenseman passes it laterally across the blue line to a defenseman at the other point That defenseman’s going to send it along the boards down below the goal line It’s going to go below the goal line Someone behind the goal line is going to keep moving it along And eventually after a number of passes 5 6 7 8 somebody is going to take a shot whether that shot has a clean line of sight whether the goalie is in the right position whether the puck gets tipped on the way in or bounces off of something on the way in What I have just listed to you are variables And that’s why hockey is so high variance The more variables you introduce to a situation the more unlikely it is you’re going to be able to repeat the same outcome So for example if you flip a coin you can either get heads or tails If you roll a dieice you can get one two three four five or six If you roll two dice you can get six seven eight nine 10 Excuse me you can get 7 8 9 10 11 12 in addition to 2 3 4 5 6 It’s You get what I’m saying here the more variables you introduce the harder it is to replicate And hockey every sequence is different Every single sequence is different And you might say “Well Nick sets in basketball plays in football pitches in baseball.” Yes they are But hockey has more of them in every given sequence in every given scoring play The other sports don’t have you know 120 150 se plays within a given sequence before a score a goal You know you could go a whole game a whole 60 minutes of regulation without scoring And I know that happens from time to time in the other sports but in hockey because there are so many inputs it makes a goalie’s job really difficult And we know based on Calvin Pickard and Stuart Skard’s respective track records where they’re at in the hierarchy of goalies and generally speaking and we’re going to address this more later on goalies that have enough do not change teams teams that are good or even just average or even slightly bad if they have a goalie they feel good about they’re going to hold on to them and try and wait until they’re competitive again because it’s so difficult to find a quality one And that’s kind of where I think the Oilers are at I think they are in the Derek Carr boat of quarterbacks where Derek Carr is not good Yeah I know Derek Carr announced his retirement from football but Derek Carr had one or two exciting seasons through for a lot of yards He was an MVP candidate one time on a Raiders team that was pretty good that made the playoffs in like 2016 or 17 but by and large a very meh quarterback never really elevated above his environment was very situation dependent And because of that they have been in a position where you don’t want to go and try and find someone better and risk losing that baseline level of slightly below average because it’s so hard to find someone who is even average And in the regular season Skinner and Pickard’s combined save percentage of 894 was 1,000th% better than what it was in the regular season Excuse me what the league average was in the regular season The NHL average was 893 Skinner and Pickard combined for 894 I didn’t throw Olivier Rodrig’s relief appearance in there his sworn start in there because it didn’t merit inclusion Didn’t want to be unfair to Skinner and Picker But in the playoffs they weren’t competitive The worst goalie tandem in terms of save percentage to make the Stanley Cup final in the salary cap era We’re talking about a tandem that had three expect goals saved above expected in the playoffs for the whole playoffs And most of that was Skinner in the Dallas series pitching the two consecutive shutouts coming off of the Vegas series where he had had one or two nice games And look I think Skinner has really been unfairly boxed in I think they have been put in a position where they are being asked to do more than they are capable of And I don’t want to fault guys for that because Pickard and Skinner have overachieved relative to their talent And that’s a good outcome You know you think about where Steuart Skinner was in his development when he took the net from Jack Campbell a couple years ago This was somebody with no NHL experience whatsoever Was an all-star as a rookie Has been various points of competent in the playoffs And that’s not enough It’s just not enough And you look at the contemporary NHL and what the expectations are as far as Stanley Cup caliber goalie You don’t need to be Sergey Babski Andre Vaselki Igor Sturken Jussi Sorrowos You don’t need to be elite You go and look Darcy Keer’s numbers when the Avalanche won pretty mediocre Jordan Bennington’s number was when the Blues won They’re okay They’re nothing remarkable But there was a certain baseline level of competency there that gives the rest of your team confidence And right now you can tell the rest of the team in the way they play does not have a ton of confidence no matter what they say And look you can like the guys It I’m not saying you can’t like Steuart Skinner or Calvin Pickard especially if they’re on your team You know you respect them for the craft of goalending It’s not easy It’s really difficult But at the same time the Oilers