RAW | Stuart Skinner 11.27.25

Well, how do you think your season’s gone? Uh, I think, uh, personally, I’ve been doing my best to show up consistently. Um, results will say that it hasn’t gone our way. Um, hasn’t been very favorable, but that’s that’s life, isn’t it? Uh, sometimes life isn’t fair, but um I think for us as a group, we just got to continue to keep on working on our game, keep on doing the little things, keep on working on our structure. um you know really uh dial in the the trusting of each other out there. Um and we you know our job is just to keep on getting better every single day. It’s it’s not easy especially when you’re losing games um you know and the feelings that that we feel sometimes as a team. So uh just sticking together doing our best together and getting out of this thing. The fan wants every time we turn around they want another goalie. Don’t want you. I mean that must hurt. Hasn’t that happened? Uh, it’s happened a lot here. No, down on the go bullies here. You’re too young for that. No, I was there for that. Um, I felt bad for him. I mean, uh, yeah, I mean, that’s that’s happened a few times here. It’s I think it happens anywhere around the league. Um, goalies need to come up with big saves at big times. Um, yeah, I’m not really too sure how like how much I can really say on that either. It’s uh it’s kind of just part of the the game of being a goalie. Um I decided to choose that. I’m going to try to get my kids to be a player for sure. I was going to ask you that cuz Glenn Hall told me once he says, “Nobody forces us to be goalies. You’re 10 years old. When the heat’s on, you could have played another position.” Yeah. Sometimes sometimes when it gets really bad, you wish you uh made a different choice. But um but honestly, I love it, man. like it’s the best thing in the world being able to be a goalie. I’ve learned so much um in so many different ways, not just on ice, but just character. Uh being able to pull out pull yourself out of some really tough spots. Um being a good teammate even when things even when you feel like the world’s crashing down on you, you know, it’s it’s easy to be selfish. Um and you learn a lot about not being selfish in this position. Um, you know, again, it’s not about just one guy, it’s about everybody. So, sometimes you see goalies when they’re really frustrated, they start pointing out things to the guys in front of them. Goender, you obvious have guard against that, I think. Yeah. I mean, there that that’s human nature, I think, for anybody as a human, it’s it’s you want to take yourself off the hook of things, right? So, it’s easy it’s easy that’s the easiest thing to do when things are tough is pointing the finger. Um but uh for for our group, we’re not we’re not in the business of doing that. We’re in the business of lifting each other up and and trying to carry ourselves out of this thing as a team. Um because we’ve created that culture. We’ve created that brotherhood in here. Uh it’s easy to point the finger. It’s human nature. Sometimes you still do it, but you try your best to be aware of it and catch yourself. And I’m certainly not doing that. I need to be better for this group. You want to be here long term? Of course. Yeah. I mean, I want to be in the NHL. Everybody keeps all these fans keep yelling. We need a better goal. We need a bigger goal. Yeah, sure. But you want to be here even though you’re taking all this? It is what it is. Um, again, I can’t really control what the fans are saying. Ste, when you say that you want to play better, a lot of the guys are talking about their own individual game, is there one or two things you look and say, “Okay, here’s where I got to start to get the foundation back to where I want.” Yeah, I think I think again it was kind of like your first question, but um it’s just coming back and realizing that you got to stick to the the boring routine. You got to keep on going, keep on working on the same same things that I’ve been working on uh since uh since the start of the season because I think those things have been helping me. Uh it’s just um it’s just kind of waiting for the results to turn around. That process is a test of your patience unlike anything else. Yeah. Um for sure uh patience, annoyance, frustration. Um there can be a lot of negative feelings that creep in. But um that’s the hard part about it. You know, I think that’s for anybody in any sort of job in general. Uh sometimes it’s hard waking up the next morning and going in and being like, well, I got to do the same thing all over again. Um but if you do that day after day after day, you know, you keep on chipping at that rock, something’s going to happen eventually. For a lot of skaters sometimes if they’re in the funk, it’s like, you know what, I’m just gonna be physical. I’m just gonna run. I’m gonna hit some guy and maybe I’m mad and I can lose some frustration. Can’t really do that as a goalie, right? Like it’s not like you can hit hit the I could break my stick off the post, I guess. So, but like how do you because sometimes there is frustration. How do you let it out? Uh for me, I’ve learned um just deep breaths. Uh I’ve I’ve learned in my career that frustration has only made things worse for me. Uh you know, and that’s all personal. Sometimes it helps people, sometimes it doesn’t. I think for me whenever I do I can tend to overdo things, try too hard, um kind of get more in my head. So for me, I think just taking a deep breath and relaxing. Um I think that’s a that’s something that I’ve learned. You know, frustration is I don’t want to say a pointless emotion, but it can uh it can hurt me individually if I do that. Ste, maybe take us through the gear. First time seeing you and talking to you since you gear. The inspiration. No, it’s been good. Uh um they feel actually really good ever since the the first time I stepped into it. Um so CCM has done a great job with that. Uh Jerry and I, the CCM rep, he’s uh he helped me out with some of the colors and different ideas and we went through a different uh a couple few a few different pictures. Sorry. Uh get that out of my mouth here. Um a few different pictures to look at and uh picked on this one. I think it looks good. I could be wrong. Is there a little grand deer in there? Is that I think there might be a little bit. Yeah, we uh we added a little bit of the skate lace to it. Just uh yeah, just having some fun with it. And how about the mask? I know you’re always pretty personal when it comes to the touches. Yeah, just on the the few small things, but in general we, you know, making it about the team and how uh and just trying to make it match the pads in general.

Stuart talks with the media following Oilers practice on Thursday at Rogers Place.

41 comments

  2. Anyone who really thinks that last game is on either goalie and not on the rest of the team playing worse than beer league level defense doesnt know puck and just wants an easy scapegoat.

  5. If the Oilers had even 20% fewer turnovers in the defensive end and a few less blunders in front of their own goal, the record would reflect far better even if Skinner had played the same. The team is playing like garbage in our own end.

  11. For as many people who are hating on the guy, the way he handled this interview and answered questions with his heart, all due respect skinner. LETS GO BINNINGTON!!!!

  30. As a Pred, this interview was no less than a class act, considering the nature of the questions.
    Stuart seems to be a well-balanced person at peace with himself. Hope he can raise his game and silence some of the criticism

  31. I really like Stu when the team actually is playing good, he's good too, fans blame him for a lot of the teams short comings, they are not looking at the whole picture, defensively they are not great lately, sure he can make more saves at times, but hey when both him and Pickard struggled you should see it for what it is, poor defence. They let the stars get tons of good shots…

    I fear that if we run him off the team, he might become better with another team, and oilers if they can't get better with defence, no matter who they get won't be a "better" goalie.

    I mean come on, the team also needs to be able to get goals too, lots of games they seem to be snake bitten and not able to get them.

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