Rumors: Edmonton Oilers poised to shakeup goaltending group by NHL trade deadline
For the second straight season, the Edmonton Oilers fell just short of a Stanley Cup. And now, with everyone clamoring for it, there’s rumors of a major shakeup in net. [Music] You are Locked On Oilers, your daily podcast on the Edmonton Oilers, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hello everyone and welcome to this Friday edition of Locked on Oilers. I am your host Nick Cerraris. This upcoming October will be my fourth season as a host on the Locked On podcast network. And I want to thank everyone that is making Locked On Oilers their first listen of the day, Locked On Oilers, where we’ve got your Edmonton Oilers covered every single day. And today’s episode of Locked On Oilers is brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel. You know this already, but football season’s right around the corner. Check out the FanDuel app today and start planning your futures bets now. So, on today’s edition of Locked on Oilers, we’re going to analyze the conjecture that a major shakeup is coming to the Oilers goalie room. We’re going to break it down into three segments. Our first segment, we’re going to talk about why it’s so hard to acquire a goalie via trade. Our second segment, we’ll talk about the value of the goalending position and some potential candidates that would qualify as shakeups. And then in our final segment, we’ll talk about what’s actually doable in this market. So, to start things out, if you’re an everydayer, if you are someone who’s been a listener of the show, familiar with my philosophy, goalending is the single hardest position in any sport to evaluate. As much as I as much as quarterback in football can be funky as far as efficiency and explosiveness, there’s just there is more to understanding [Music] goalie because it’s so environmentally based. And that’s where we should start this conversation. The Oilers have put the the Steuart Skinner and Calvin Picker tandem in very reasonable positions the last two years. The Oilers are not asking Stuart Skinner to be Sergey Babski, Egurk, and Ilia Sroken. They are simply asking Stuart Skinner, please don’t lose us the game. If you play average or better most nights with the talent we have had in front of you, that’s going to be enough. And there are a litany of ways to approach the goalending position, but I will once again this summer, and the everydayers have heard me cite the stat a lot. Of the 32 starters last year, the goalie who made the most starts for their given team for all 32 teams, more than half, 17 of the 32 were drafted by the team they started those games for last year. There is a real understanding that even if the team around them isn’t particularly good, you are inclined to hold on to a goalie through those lean periods. You look at the Ilio Sroken situation with the Islanders where they gave him that big extension, not really being sure where they were going to sort out in the pecking order. You look at Jussi Soros in Nashville, another example. You look at a team like the Rangers who had a very clear binary choice. If the Rangers wanted to pull that eject cord and start over and reorient their team towards a younger, cheaper group, they could have traded Ugor Sturken last year. But goalie is hard to evaluate. We have seen many a goalie change scenery and it not stick for a variety of reasons. And that brings us to why it’s difficult to make a trade happen. And we’re talking about trades because all the free agent candidates short of talk talking Mark Andre Flurry out of retirement are gone there. All of the interesting guys, you know, I was tentatively interested in Alex Lion. There were a few goalies who beat it around. if you were interested in maybe a VTech Vanichek or an Ilia Samsonov, there were guys out there if you really wanted to throw a dart. But as we’ve maintained here on lockdown withers most of the summer without either of those guys representing a clear upgrade, Stan Bowman was going to stay with what he knew. And sometimes that’s frustrating as a fan and I agree. I I definitely would have liked to have seen some effort even if it was just to improve the backup position. But when it comes to goalie, this is one of the most clear-cut examples of the nature versus nurture debate. And I think it really comes down to what you’re thinking about when you’re evaluating the goalie. Goalie, I I I come back to this all the time. I don’t know if it’s still there. I haven’t been to the Hockey Hall of Fame in like 10 years at this point, but the last time I went, they have an exhibit in there that’s just about goalies. And on the door above the room to go in there, it says, “This is the only position in all of sports where perfection is the expectation.” And to the average NHL fan, they see a score 4 to one. They say, “Well, the goalie wasn’t that good.” And that is where we start to get into the weeds. That is where we start to have an interesting conversation because not all goals are created