play tighter in front of Skinner They struggle to move the puck They give up fewer chances against Pickard because they are playing a little bit tighter They are playing a little bit better defensively And he didn’t really reward them for that in the playoffs excuse me in the especially in the Stanley Cup final But that’s the thing here It’s not just you need to be better is that you need to get to a certain baseline level of competency at this position and it’s hard to do There aren’t 20 good starting goalies in the NHL let alone 32 let alone 64 So every team could have a quality backup as well This is very reminiscent of the conversation we have in the NFL about quarterbacks There aren’t 20 good starters in the league Maybe the baseline of what an average quarterback is has gotten better over the last 10 years or so because we’ve made the position easier We’ve changed the rules the offenses are a little bit easier to run but there aren’t 20 guys capable of winning a Super Bowl in the NFL and there aren’t 20 goalies capable of winning the Stanley Cup in the NHL So with that as our baseline we’re going to pivot and in our next segment I’m going to tell you what I think the Oilers are going to do in the off season and going into next season in regards to the goalending position Coming up next on today’s edition of Lockown Oilers where we’ve got your team covered every day In the heart of summer I’m thinking about two things: concerts and baseball I haven’t been to a Met game in a while Me and my friends are planning on going to one of the Yankee Met games Fourth of July weekend next week But if you are in the market to get to a game to get to a concert you have got to check out Game Time Game time has made the ticket buying experience so unbelievably easy Did you know the closer you get to the start of your event the lower your tickets usually get on game time with things like zone deals where you pick the section and game time picks the tickets My personal favorite component of the game time ticket experience is of course the panoramic seat view where in the app before you buy the tickets you can click on the individual seat and get the view of the game of the concert before you buy them Because if you’re going to a baseball game you want to be able to see balls and strikes right you want to be able to see the ball when it’s in play You don’t want to buy tickets in the right field bleachers at Yankee Stadium and not be able to see the ball in the air You want to be able to see the whole game And the panoramic seat view gives you the inside scoop And most importantly new Game Time customers when they use the code locked on NHL they’re going to get $20 off their first purchase One more time That’s code locked on NHL for $20 off your first purchase Download Game Time today Last minute tickets lowest price guaranteed Thank you to everyone who is hanging out on this Friday edition of Locked on Oilers as we are walking through the goalie conundrum And make no mistake about it as long as the Oilers fail to change things this is going to continue being one of the driving if not the single biggest driving storyline for the comfort level with the team And obviously McDavid extension Bousard extension hold more precience because the Oilers have never really had a great goalie in the McDavid era They’ve gotten okay goalie spurts out of guys like Mike Smith Miko Koiskin and Kemp Talbett at various points but never a real bellcow franchise goalie And that archetype doesn’t really exist anymore Even the games best like Bob Vasileleski Shisturkin they’re not pushing 65 games anymore They’re more in the mid50s low 60s if that And that’s cuz teams understand they need to be fresh come playoff time And it’s been a while since we’ve seen a true tan goalie tandem push for a Stanley Cup final There have been instances like Pittsburgh for example especially the second time around where teams have gone back and forth between a goalie on the same team on the way to winning a Stanley Cup They went back and forth between Matt Murray and Mark Andre Flurry We saw Vegas go from Laurent Bruis to Aiden Hill Though Brswis was an injury thing not a performance thing But the Oilers don’t have the right mix to pursue that And you think about the makeup say of that Pittsburgh team where a lead forward group really good team defense not great individual man-to-man as defenseman like just in terms of raw talent but the team overall played pretty good defense They were able to oscillate back and forth between Flurry and Murray for different reasons You know matchups flow of the game which everyone was playing better at the given time And because of that you think about it in the context of what the expectation was If they got competent goalending most of the time that was enough But you think about where the league is at where the Oilers are at right now and what Pickard and Skinner give them on a consistent basis it’s just not enough And I’m very regrettably about to say this I don’t think the Oilers are going to upgrade this position in the off season I think they are going to try and get everyone to hold their nose