Stop me if you’ve heard this line before — There are goaltending concerns in Edmonton.
The Oilers have a 37-23-4 record on the season, good for second in the Pacific Division. They’re 13th in the league with 188 goals against, thanks in part to both members of their goalie tandem sporting matching .896 save percentages.
Both Stuart Skinner and backup Calvin Pickard have struggled since the end of January. Across 10 games in February and March, Skinner has gone 3-5-0 with a .871 save percentage. Pickard has gone 2-3-0 over five appearances with a .879 save percentage.
With the trade deadline having passed last Friday, the front office has ultimately decided to roll with the same duo that got the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Final last spring. In order for Edmonton to see another deep playoff run, Skinner and Pickard will have to take them there.
Somebody who knows the challenge and pressure of being a goaltender for the Edmonton Oilers is Devan Dubnyk, who the team selected with the 14th overall pick in the 2004 draft. Dubnyk posted a .910 save percentage during some ugly rebuilding years between 2009-10 and 2013-14 before getting traded to the Nashville Predators.
After bouncing around a few more teams, Dubnyk joined the Minnesota Wild and he completely changed his game and became one of the best goaltenders in the NHL. He finished third in Vezina Trophy voting in 2014-15 with the Wild and went 177-113-28 over parts of six seasons with the team.
Now watching from the sidelines, the former All-Star joined Tyler Yarekchuk and Liam Horrobin on Oilersnation Everyday to talk about the goaltending situation in Edmonton. If there was one thing for Skinner to improve about his game, what would it be?
“It’s a tough task because he’s got his game built. You aren’t going to make any drastic changes mid-season.You have to find a save here or there. I usually hate that expression as a goalie. No kidding, I’m trying to stop all of them. You have to go through and you have to start to be a little more picky. You have to find that one.As goalies, that’s how you get into deeper stuff: Why are you maybe a little late or why aren’t your feet set or why is this puck tricking through? All of these little things, that’s where you start digging deep.When bad goals are consistently coming up, you have to pick which ones to let go because it was chaotic in front or it went off a shin pad, but also start to look at which ones are should have been saved.”