equal. What’s the workload like? What’s the quality of offense the defense in front of a guy is conceding? You could put Igor Shisturkin who has great underlying numbers in his NHL career so far in particular in the postseason on the San Jose Sharks from last year. And surein’s better than what they had in that. Whether you want to do the first half of the year with Mackenzie Blackwood, the back half of the year with Alexander Gorgv, no one’s saying the Sharks are a good team. But if you drop a great goalie on a bad team, there is only so much a great goalie can do. And that’s really the crux of this argument because when you evaluate the position, you get to a certain point where it comes down to results. It does not matter what the numbers say. It doesn’t matter how good the quality of offense they stopped. It doesn’t matter how many saves they made. Does the other team have more goals than you? And ultimately evaluating goalending comes down to a zero- sum game. It drives me crazy. I think it’s a poor way to have discussion. But because goalending results are so heavily tied to team results, it’s really hard for the average fan, the casual fan who checks in once a week, once every other week, to discern between the two. And I am always going to end up being on the side of the player because I think there’s more to understand about the game. And frankly, when we’re evaluating goalies, you can have a great goalie on a terrible team, there’s only so much they can do. And then the other way around, you know, if you’re an average or below average goalie, but you get put in the right environment, you can put up wins. And I think a lot of Oilers fans would dare to say that’s the case with Stuart Skinner that they put Skinner as a rookie behind a very well assembled roster. That team went to the second round of the playoffs, played reasonably well in the regular season. Skinner put up, I want to say, 40 wins his first full season in the NHL as a starter. And that gave everybody a perception that, okay, this guy’s got some upside. I mean, we entered last year, and I I can put my hand up and say it, I was amongst them. I thought there was a decent chance if Skinner had a good first month or two of the season, he could have played his way into being one of the three goalies for team Canada. That’s how volatile this position is. Even after last year where Skinner got benched in the second round against Vancouver, he came back against Dallas, was great. He was fine in the Stanley Cup final. I don’t think he was the reason they ultimately lost in a close series, but I do think a better goalie could have made a difference. And that’s really the key here. goalie gets talked about very similarly to the way we talk about quarterback in football where do they elevate the environment that’s around them or are they products of their environment you know you think about the Jack Nicholson monologue at the beginning of the departed about how he wants his environment to be a product of him and that’s difficult for a goalie and that’s why as we’ve talked about a lot this summer forwards are more valuable than defense defense is more valuable than goalie that’s because in that order that is how you can most materially change the environment. A goalie can only make saves. Some of them have good stick handling. They can orchestrate breakouts to some degree, but goalies can only make saves. Defensemen, well, they can break the puck out. They can skate it out. They can contribute offensively. Forwards, forwards can do a little everything. And that’s where the ability to change the game state, to impact the game, to control the game comes in. We’re going to continue our conversation about goalending. Coming up next, we’re going to talk about the value and the way different teams look at the goalending position right after this break. So, be sure to stick around to this edition of Locked on Oilers, where we’ve got your team covered every day. The NFL season is almost here and FanDuel is making sure you’re ready for kickoff with a can’tmiss offer. Right now, new FanDuel customers can bet just five bucks. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the FanDuel app. I love using FanDuel because it makes it so easy to get in on the action. Whether it’s before the game starts with live betting or of course cooking up a same game parlay with your friends, it makes the games all the more exciting. 