It’s low-hanging fruit to discuss goaltending, as we all know.
Every fan thinks their home side could be better in net unless they were gifted Grant Fuhr or Patrick Roy or Marty Brodeur—three guys voted in the top 100 players of all-time—or Connor Hellebuyck these days in Winnipeg. He’s going to win his third Vezina trophy, current best in class, in the cage.
A loud segment of Edmonton Oilers fans are down on Stuart Skinner and his backup Calvin Pickard, with both guys with goal averages under .900 SV%. They gripe that there has to be another goalie on another team they should go out and get, rather than sticking with their current tag team—both of whom have played exactly 161 regular-season games.
Even if both guys have been hung out to dry at times, like this past weekend in Philly and Washington, even if Skinner, just turned 26, he still got the Oilers to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final last spring and clearly, you don’t need a great goalie to win a Cup (.ie Chris Osgood, Adin Hill or Darcy Kuemper) if the team’s playing well.
“Goaltending doesn’t operate in a vacuum,” said the highly-respected Kevin Woodley, the editor of InGoal magazine, the bible of netminding.
Right now, that Oilers wildcat fan trade scenario would probably be the red-hot Jordan Binnington, the Canadian 4Nations Face-off goalie who also won a Cup in St. Louis in 2019. A guy with average NHL regular-season stats but who seems to thrive when the heat gets turned up. He makes $6 million for two years after this Blues’ season, which is more than double the AAV ($2.6 million) that Skinner makes.
Fuhr wants people to put the brakes on though. Back off on Skinner.
“I think Skinner will be just fine. There’s still a lot of talent there with Stu. He’s streaky…that’s the best way to put it. When he’s on, he’s really good. But he’s still evolving. It’s still a learning process,” said Fuhr, who won five Cups here with the Oilers and currently works on the broadcasts for Seattle’s AHL farm team in Coachella Valley.
Fuhr definitely knows there’s a target on every goalie’s chest along with the logo and bad plays happen long before the puck gets to the goalies in a lot of cases.
“The Oilers when they’re playing poorly…how should I put it? It’s an interesting defence. It’s very casual sometimes,” he said.
“But when a team plays poorly, you would still like a goalie to steal you seven or eight times a year. Over 82 games, if you can get one of those every 10 to 15 games, where the goalie steals one for you, the team’s doing well.”
The Oilers are in win-now mode with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, though, both here for at least 10 years with no Cup celebration, and the window, if not closing, certainly not all the way up
So, the heat’s on the goalies.
“Keeps the panic happening early,” laughed Fuhr.
“Stu’s in the not-so-fun learning stages because of the win-now team mode. He’s got about a two-year window where he has to be really good. Creates a bit of pressure, but that’s the fun part.
“Stu’s a big goalie who has some athleticism but sometimes doesn’t use that, if that makes sense. His biggest bugaboo is east-west (going across the crease) with the Oilers giving up a lot of rush chances. That’s learning to read the game so it makes yourself look quicker than you actually are,” said Fuhr.
Are there better goaltending option for the Oilers?
There’s a much better chance the Oilers would be looking in a trade for a 1 and 1a with Skinner—a younger goalie to push Skinner more than the great teammate and battler Pickard, 32, even with his fine 14-6 record, than a fantasy league deal for Binnington.
Say, Utah’s UFA Karel Vejmelka, but it’s all speculation.
Any trade for a goalie is GM Stan Bowman’s call, of course. Trading for goalies at the deadline is spicy business with so little time to get to know the players in front of them over 20 games or less before playoffs.
“I did a piece for nhl.com where I talked to (MacKenzie) Blackwood and he said it was much easier on him getting traded (San Jose to Colorado) when he did than it would be in March with only 20 games left, and maybe the starter only plays 12 of those. I applaud the Avs for doing this early rather than later so it’s given their goalies a chance to get comfortable,” said Woodley.
In the real world, you would rather have Binnington at $6 million than, say, John Gibson at even more than that if Bowman was looking, but Woodley looks at the numbers between Skinner and Binnington and shrugs.
“At least statistically, not big picture, if you look at the (regular season) stats, you would be surprised how narrow those margins between Binner and Stu are in terms of how much of an upgrade would be (in net) for what would have to pay to get it,” said Woodley.
“In season, Stu has given up 10 low-danger goals, Binnington has given up seven. In high-danger chances to goals, Stu is league average, and Binnington is top 20. There’s not a huge difference. Yes, it’s hard to argue with what Binner’s done,” said Woodley.
“In the previous five years, he’s the only Canadian goalie in the top 10 in adjusted numbers. This is a down year for him but even in a down year, he has the ability to have big moments. And obviously, he’s a good puck-handler. That was a difference for them (Canada),” he said.
“The one thing I can’t answer (in terms of a perceived goalie upgrade), is would the guys in the room feel better?”
Oilers “have some other demons”: Fuhr
In the most basic terms, Skinner’s .898 in 38 games and Pickard’s .896 rank in 22 games, isn’t good enough. Going deeper, Skinner’s “goals saved above expected” is -2.9 which is 38th rated amongst goalies with at least 20 games, according to MoneyPuck, and Pickard’s is 42nd at -6.5.
If you were to categorize things, the Oilers goaltending today is somewhere between the problem and the solution on the NHL’s oldest team with a heavy push to win a Cup. The defensive work in front of Skinner and Pickard has been somewhere between lax and lazy, in the first month of the season and in February. Skinner was torched for five goals on the first 15 shots in Philly Saturday and Pickard gave up six on 33 shots in Washington Sunday.
Again, they weren’t the reason the Oilers lost, at all. But lots of pucks were going in.
Woodley says there are very few “separators in the net”, acknowledging Hellebuyck is clearly the best at that physically and mentally with qualifiers.
“Logan Thompson may actually be having a better season than Hellebuyck (two losses in regulation in Washington) but is there anybody in the league that gives his guys more confidence to play the way the Jets play than Hellebuyck? There’s that swagger,” said Woodley.
Goalie seasons go up and down. Last season, Jeremy Swayman was outstanding in Boston (.916 save percentage, 2.53 average in 44 games). This season, on a much weaker Bruins club that’s scrambling just to make the playoffs, with his tag-team partner Linus Ullmark now in Ottawa, Swayman has been pedestrian at best (.898 save percentage, 2.98 average in 41 games).
Here’s what it looks like here. When the Oilers play well as a team, so do Skinner and Pickard. The goaltending is certainly enough. The goaltending got them within 60 minutes of the Cup a year ago. When the team is porous, with so many giveaways, the two goalies are unfortunately along for the ride on those nights. They haven’t maybe bailed them out enough, but that’s the story with most tenders.
Skinner’s goal average in seven games in October was 3.51 when the team was terrible. In four games this month it’s 4.23 when the team looks slow, too small, two ineffective offensively except for 29 and 97, and a giveaway machine.
When the Oilers play improved after the first month, Skinner’s goals-against average in November was 2.78, then 2.33 in December and 2.26 in January.
The Oilers have other issues apart from goaltending, like finding a top-six winger for Draisaitl, maybe a bigger, defensive top 4 D to play with Darnell Nurse, or a right-shot centre.
“They have some other demons,” said Fuhr.
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