Monday means a fresh Mailbag, friends. This is the weekly feature where I take your questions and send them off to the crew for their take on whatever is on your mind. This week, we’re talking about expectations for new Oilers, goaltending, Raphael Lavoie, and a whole lot more. If you’ve got a question you’d like to ask, email it to me at baggedmilk@oilersnation.com or hit me up on Twitter at @jsbmbaggedmilk, and I’ll get to you as quickly as possible.

I expect them to produce 5×5 and both will be regulars in the top-six. Since neither is expected to be on the first PP unit, I see Skinner scoring 28-36 goals and Arvidsson 20-25. If Skinner gets some first unit PP time, his goal total will push 40.

I see you really good wingers with 25-30 goal upside with this Oilers forward group. Now, barring injury neither will get a lot of powerplay time but regardless, they should be able to contribute a healthy amount of offence at 5v5 and are both upgrades on the forward piece that the Oilers lost over the summer in Warren Foegele.

I expect Viktor Arvidsson to be a pesky player that helps the penalty kill and gives a scoring touch to the middle six. Then for Skinner, I foresee him building a great relationship with Connor McDavid and scoring close to 30 goals. The problem for Skinner will be he won’t get power play time.

Both guys are going to get the chance to play with a very talented centre, and that has me feeling bullish on what they’ll be able to do offensively. If I had to pick a number, I’ll go with 30 goals for Jeff Skinner and 24 for Viktor Arvidsson if he can stay healthy. You’ve gotta think that both guys are pumped about the opportunity to play with either McDavid or Draisaitl.

I see no reason to be that concerned. Pickard had solid numbers this past season and I expect the same. Skinner is still maturing and improving. He showed his maturity after returning from a two-game rest sitting on the bench and his final 15 playoff games were quite good. I expect Skinner to push for most wins in the NHL and he will improve his regular season Sv%.

I’m confident. Skinner showed for prolonged stretches last season that he’s capable of being a top-ten goalie in the NHL and while Pickard can look shaky at times, it’s hard to argue with the results he gave the Oilers. With Olivier Rodrigue sitting in Bakersfield as well, the Oilers have an emergency option if Pickard were to totally fall apart. On a scale of 1-10, I’m at a 9 when it comes to this duo.

Extremely comfortable. Both goaltenders had ups and downs last season; however, the majority of the time they were reliable. We have to remember that Stuart Skinner is still young and developing. He was fantastic in the playoffs after his break in round two so it’s hard not to have confidence in them.

We’ve seen this duo give the Oilers reasonable goaltending, and I’m going to go ahead and drink the Kool-Aid again. As a different angle, we need Skinner/Pickard to work again because they’re giving the Oilers a cheap tandem on a team that has too much buyout money left on the books.

I see him battling Corey Perry for the 4^th line RW spot, if Evander Kane isn’t ready to start the season. The Oilers have Skinner, RNH, Holloway, Kane and Janmark as LWs and Hyman, Arvidsson and Brown on RW. One of Holloway or Kane can play the RW, and if Kane is ready to start the season, then it will it will be very difficult for Lavoie to make the roster as I don’t think they will want him as the 13^th forward. Corey Perry is more suited for that role due to his age.

I think he needs a chance with some skill. That doesn’t need to be in a top-six role, it could be on a third line with say, Adam Henrique and Dylan Holloway, but he needs 12-15 minutes a night and chances to play with players who can get him the puck. Keeping him on the roster just to have him play less than 10 minutes a night on the fourth line is not a good plan.

The door is open for Raphael Lavoie, he just needs to grab it. Money is tight in Edmonton and he has a great contract at $750K. He’s a good player with nothing to prove at the AHL level so now it’s time for him to step up at camp.

The only spot for him to play is 4RW and I think the Oilers probably want Corey Perry playing there. But with Lavoie playing on a league minimum deal, it also wouldn’t be surprising to see him get in so that the team can ice a full roster.

He will have input. No GM make every decision 100% on their own nowadays. It is a group effort, and I expect the same with Edmonton. Jackson will have some say, but I doubt he neuters his GM and just has him attend GM meetings, etc but not have a large say in signings and trades.

I don’t think lame duck is the right way to describe it. I view this hiring as more of a complimentary hiring. Jackson and company have shown that they can handle things and now, they’re just looking to bring it someone who can add something to this front office and also handle a bit more of the day to day that Jackson doesn’t want to deal with.

I literally have no idea who the new GM will be because the only name out there is Stan Bowman. Whoever the new guy is, the tone has been set by Jeff Jackson so they better be prepared to continue the all in approach.

The best thing that Jeff Jackson could do would be to name Jeff Jackson as the new GM. My man has done a fine job in the chair so far, and I’d love to see what he could get done with a full season or six.

Any Olympic event would be embarrassing for me, if I had to compete head-to-head against the Olympians. They are the elite of the elite, and none of us writing or reading this would show well. But if you are asking which event could I compete in against average Joes and not embarrass myself, then the 400m run or 500m row would be the ones I’d enter.

In most events, I would look like a buffoon. In Olympic Golf, I would 100% come dead last by at least 30-40 strokes, but at least I wouldn’t look like I’ve never played the sport before. So I would pick that.

Archery because I did it in gym class in grade nine and I wasn’t half bad.

Easy. The answer is dressage. As far as I can tell, the horse does most of the work and that means I have to figure out how to look cool up their in my horse riding suit.

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