The Edmonton Oilers have been under a ton of scrutiny over the last few weeks. A major point of contention is their goaltending and just how bad it has been this season. As a team, they have a league worst save percentage at .868. Individually, Stuart Skinner has a .878 save percentage and Calvin Pickard has an .847 SV%.
Related: Skinner Leads Oilers to 4-0 Shutout Win Over Kraken
To make matters worse, they’ve been rumoured to be in trade talks with both the St. Louis Blues and Pittsburgh Penguins for Jordan Binnington and Tristan Jarry. However, last night on Saturday Headlines, NHL insider Elliotte Friedman broke tons of Oilers hearts with his latest update. He said the Oilers are not going to make a trade just for the sake of making a trade or what they believe will be a lateral move.
Oilers Not Looking to Make “Lateral Move” Between the Pipes
Friedman essentially put all trade rumors to bed, at least for now. Here is what he had to say:
“The Oilers have made enough calls, and teams call you when you’re going through a bad week,” he said. “You know the teams out there that kind of have extra goalies or goalies that are willing to move, like Columbus, Buffalo, Pittsburgh. And what I can tell is that Edmonton’s position has not changed at all. They are not going to do it just to do it. They are not going to do what they believe is a lateral move. They would rather make no move than what they think would be a bad move or a panic move or a move just to do it.”
Edmonton Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner makes a save against the Ottawa Senators (Marc DesRosiers-IMAGN Images)
If this is the case, it looks like the Oilers are going to allow their goalies a bit more time before they decide what to do. It should also be noted that they have Connor Ingram in the American Hockey League (AHL), but he hasn’t done much better than either goalie at the NHL level.
Friedman also reported that Skinner has not asked out of Edmonton, but instead did an autograph session earlier this week.