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You can also find the link in the show notes. Thank you so much for helping us out. Goalending is my favorite thing to talk about in hockey on a positional basis because it is so difficult and that’s what makes it a fun conversation because there isn’t a right answer. And we’ve talked about this a lot this summer, the idea that there isn’t one way to build a team. You can look at the way the Panthers have where they spent top of the market. Babroski, highest paid goalie in the history of NHL free agency, first goalie to win a Stanley Cup, making more than $10 million per year. You look at the Lightning, who paid Andre Basilki, who’s gone on to be one of the best of his era. You look at what Shist Sturken’s making. The Rangers haven’t broken through. Then you look at some of the contemporaries, Vegas, Colorado, Darcy Kemper, Aiden Hill, decent NHL goalies, you know, good NHL careers, nice nice pieces on good teams. You know, you drop Aiden Hill on a team where he’s going to have to do more work, you do the same thing to you do that type of workload increase. You know, you drop a slightly above average or average goalie onto a bad team and it becomes a challenge. You think about, here’s an example. So, think about the three-year odyssey of Darcy Keer, who went from winning a Stanley Cup in Colorado to signing a long-term extension, well, medium-term extension with the Washington Capitals. He loses his job to Charlie Lingren. He gets traded from Washington to LA for Pierre Luke Dubois. Darcy Kemper goes to LA. He gets down ballot Vzna votes year-over-year. That is how much environment matters. You drop a slightly above average goalie like Darcy Keer into an elite defensive team like the LA Kings and the wins will pile up. You drop Darcy Keer on a team like the New York Rangers where he has to make up a huge volume of shots. They concede a lot of dangerous offense because they’re pushing so aggressively for dangerous offense. It creates a trade-off. And that’s where you come down to. That is how difficult it is to evaluate and why it’s so hard to make these things work. That’s why it took the Devils almost a full season to get Jacob Marstrom. You know that I I go back to the spring of tw excuse me February of 2024 where it was reported that the deal between the Flames and Devils was almost worked out and then Marstrom at the last minute kind of had second thoughts and ultimately it took until the summer to get that deal done. And you think about Marstrom had a decent season in New Jersey. He missed quite a bit of time with injury, but he wasn’t bad. But Jacob Marstrom is also someone who profiles a bit as that workhorse type. Lot of a lot of minutes. You know, Jacob Marstrom drafted more than 10 years ago at this point. Stinson in Florida, Vancouver, Calgary, New Jersey. There’s a good goalie, but it took a while for him to get somewhere where there was, you know, the opportunity. And that’s the trick here. When a goalie actually gets to unrestricted free agency, other than Sergey Babski, more often than not, they are someone who has been in a tandem or has been a backup their entire career and they are trying to get a bigger role. You you think about someone like Freddy Anderson who went from Anaheim to Toronto and then Toronto who has been one of the more frugal spending teams when it comes to goalending over the last 5 to 10 years said we think we can recreate goalending that’s good enough to get by and we’d rather spend our money on forwards and defense and Carolina has done this to a very similar extent where they have Freddy Anderson they have Peter Cochetov both who have pretty good regular season stats but Carolina not opting to go into that next tier up has I don’t want to say been boxed in because of their goalending limitations because I think that’s a little unfair because I do think Freddy Anderson and coach golf are both pretty good in all honesty in relation especially to some of the guys you could have but it creates a real challenge and it gets back to something I said in the first segment the idea that Stan Bowman would rather roll the dice with the guys he’s been had the guys he has had on the team for the last two years or I should say the last year he wasn’t the GM the first time they went to the final he would rather roll the dice with the guys he does have. Try not to upset the apple cart. Piss off the guys on the team by getting rid of someone they all like. And look, that’s not the best way to run a team sometimes. You know, I I I venture to say, dare to say the Oilers might have been better off pissing Conor McDavid off a little bit and letting Darn Elmer leave sleeve as a free agent a couple years ago as opposed to giving him the big extension. You can’t always run by what some of the guys on your team want. It’s important to manage team morale, to manage team energy, but at the same time, if it comes to the detriment of the team to maintain that status quo, that does become an issue. So, when we’re talking about value, it’s very difficult to get fair value for a goalie. And that’s why it’s very infrequent that you see a starting goalie get traded. Now, some cases, Lenus is a good example of this, the backup plays their way into a bigger role and effectively steals the job. And look, that’s not to say Lena isn’t good. And I do think Jeremy Swayman is pretty good. I know he wasn’t great in the regular season last year. I would point to the fact he didn’t have a training camp. He basically signed the day before the season started, was in net the next day. And sure, he worked out, he practiced, but that’s