While Stuart Skinner may only be three years into his National Hockey League career, his time as an Edmonton Oiler dates back to when the team selected him in the third round of the 2017 draft.

It took, after all, some development time before he broke into the big leagues, including stints in the ECHL (44 GP, .903 sv%, 3.19 GAA, 17-15-7 record), and the AHL (113 games, .906 sv%, 2.68 GAA, 62-35-17).

But now he’s established himself as a big league goaltender, helping take the Oilers to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals. How does he stack up to the rest of his class?

It was a relatively solid first round, with many players still being contributors to their NHL clubs, but there were some flops at the top of this class. The first was centre Nolan Patrick, drafted second overall by the Philadelphia Flyers. He’s played just 222 NHL games scoring 32 goals and 77 points, with concussion issues severely impacting him. He hasn’t played hockey since the 2021-22 season.

The next miss was centre Cody Glass, drafted sixth overall by the Vegas Golden Knights. He’s played in 252 NHL games scoring 35 goals and 93 points, bouncing between the Golden Knights, Nashville Predators, Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils, the latter of whom he re-signed with.

The final early miss was the New York Rangers’ seventh overall selection of Lias Andersson. He’s been out of the NHL since 2022-23, playing 110 NHL games.

This draft was relatively light in terms of value picks that popped. Looking down the draft board, there were some solid picks in the second round, including the Dallas Stars’ 39th overall selection of winger Jason Robertson, the San Jose Sharks’ 49th overall selection of defenceman Mario Ferraro, the Carolina Hurricanes’ 42nd overall selection of Eetu Loustarinen and the Golden Knights’ 34th overall selection of defenceman Nic Hague.

In the fourth round, the Ottawa Senators took Drake Batherson 121st overall, getting 116 goals and 293 points in 391 games from him, while the L.A. Kings’ 103rd overall selection of Mikey Anderson playing 345 games.

Examining the goaltenders in this draft, there are only two who have played more games: Jeremy Swayman (190 games), drafted in the fourth round, 111th overall by the Boston Bruins, and Jake Oettinger (251 games), who was drafted by the Dallas Stars 26th overall.

Skinner, who has 174 NHL regular season games under his belt, was selected 78th overall by the Oilers in the draft, while the only other goaltender who has over 100 games played from the class being Buffalo Sabres netminder Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.

Here’s how Skinner shapes up with the other three:

They did. No other player selected in the third round has played over 77 games, and while there was Swayman taken 33 picks later, Skinner was still ranked higher. NHL Central Scouting had Skinner as the fifth-best goaltender, while Swayman was 12th.

Whatever you may say about whether or not Skinner is the long-term answer in net for the Oilers, there’s no denying how valuable he’s been to the team in the post-Mike Smith/Mikko Koskinen days.

Entering the year as a pending unrestricted free agent, it’s a make-or-break year for Skinner.

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