Edmonton Oilers goaltending hits franchise-worst mark not seen in over 40 years
The Edmonton Oilers’ goaltending has never been as bad as it has been this season.
Throughout the franchise’s 46-year history, the Oilers have experienced plenty of peaks and valleys when it comes to goaltending. The team has boasted legends at the position with Grant Fuhr, Curtis Joseph, and even Tommy Salo suiting up for the team and giving incredible performances.
Guys like Dwayne Roloson have led them on an improbable run in 2005-06, while Cam Talbot turned in a record-setting 2016-17 season to help Edmonton end a decade-long playoff drought. But recent years haven’t been so kind.
It’s been a long time since the Oilers have had stable goaltending, and to say the current duo of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard has been struggling might be an understatement. Their start to the 2025-26 NHL season may be the worst in franchise history.
Tuesday night’s blowout loss at the hands of the Dallas Stars only brought more attention to the desperate situation.
According to Sportsnet Stats, Edmonton’s .860 team save percentage is the lowest in franchise history through 25 games since the 1979-80 season, which also happened to be their first year in the NHL.
Oilers .860 team save percentage is their lowest through 25 games since their inaugural NHL season in 1979-80
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) November 26, 2025
That 1979-80 season saw the Oilers use six different goalies, with all Eddie Mio, Jim Corsi, Dave Dryden, Don Cutts, and Bob Dupuis playing games. Mio and Coris wound up playing the most out of that group.Ā Edmonton somehow still managed to make the playoffs that season despite the goaltending, getting swept by the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round.
Despite being a new addition to the NHL and having very low expectations to perform, the Oilers still worked to make sure that the goaltending went through some changes. They didn’t sit idly by and allow the goaltending to continue to flounder. Changes were made, for good or for bad, and an effort was made to improve the situation.
The same cannot be said for this edition of the Oilers, who are seemingly sticking by Skinner and Pickard despite multiple seasons of inconsistent and disappointing results between the pipes.
Edmonton ranks dead last in the NHL in team save percentage this season, with Skinner’s .878 and Pickard’s .847 both ranking near the bottom of the entire league. The hope was that this tandem would finally find some consistency, but all they’ve done is get so much worse.
An argument can be made that the defensive play of the team is largely to blame, but that feels like a bit of a cop-out. The defensive play has been bad, but that doesn’t absolve the goaltenders. Skinner and Pickard have a job to do as well, and they haven’t been getting it done.
It’s honestly impressive to see them set a franchise-worst mark for a team that has so many low points throughout their history. Somehow, this ranks lower than all the mediocre Oilers teams of the 1990s, and also finds a way to dig deeper than the dreaded decade of darkness squads of the late 2000s to mid-2010s.
This is an Oilers team coming off two consecutive Stanley Cup Finals; the goaltending should not be this bad. The defensive environment hasn’t been great for two months, but has it really been the worst it’s ever been?
At some point, something has to give in this situation. The goaltending has been an issue for multiple years, and it’s coming apart spectacularly this year. The clock is ticking on the season for GM Stan Bowman to find a solution.