Game Day 27, Oilers vs Blues
Recommended Videos
There’s no more key position on a team than goaltender, which makes the hot-and-cold nature of Stuart Skinner’s game all the more frustrating for fans of the Edmonton Oilers.
When Skinner is good, he reminds of Mike Smith in his prime, a solid, even fearsome backstop for the team.
But he’s hot only half the time. The other half he’s as good, bringing on memories of numerous goalies who eventually wore out their welcome in Edmonton.
I can’t think of a more inconsistent Oilers. Other players have their ups-and-downs but usually that fluctuation is related to injury, either a known physical hurt or some secret one. For example, Evander Kane, Leon Draisaitl and Darnell Nurse — who all had great games in the 2024 playoffs but also weak ones somewhat or entirely related to injury — fall into this category.
Skinner’s inconsistency seems more tied to his own make-up, as well the inconsistent defensive performance of the Oilers as a team.
Skinner has now played major parts of four seasons in Edmonton, starting in November 2021. In that time he’s had ten significant hot streaks, one last season last as long as 22 games, where he had record of 19 wins, three losses and a .934 save percentage. He wasn’t great in all those 22 games, but he was great in most of them.
On the down side, Skinner has also had eight cold streaks, one of them 13 games long with a 0.865 save percentage, and two of them 12 games long, the first in 2023 playoffs where he had an 0.883 save percentage, and the second 12-gamer early this year when he had an 0.877 save percentage.
Just now Skinner is hot again. In his last five games he’s got a .917 save percentage. He let in one frustrating goal against Vegas, but it was the only goal he gave up in a 1-0 loss.
How does Skinner’s inconsistency relate to the inconsistency of his team. His weakness is on rush chances and seam passes. He’s not exactly Mr. Cirque du Soleil in net. He’s one of the weaker goalies when it comes to darting side-to-side for the circus save. But he’s great when it comes to facing up to in-zone shots. He can be a big as damn mountain in the face of that kind of barrage, as we saw in Game Six with his sensational win against Dallas.
When the Oilers are loose on defence and allow those cross-seam passes and odd-man rushes, that’s not going to work for Skinner. He can soak up all kinds of outside shots and even rebound shots, but those seam passes aren’t his speciality.