talk themselves into running this back one more time with these two at least for the start of the regular season because the options as we’re going to address in our third and final segment they’re not spectacular And we talked about this a little bit on yesterday’s show the idea the Oilers would rather spend the difference between the Skinner picker tandem and a more conventional number one starter on an extra forward They would rather have Adam Henrik on the team and Skinner and Pickard as opposed to just John Gibson And you can debate the merits of that I think it is a marketed it It’s a roster building in efficiency when you have a lot of guys making a little money when if you have one guy making a lot of money generally that guy is going to give you a little more excess value The superstar contract is the great market inefficiency in the NHL because wages have been depressed for so long coming out of labor uncertainty and dealing with CBA negotiations COVID keeping the cap down cutting revenues etc You get what I’m saying here the value in a great goalie in that Vasileki that Babski Shurken whoever you want to use in your mind is that he’s going to elevate the rest of your team It’s not your team elevates him It’s the inverse of what the Oilers have going on where because the rest of the team is so good on average The Oilers can get by with average or slightly below average goalending most nights If you dropped a great goalie on this team you would have to account for that in the way the rest of the roster is built You would need to spend less on your depth And of course the Oilers don’t spend a lot on their depth to begin with Now look I understand they’re in weird spots with certain contracts Darnell Nur Savander Kane Victor Arbertson That right there alone is almost $20 million just between those three guys And I think if you gave Stan Bowman the truth serum he’d tell you he’d like to get rid of all three if he could And because of that they have to skimp on goalie They have allocated their money this way with the very conscious mindset of if we spend as much as we can on our 18 skaters and look we have Connor and Leyon They make a ton of money but they’re worth it They outperform their contracts relative to what they would get if you could pay them any amount You know Connor and Leon are very much you know 2025 million players in a non-sary cap NHL because of how good they are how much better they are than everyone else And when you are spending so much on other things you don’t have as much in a salary cap sport on your depth and you have a lot of guys in your bottom six who are making one $2 million at the most you have three or four of those guys and you have to go to free agency for the dart throws like Skinner and Arbertson to say you’re a depressed asset you got bought out or you’re coming off a serious injury or you’re 40 years old and because of that you don’t command as much on the open market and we can afford to get you at a better number that works for us and you’re going to play a more specialized role and if everything works out for everyone you’re going to have a good year here You’ll put up good stats you will play with really good players and you will go get paid by someone else because we can’t do it We’re paying too much already for Connor for Leon for Darnell Nurse etc It’s why they probably aren’t going to go out and get a goalie as of right now And look I personally think it’s ridiculous that we’re going to go a third year with this is the tandem I am not saying the options out there are particularly inspiring exciting even like moderately appetizing you are entirely buying lotto tickets on the group of guys we’re going to talk about in our next segment in the hopes one of those guys might be slightly above average and you’re going to pay more than you want to and that’s the real pain in the butt about this because goalie is such a scarce position because there aren’t even 20 good starters let alone 32 and another 32 backups teams end up overpaying in this middle class of goalie that gets to free agency there’s a reason Cam Talbot’s still kicking as long as he’s been around He’s nothing special but he gives you a baseline level of competency that most teams are eager to sign up for That’s the caliber of goalie who’s going to get to unrestricted free agency most of the time Other than that we’re talking about dart throws cuz a lot of these goalies 27 28 years old they don’t have a lot of burn on them They don’t have a lot of tread on the tires and it puts them in a position where you’re unproven and teams need to gamble on you You look at the way Toronto has tried to piece together goalie with Stolars and Jack Campbell and Joseph Wall You look at the way the Kings have in years past with David Riddic and Cam Talbett and Darcy Keer where they’ve bought low on guys They’ve bought low on backups and they’ve tried to convert them into starters Toronto has opted for the full tandem Carolina has opted to draft a guy in coach and they still want to keep bringing Freddy Anderson along who they feel more confident in even though he can’t stay healthy And