Questions around the Edmonton Oilers’ goaltending have been put on pause for now, but things appear to be happening in the background.

Stuart Skinner picked up a desperately needed shutout victory for the Oilers over the Seattle Kraken on Saturday. The win helped Edmonton rebound from an embarrassing 8-3 loss to the Dallas Stars last week, and helped prove that Skinner can perform up to standards at times.

Though it was an impressive outing, the noise will inevitably start to pick up with more games on tap this week. It felt like a goalie trade was coming for the Oilers last week, only for the team to stay put with their tandem of Skinner and Calvin Pickard.

NHL insider Elliotte Friedman provided an update on the team’s goalie search on the latest edition of Saturday Headlines. It sounds like GM Stan Bowman is in no rush to find a solution.

“Skinner has not asked out; that did not happen,” Friedman said. “The Oilers have made enough calls, and teams will call you when you’re going through a bad week… 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, a panic move, or a move just to do it… I don’t believe the Oilers’ philosophy has changed at all.”

The latest around the league 👀@FriedgeHNIC covers it all on Saturday Headlines 📰 pic.twitter.com/qhGkaci5Ta

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) November 30, 2025

It’s clear that the Oilers are awaiting the perfect move to present itself before pulling the trigger on a goalie trade. That’s a risky thing to do with the knowledge that Edmonton is dead-last in team save percentage and has a goalie tandem that has underperformed for the last three seasons now.

This isn’t exactly a new problem for the Oilers, and it remains unclear what it is they are waiting for either Skinner or Pickard to show. The runway that has been afforded to this tandem has been extraordinarily long, and the results are still mediocre at best.

Friedman said that while Skinner’s shutout performance was impressive, it’s unlikely to change the minds of a lot of people after the poor start he’s had to the season.

Rumours around Edmonton’s interest in goalies around the league, particularly Jordan Binnington of the St. Louis Blues and Tristan Jarry of the Pittsburgh Penguins, have been picking up over the last week. They may not be the most ideal options out on the market, but they hold the potential to be big improvements over the current options.

With the Christmas break coming soon, you have to think that the Oilers will give it til the holidays before they start to crank up the urgency.