The Edmonton Oilers’ search for a goaltender nearly landed them Tristan Jarry netminder.

But while rumours have swirled that the deal would send Stuart Skinner the other way, that doesn’t appear to be the case.

In fact, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on Monday’s edition of the 32 Thoughts podcast that the Oilers have been looking to pair Jarry with Skinner as the team’s one-two punch.

“The one thing that is absolutely true is that Edmonton showed a lot of interest in Jarry — that’s real,” said Friedman, with he and his co-host Kyle Bukauskas talking about a long hug between Skinner and Pickard after last Thursday’s game. “What was fact is that the Oilers liked the idea. What is also fact, and it really explained a lot of the Pickard stuff to me, Kyle, that you and I talked about… I think he knew that if they had gotten Jarry, he was out.

“I’ve since found out it wasn’t going to be Jarry for Skinner. It was going to be Jarry and Skinner, which, you know, one of the things we’ve talked about a lot is that the Oilers weren’t going to make a change in goal unless they really believe they could have improvement. And I think you would make an argument that a Skinner Jarry combination, assuming they could both stay healthy, it was an improvement, and they were hoping that that’s what they could do and the two of them would push each other and force each other to become better. That was their goal.”

The Oilers have loosely been linked to Jarry in recent years, but a Nov. 26 report from ESPN’s Kevin Weeks highlighted the netminder was “drawing significant interest” as an option for Edmonton in the trade market.

Now, what’s hung up the deal, Friedman reported, is Pittsburgh’s staunch unwillingness to retain salary.

“Now, what happened, that has ended things for now, is that I’m told Pittsburgh is absolutely unwilling to retain (salary),” he said. “Jarry has two more years at just under $5.4-million and they, the Penguins have made it very clear that if they were going to do this, there was going to be no retention.

“And if you’re an Oiler fan, you know that that’s going to be very hard for them to do.”

The 30-year-old Jarry has seen a resurgence between the pipes this season, posting a 9-2-1 record, a .913 save percentage and a 2.67 goals against average after a brutal 2024-25 campaign saw him land on waivers and playing in the AHL.

He would post a 6-5-1 record, .908 save percentage and a 2.67 goals against average in a dozen AHL games last year, which came in October, January and February, while posting a 16-12-6 record, .893 save percentage and a 3.12 goals against average in 36 NHL games.

Jarry, however, has been one of the best goalies in the league prior to last season. Among 63 goalies who played 82 or more games between the 2019-20 and 2023-24 season, he won the seventh most games, had the 13th best save percentage (.912), the 18th best goals against average (2.68) while acheiving a quality start in 60.9 percent of his starts, the ninth-best rate.

As Friedman mentioned, the Oilers cap situation makes taking on Jarry’s full contract — two years left at a $5.375-million cap hit — nearly untenable. In a hypothetical situation, the Oilers could nearly swap salaries by removing Pickard ($1-million cap hit), Mattias Janmark ($1.5-million) and Brett Kulak ($2.8-million) from the roster, but once injured players like Kasperi Kapanen and Noah Philp are ready to come off the Long-Term Injured Reserve, the Oilers wouldn’t be able to carry any extra bodies on their roster. They would also have to to send Connor Clattenburg and David Tomášek to the AHL’s Condors and placing Curtis Lazar on waivers.

“The Oilers are cap tight and right now they’ve got a lot of injuries and guys just in and out and they’re barely carrying extra players,” said Friedman. “Their roster is stuck. So they really couldn’t do a lot of stuff even if they wanted to without dollar in, dollar out.

“I’m told that that has made that trade almost impossible to do unless the Oilers do surgery of their own — and I’m not convinced they want to do that.

“So basically where we are is yes, they do like Jarry. Yes, they would love to have a Jarry-Skinner combination or like to have it. But no, they can’t do it in their present situation unless bodies go out. So basically what I was told was could it happen? Possibly. Would they like it to happen? Yeah, I think they would be interested. Can it happen? Very, very hard, and may not happen.”

Time will tell whether or not these sides will be able to consummate a deal — one that would almost surely require the Penguins to change their stance on salary retention — but it’s unlikely we’ve heard the last of this story.

Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the Daily Faceoff DFS Hockey Report. He can be followed on X at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach.laing@bettercollective.com.