look this is the hardest position to get right because there aren’t enough good ones We’re not talking about third line centers here Third line centers you can find something to make work Second pair defenseman you can find that There aren’t 20 good goalies in the NHL And because of that the Oilers are being very reticent to improve on that position from even though their tandem is probably like the 24th or fifth best goalie room They don’t want to risk becoming the 27th or 28th by moving on from one of these guys I think it’s a short-sighted way to operate I don’t think it’s the best plan but I do understand it and that’s really the the conundrum here There is no great path if you’re the Oilers to improving this position without probably overpaying And you would rather if you’re Stan Bowman spend that money or those draft picks on more actively improving of the roster in improving that second line left wing spot or that third pair left spot Unfortunately this is hard to get right And coming up next on today’s edition of Locked on Oilers we’re going to talk about the mly crew of goalie candidates available that the Oilers could pursue I guess if that was something you were interested in coming up next You ever wish managing your money felt easier with Monarch Money it can Whether you’re growing your savings or planning a big purchase Monarch puts you in the driver’s seat It’s like having your own personal CFO to give you full visibility and control over your finances Monarch Money is more than a budgeting app It’s a complete financial command center You can track all of your accounts investments and spending in one place So in addition to managing your money you’re building wealth One thing I was definitely guilty of before I started using Monarch I wasn’t saving enough And using Monarch I was able to set up a goal set up that goal meet that goal and pay off a vacation in August that I am so looking forward to If you’re looking ready to take control of your finances with MonarchMoney use code locked on NNHL at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year subscription One more time that’s monarchmoney.com code locked on NHL for half off your first year’s subscription Thank you to everyone who is hanging out on this Friday edition of Locked on Oilers ahead of what should be a busy weekend with the draft boiling and the rumor mill abound And look everything is always subject to change but based on the way Stan Bowman was talking about goalies in season based on the fact there’s nobody particularly exciting available in free agency I don’t expect the Oilers to bring a third guy in here I think Chris Knobblock values the familiarity he has with Pickard in Skinner the way he’s been able to generally get a good feel and pick the right one depending on the situation But if you were curious I would suppose the best free agent goalie available in terms of pedigree is Jake Allen He’s a little on the older side at 34 He’s coming off a year where he was the backup to Jacob Marston with the Devils He’s been a pretty competent tandem goalie Generally more of what I would consider a backup now A bit more of a better version of what Calvin Pickard brings to the table if you were looking for an arc type I don’t think Jake Allen is going to be at the price point the Oilers are going to be shopping I think if the Oilers are seriously going to add a goalie that’s not a mainline starter they’re going to go to the bargain bin and they’re going to try and find their version of Anthony Stolars they’re going to try and find their version of what Freddy Anderson has been at various points for Carolina what ANTO was for Carolina at various points because that low end of the goalie market the floor is bad You know if you want to roll the dice on VTEC Vanichek or Alexander Giorgv who need to be entirely rebuilt And that’s the thing when you’re going to sign a guy who’s coming off of a miserable season like Gorgivv got given up on by the Avalanche in season Went to the Sharks got his teeth kicked in for 50 games and was awful Was the worst goalie in the NHL last year Do you really want to roll the dice on that guy and say it’s your net 35 times to compliment Stuart Skinner who you don’t feel particularly good about it being his net 57 times it’s not great You know if you wanted to sell one of these guys and I’ve got a few more on the list the one you could maybe sell me on is Alex Lion And Alex Lion is in that mly crew that circus clown um of a goalie room in Detroit Alex Lion has had some okay NHL numbers He’s coming in at 30 years old His career record is 51 38 and 11 Nothing remarkable but he has demonstrated some baseline competency at the NHL level A 9002 save percentage is nothing great His 299 goals against average is horrendous I think you need to have the context that he’s been on some abysmal hockey teams I think when you take out his small samples his first four years in the NHL his 2.94 goals against average still isn’t particularly enticing But at the same time you do need to remember he has spent the last two years in Detroit who play no defense whatsoever who are entirely an offensive