not the same thing as preseason reps. That’s not the same thing as being in an NHL environment as working out with hockey guys. That’s really one of the tricks there. As we continue talking about this, it’s only natural that I give you some candidates. And look, it is important. I say this is all based on reporting. It has been reported in more than one place that the Oilers want to shake up their goalie situation. The problem is it is August. There are no goalies out there in free agency. Again, like I said, if you can talk Mark Andre Flurry out of retirement and you want him to be the backup instead of Calvin Pickard, God bless. I hope he can make it happen. But by and large, the Oilers are going to have to look at pending unrestricted free agents, guys who have one year left on their contract and then will be free agents in the summer of 2026. And then they’re going to need to hope that the teams these guys are on stink and stink aggressively so that they will give up on them. The problem, of course, as I’m about to tell you, is most of the unrestricted free agent goalies for next summer are on teams that desperately need to make the playoffs. Sergey Babroski, the Panthers are going for a three repeat. Jacob Marstrom, if the Devils missed the playoffs, Tom Fitzgerald could get fired. Peter Morazzic, that’s doable, but his stats aren’t very good. 906 save, 285 goals against. Philip Gustoson, very similar to Jacob Marstrom. If the Wild missed the playoffs, would it be that shocking if Bill Garren got fired? Lauren Brasis, someone I think is doable, the backup goalie for the Blackhawks, but someone who’s never started more than 20 games in a season. Someone who is likely past the best hockey of their career coming off of some serious injuries, even though he was a pretty solid backup for the Jets last year. He signed in Chicago for right now. He’ll back up Spencer Knight, but that that feels doable. Freddy Anderson, he’s a little bit older. injuries. Carolina likes having multiple goalies to rotate between to keep guys fresh, but Freddy Anderson’s had a pretty nice NHL career. And then to round out the group, another former Carolina Hurricane, Alex Nadulkovich, someone who’s got bad stats, a 903 save, an over three goals against average. Do any of those guys really move you? Did any of those guys jump off the page and say, “We need that guy. He’s definitely better than Steuart Skinner.” And I mean that in terms of the attainable ones. Yes. Babroski, Marstrom, Gustiffson, all undoubtedly better than Skinner. Those are guys all on teams that are going to try and make the playoffs. And in the case of the Panthers win another Stanley Cup, they’re not going to trade them. It would be wholly counterintuitive for the Devils to trade Marstrom, for the Wild to trade Gustoson, and yes, for the Panthers to trade Babski. Look, if the Panthers still had still had Spencer Knight, maybe you could talk me into Babski being a free agent next summer and the Panthers choosing to go cheaper and younger, but they turned Seth they turned Spencer Knight into Seth Jones. So, that’s not happening. That is a team that is in their window and will not be subtracting if they can help it. We are going to take our second and final break of today’s show. When we come back, I’m going to talk about why the vibe of the goalie change does matter and what they might actually be able to swing come trade deadline and yes, unfortunately, next summer. Thank you to everyone who is hanging out on this Friday edition of Lockdown Oilers ahead of a 3-day weekend down here in the States. We’ll have an episode for you Tuesday of next week. I am very much looking forward to the weekend. It’s been a busy week getting into the loop, but man, man, hockey little more than four and a half, five weeks away. We’re starting to get towards previews and conversations about where the game should be this season. And I have spent a lot of this summer expressing displeasure at the fact the Oilers have failed to upgrade their goalie room. I just because I can understand Stan Bowman’s decision-making doesn’t mean I agree with it. And this is one of the things that makes me a little annoying to have an argument with is I don’t even need to agree with you. But as long as I can understand the logic in what you’re doing, I’m not going to keep arguing. You know, there’s nothing I can say on this podcast that’s going to convince Dan Bowman he was wrong. I think there’s an argument to be made if he could have dumped Evander Kane’s entire contract, he should have tried to get John Gibson from the Ducks and figure out the forward group later because John Gibson almost certainly is better than Steuart Skinner and he’s definitely better than Calvin Pickard. And there has been quite a bit of discourse. I forget who I saw making this point a few weeks ago, but just for argument sake, let’s say you get somebody who’s more of a starter. You know, you get Jacob Marstrom. You could have gotten John Gibson. You get Freddy Anderson maybe. Does making Skinner