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Breaking down Stuart Skinner's lateral mobility issues for Edmonton Oilers

Colton Pankiw
Colton Pankiw
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Mar 1 2025, 3:00 pm
Breaking down Stuart Skinner's lateral mobility issues for Edmonton Oilers
Ron Chenoy/Imagn Images

Edmonton Oilers fans are beginning to notice a concerning trend with goaltender Stuart Skinner.

The Oilers’ starting goalie hasn’t had the best season and has particularly struggled through his four starts in February. He’s facing plenty of heat right now, and an increasing number of fans are starting to pick out one particular weakness in his game.

Standing at 6-foot-4, Skinner is a large goalie who uses his size to his advantage. He doesn’t move around much in the crease, allowing his frame to do a lot of the work for him. This is an adequate style that many goalies in the NHL today use, and to Skinner’s credit, it has worked for him.

Thanks to his good positioning and large frame, Skinner doesn’t get beat clean very often. What he does get exposed by, particularly this season, is having to move laterally across his crease.

This issue was identified early into the 2024-25 season by former NHL goaltender Steve Valiquette, who discussed Skinner’s lateral movement issues on the Real Kyper & Bourne show.

“The area that Stuart Skinner really struggles with is the east to west game, whether it’s at five on five in zone or off the rush,” Valiquette explained. “His movement side to side … you’re talking about the top 64 guys in the league, he’s the worst of those 64 [laterally].”

Skinner tends to have a low stance, which, while allowing for him to get properly set for a shot straight on, makes it difficult for him to explode across the crease if the perceived shooter winds up making a pass.

By no means is this goal, or the one in the following clip, on Skinner. The Oilers’ defensive coverage in both is abysmal, though they both showcase the difficulties Skinner has in his side-to-side movement.

While Skinner’s struggles with lateral movement are typically exposed on in-tight passing plays like the one above, it isn’t always just a direct result of having a low stance.

In the Oilers’ most recent game versus the Florida Panthers, Skinner was already down on the ice, covering his post. Being in such a position generally makes it quite easy to explode into the slot if the puck gets thrown in front, but Skinner, once again, moves quite slowly and doesn’t come all that close to making the save.

What’s interesting about this goal is that we generally haven’t seen Skinner struggle to move laterally while already down on the ice. It’s worth noting that in the clip above, he’s pushing from left to right. That exact same movement was exposed in an ugly way two nights prior against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Skinner was extremely slow to react on this goal, and, when paired with the final clip from the Flyers above, may suggest he’s battling some sort of ailment that’s causing him pain moving left to right. It wouldn’t be something severe, as the Oilers are continuing to give him the bulk of starts, but even the slightest hinderance can impact goalies who rely on lightning-quick reflexes.

Whether currently banged up or not, however, lateral movement (albeit not to the degree in some of the clips above) has been an issue in Skinner’s game for quite some time, and it seems as though opposing teams have really begun to key in on it. Such types of issues aren’t easy to correct, especially midseason.

That said, with GM Stan Bowman reportedly not seeking out a goalie ahead of the trade deadline, the Oilers are going to need Skinner to find a way to better this area of his game ahead of the playoffs.

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