skewed team who dedicate all of their power to trying to create as much offense as possible because they know they’re such a liability defensively Alex Lion is the one free agent you might be able to sell me on And even then how much more confident are you in Alex Lion than Stuart Skinner and if you’re not that much more confident you’re not going to give him more starts than Skinner And if you’re looking for a backup Lion doesn’t want to be a backup He’s been able to get a decent number of starts the last few years He got 26 this past season He had 43 the year before That’s not you know Bellcow stats That’s not 65 starts But 40 starts that’s nothing to sneeze at 25 starts that’s a solid steady backup That’s one start every other week One start every week every backtoback too That’s an reasonable workload If you’re Alex Lion do you want to come here and have to win a spot and look I I can’t speak authoritatively as to whether or not he would need to win a spot and force Picker to the AHL but it’s not out of the question that the Oilers would do something like that and that’s something you need to account for What are you offering are you offering the chance to seize the starters role that if you outplay Skinner you’re going to get the role full-time are you offering a straightup tandem where we’re going to split the starts based on the coach’s feel is Skinner the starter and am I coming here to be the backup these are the questions that any goalie that’s considering signing with the Oilers need to contend with because you go and look at the trade market You know maybe John Gibson Thatcher Demco the Canucks I don’t think would trade him in the division and then there are RFAS you know Terasav of the Blue Jackets Dobachev of the Habs and Soderblam of the Blackhawks Now if you wanted to tell me the Oilers are going to try and get Soda Blum from the Blackhawks because they traded for Spencer Knight Remember the Blackhawks traded for Spencer Knight They got him in return for Seth Jones in season last year Spencer Knight is going to be their long-term starter in that Are the Blackhawks going to keep Soderblum to be the backup until he ages out and then he’s a free agent are they going to try and trade him for a mid-round draft pick to just get more assets in the coffer now if I were Chicago I’d hold on to him you can never have enough goalending That’s the type of guy you’re going to be looking at if the Oilers are seriously considering upgrading You are talking about a goalie who doesn’t have a big sample size definitely doesn’t have a sample size of success but is an upside gamble And generally speaking we don’t see teams that consider themselves Stanley Cup contenders going with gamles in net And that’s because generally speaking the gamble doesn’t pay off This is the most volatile position in sports If you had anything in your tank that led your team your previous team to think you could be a decent goalie they would have held on to you It is almost impossible for a truly good goalie to get there There’s a reason Bob might stay the highest paid free agent goalie of all time because great goalies don’t get there Teams would rather do what Nashville did They signed Sorrowos to that big extension and traded Ascarov when they should have did the other thing around because they didn’t want to roll the dice that Ascarov’s AHL numbers wouldn’t translate They would rather have the older goalie who has the track record of success who isn’t going to age well because it’s so hard to find even a decent goalie let alone an actively good one like Sorrowos has been over the years But with all of that said that will do it for this episode of Locked on Oilers If you could be so kind please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast If you happen to be listening on Apple or Spotify please give the show a fivestar review If you’re watching over on YouTube hit the subscribe button hit the like button leave a comment Which of the goalies have we talked about that even moderately interests you i will talk to you guys on Monday Everyone have a safe and fun weekend Until then let’s go Oilers

The Edmonton Oilers just lost a winnable Stanley Cup Final with the worst goaltending tandem of the cap era. So… what happens next?

In this episode of Locked On Oilers, Nick Zararis explains why goaltending is the league’s most volatile position, why the Oilers aren’t likely to upgrade, and what it means if Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard remain the plan for next season. From Alex Lyon and Jake Allen to Soderblom and Georgiev, we explore what’s actually realistic on the goalie market and what’s just fan fiction.

0:00 Intro: Oilers goaltending situation

3:42 Why hockey goaltending is so volatile

7:46 Oilers’ lack of confidence in current goalies

11:30 Unlikely Oilers will upgrade goalie position

16:34 Limited options available in goalie market

21:07 Potential free agent goalie targets

25:43 Trade market and RFA goalie possibilities

The Oilers’ Goalie Problem Isn’t Going Away — Why Edmonton Might Run It Back in Net
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