How bad is Edmonton Oilers goaltending just now? You don’t want to know

November 22, 2024

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A quick post about an ugly stat.

Like many of my fellow Edmonton Oilers fans, I’ve been digging in what’s wrong with the Oilers, trying to figure out where the holes are and how they might be fixed.

The last thing I wanted to look at was goaltending, mainly because that’s the obvious thing that most folks are pointing out, along with their various trade scenarios to get Edmonton out of this hole.

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Me? I can see obvious holes on the wing, with Edmonton’s wingers significantly under-performing where they were last year, especially when it comes to their defensive play.

Of course, with Zach Hyman, Evander Kane and Viktor Arvidsson all out right now, that’s a big part of the issue. There’s also the issue of hockey boss Jeff Jackson moving on from Ryan McLeod, Warren Foegele and Dylan Holloway, three of the youngest and fastest forwards on the team.

Edmonton is also down a bit when it comes to Grade A shot differential this year, at least if you break out how the team performed last year under coach Kris Knoblauch compared to how the team has done in its first 21 games. But it’s not down much. And on defence, it’s barely down at all. The Oilers aren’t giving up any more of the most dangerous shots this year as they were last year, but they’re down a bit on the attack.

All this adds up to the main issue being goaltending, just as most fans have noted.

The simple fact is that Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard, but especially Skinner, haven’t been making enough saves.

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Indeed — outside of tiny sample size of Jack Campbell’s woeful five-game stint last year — Skinner has the lowest save percentage, 0.876, of any goalie in the Connor McDavid Era.

When it comes to letting in bad goals against (generally outside shots that an average goalie should have had, something we’ve tracked at the Cult of Hockey since 2007-08), he’s middle of the pack in the McDavid era, but he’s at the lowest point of his own career. Skinner might not be known for making oodles of spectacular saves, but he is known for being steady, for not letting in bad goals. Last season, he and Pickard excelled in that regard. But this year they’ve been mediocre.

Can Skinner get back to his old steady self? It’s the critical question for him and the Oilers. I’ll suggest it’s a coin flip, but I’m betting heads, Skinner gets it done. He’s pulled out of slumps before. He can do it again.