Enough is enough: Edmonton Oilers need to trade for a platoon goalie to help Skinner
The NHL trade deadline is less than 48 hours away, and it’s become very clear that the Edmonton Oilers need to do something about their goaltending.
It’s been a question mark for this team for a few seasons now, but with both Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard faltering lately, it’s now obvious that the biggest thing holding the Oilers back is a lack of consistent goaltending.
Tuesday’s 6-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks was the nail in the coffin. Sure, the team didn’t play well in their zone, but the Ducks managed to score four first-period goals, all while recording just 1.06 xG against Pickard. When Skinner came on in relief, he let in two goals on 16 shots to allow the bleeding to continue.
NHL goalies aren’t expected to be perfect, but they are expected to make a few saves on any given day. Right now, every mistake the Oilers make is finding its way past both goaltenders, and that can’t be the case for a Stanley Cup contender.
Skinner has shown the potential to be Edmonton’s guy, but he hasn’t been able to string together strong play for long enough to erase any doubt. His rookie season saw him shine with a .914 SV%, but he has struggled to get up to .900 this season. Over his past 12 appearances, he has recorded an SV% of .900 or higher just three times.
When it comes to facing the NHL’s best teams, Skinner has also struggled hard this year with a 3-10-2 record against the current top-10 teams in the league. It’s simply not good enough. That isn’t to say that Skinner doesn’t have a future with Edmonton, more that it means that he needs some help right now.
Pickard has been fantastic in a pinch, but he isn’t the calibre of goaltender you can reasonably trust to take on top-tier teams for longer stretches when Skinner is off his game. His record shows well enough, but he remains in the bottom tier of NHL goaltenders with a GSAx of -6.6 (as per Moneypuck), which ranks 79th out of a total of 94 goalies across the league. Skinner ranks 71st in that stat with a GSAx of -3.8.
If history repeats and Skinner loses his games in the playoffs again, can the Oilers bank the entire season on Pickard being able to pick up the slack? Maybe, but the risks presented are far too high.
The Oilers have proven that when they simply get league-average goaltending, they are dominant. So far this season, Edmonton has an incredible 29-3-2 record when their goaltender posts a SV% of .900 or higher.
The record when that dips below .900? An incredibly bad 6-18-2. That isn’t asking a ton, considering the league average is hovering right around .901. The defensive play could be better, but the stark contrast in the results based solely on goaltending is too high to ignore.
There aren’t many goalies available right now before the deadline, but one that Edmonton should be calling about is John Gibson. He’s older and has struggled over the past few seasons, but he has caught lightning in a bottle this season.
Despite playing on a very bad Ducks team, Gibson has managed a .911 SV% and ranks ninth in the league with a +14.7 GSAx. Further to that, the 31-year-old reportedly has the Oilers on the list of teams he’d want to be traded to.
Is he the long-term solution inside Edmonton’s crease? Probably not, but when it comes to forming a tandem with Skinner, he could wind up becoming an incredibly important player on this team both down the stretch in the regular season and into the playoffs.
If not Gibson, there must be decent runs at other guys, such as Utah’s Karel Vejmelka or even St. Louis Blues’ Jordan Binnington, if you can pry him loose. The contracts on these players may be pricey, but there are ways around that, be it retention or getting a third team involved. Nobody is saying these are easy deals to be made, but this has become a necessity.
Other parts of this Oilers team need to be improved, but if you only had a chance to fix one, it should probably be the goaltending.