start fewer games make him play better? Is this an efficiency case where because Skinner is isn’t a true bellcow goalie, he doesn’t have enough ability to be a quality starter for X number of starts? So, if he only starts 30 games as opposed to 50 games, would those 30 starts be better because he doesn’t need to push for as long? But what does that do to your dynamic? And I do think there’s a real toothpaste in the tube feeling now about this goalie situation. And I’ve been very adamant on the show over the last two years that Skinner and Pickard are not the reason the Oilers didn’t win the Stanley Cup. But I do think a better goalie could have made a difference in either game. I do think a better goalie could have swung a game. Now, that’s not the same thing as saying that goalending is what lost them the games, but that is the benefit of having the special talent, of having the elite at their respective positions is that they are capable of rising above their environments. But, as we talked about earlier, goalies have a very difficult time doing that in relation to the other positions. And that’s why some teams just don’t spend the money. That’s why the Maple Leafs will continue to do things like Anthony Stolars and Joseph Wall. Why the Hurricanes are doing Freddy Anderson and Peter Coachov. Why the Kings keep doing a revolving door of slightly above replacement level goalies behind a great defensive team. These are all examples of teams that understand that the return on investment between the slower tiers of goalie is minimal. The difference between a five and a $6 million goalie is not worth it if you are a good team. The logic being that you would rather have a $3.5 million forward than a $2.5 million forward. And that million dollars of difference in your forward group is going to do more for the overall quality of your team. And I think you’ve seen the Oilers to some extent pursue that line of thinking that we’d rather spend that money on Andrew Mioani. We would rather spend that money on some other guys. And that’s really the trick when you are evaluating roster construction and what’s spent. Do you feel good about the potential range of outcomes? And I’ll extend an olive branch here. Let’s say the Oilers do manage to trade for Laurent Buswis or Peter Morazzic or Alex Lion or VTEC Vanichek or Ilas Mson Sonov or Akira Schmidt. you know, a goalie who isn’t gonna start a majority of the games, who’s likely going to be the picker replacement. Does that really qualify as a goalie room shakeup? Yes, you change the backup. The backup is not going to start in the postseason if things go well. Is your goalie, your starting goalie ceiling high enough that you feel okay? Is your starting goalie ceiling high enough that you think you can win the whole thing? And the Oilers, whether it’s foolish or they genuinely believe it, they think Steuart Skinner can do that. We have two Stanley Cup finals of evidence to say Skinner cannot raise above his environment. He is very much going to be a amalgamation of what happens in front of him. If there are defensive breakdowns, if the vibes spike downward, it’s going to be tricky for him to make something happen. And the glimmers are what kill you. You know, it’s what Morgan Freeman says in Shaw Shank Redemption. Hope’s a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane. And you see Skinner play the way he did in the Dallas series each of the last two years. And you start to talk yourself into, well, is he really that bad? And you can’t let yourself get taken away by only the good. You know, we talked about this the other day, the idea, well, if you apply for a job, you think you’re going to get it. You buy a lotto ticket, you think you’re going to win. The Oilers with Steuart Skinner keep thinking that turn is around the corner. All it takes is a couple good starts and he gets it together. But at the same time, the longer it takes for him to turn this supposed corner, the more unlikely it is he will ultimately turn said corner. And that’s one of the real damning things about the way trajectories work in careers that even if Skinner has a good regular season, that won’t particularly matter. And look, if he puts together a 910 save and a 26, a 25 goals against, that’s going to be more than enough to get the Oilers into the playoffs. If Steuart Skinner gives them slightly above average goalending with the defensive results, they should get that should be more than enough. Then we get to the volatility of a playoff series where it only takes a couple goals across seven games to swing things in a disfavorable way. And I want to give Stan Bowman the benefit of the doubt when it comes to talent acquisition. I do. I understand why the Oilers didn’t go after someone like Alex Lion or one of the young guys like Akira Schmidt who don’t have a lot of experience but have flashed because he thinks it’s better to spend that money on the forwards on the defenseman. The Oilers defense should be better than it was last year in the regular season. They have a full year of Jake Walman, someone I am very very bullish on going forward. At the same time, you cannot look at me and seriously tell me Skinner and Pickard are good enough for where the Oilers want to be. They got to the Stanley Cup final with some of the worst goalending of the salary cap arrow. It is a remarkable testament to the group in front of them that they got there, but it does not need to be this way. And the Oilers likely won’t get where they want to go without a genuine shakeup. I’m not saying improving the backup. I am saying either Skinner has a massive jump in his performance and is better or they get a real starter in here because right now if you’re gonna tell me the Oilers are going to give Steuart Skinner a contract extension after the way he’s played the last two years, I don’t think that’s a tenable position to take with the public that wants to be nice, but at the same time realizes with each passing day Connor and Leon are getting older and the sooner those guys go away, the sooner the Oilers are going to need to restart the entire process. process over again. So, you need to get this squared away. And the longer you go, the harder it is to ultimately get things taken care of. That will do it for today’s edition of Locked on Oilers. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast. If you’re 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 alarm bell. Let me know. Do you think any of those guys are even doable? Maybe Bruis, maybe Alex Lion, maybe Peter Morazzic. Would you even want one of those guys? Let me know down in the comments. Be sure to check out the locked on NHL and game night shows where they’re breaking down the NHL ahead of the season. Be sure to do that. Be sure to do that survey. Get a chance at one of those Amazon gift cards. I will talk to you guys next week. Everyone, have a safe and fun weekend. Until then, let’s go Oilers.
EDMONTON OILERS face goaltending dilemma as dissatisfaction grows around Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard tandem.
Host NICK Zararis analyzes the challenges of acquiring goalies via trade and evaluates potential candidates to bolster the OILERS’ crease. The discussion covers the value of elite net minders, the impact of team environment on goalie performance, and whether reducing SKINNER’s workload could improve results. Zararis explores how the OILERS’ goaltending situation affects their championship aspirations during the prime years of CONNOR MCDAVID and LEON DRAISAITL.
Tune in for an in-depth look at the OILERS’ goaltending options and their implications for the team’s future. Will Holland make a move, or stick with the current tandem?
0:00 Intro: Oilers’ goaltending situation
4:50 Why it’s difficult to evaluate goalies
9:29 FanDuel sponsorship and betting offer
11:31 Different approaches to goalie spending
17:36 Potential goalie trade candidates for Oilers
22:42 Balancing goalie investment vs other positions
27:18 Oilers need major goalie upgrade to contend
Rumors: Edmonton Oilers poised to shakeup goaltending group by NHL trade deadline
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13 comments
Wouldn’t that be nice 🎉
PTO Carter Hart?
I’ve heard it said 13-14% of games Skinner lets the first or second shot in. During playoffs it jumps to 20%. One in 5 games they’re playing from behind. Hope the new goalie coach helps!🎉
Dark days ahead for the Oilers
The question about a new goalie coach for Skinner isn't just about whether or not it can improve his play, it's also about how long it will take to improve his play. Luongo, in an interview, said that after his devastating Cup loss with Vancouver, he worked with new coaches and it took him a good solid season to improve his game – and that's one of the best goalies of all time and a veteran, too. With Skinner, he's young, less experienced, less mature. How long will it take to see a lasting improvement in his game? It seems like a full season isn't unreasonable. So what? Next season in 26/27 is when the Oilers will see improvement in his game? That doesn't help them right now. It doesn't generate that pathway to winning multiple Cups that McDavid is looking for. It also assumes that the new goalie coach is any good and that Skinner will improve at all. There are goalie coaches on every team and a lot of crappy goalie situations. A new goalie coach isn't a magic panacea.
Confession That’s when the Battles of Alberta tugged on my heart, when he played against Mike Smith because those 2 our my favourite Goalies Smith be #1
Nick your stuck with me for life Because GOALIES ARE MY FORTE
I'm not sure why pickard wasn't in that game 6.
Just my Pinion – Cant count on Skinner most times ! – Too Freakin up-down !! – Make him the 2nd & take the Pressure off
Nick – Wearing a Habs tee – Talkin bout the Oil ( wtf ) lol
BREAKING NEWS!!
They might make a move, sometime between now and March!
Poised? Trade deadline is two thirds of the season away.
If Florida and Edmonton swapped goalies for the finals would the Panthers still have won?