They sit at 10-10-5 with one game left in November. Their 25 points have them outside the Western Conference playoff picture and tied with the San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks, last season’s basement dwellers.

What’s most worrying about these first couple of months is Edmonton’s minus-18 goal differential, which now matches the Calgary Flames for the worst mark in the Pacific Division.

Despite ranking sixth in the league with 77 goals scored, the Oilers are deep in the red because of the 95 goals they’ve allowed. No team has surrendered more, and no goalie tandem in the NHL has performed worse than the .860 combined save percentage posted by Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard.

After Edmonton’s embarrassing 8-3 home loss to the Dallas Stars earlier this week, the leadership group stood up for the goalie tandem, urging anyone willing to listen that keeping the puck out of the net is a team effort. But as the days get colder and darker and the calendar flips to December, the cries in Oil Country for a change between the pipes are only getting louder.

In this week’s edition of 32 Thoughts, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman wondered if it’s time for the Oilers to consider moving on from Skinner. While Edmonton hoped to get a bounce-back performance from the local product this year, a change of scenery might be necessary for both sides.

I don’t like to overreact to one game. For Edmonton, this is more than one game. After Tuesday’s 8-3 Dallas destruction, the Oilers have no choice but to ask themselves if it’s time to trade Stuart Skinner — for their benefit and his.
It’s 100 per cent true the Oilers are sieve-like defensively: at even-strength, they are 25th in shots against from the slot on the cycle, 29th from the slot overall and 30th from the slot against the rush (Sportlogiq). You need prime Dominik Hasek against those numbers, and captain Connor McDavid did the right thing by saying how bad they were in front of Skinner.

The Oilers returned home this week following a gruelling seven-game road trip through the Eastern Conference. The first five games on the trip left plenty to be desired, but the team saved their best for last, earning three out of four possible points against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers.

Pickard turned aside 33 of 35 shots against Tampa in what wound up being an overtime loss. A couple of nights later in Florida, Skinner stopped 35 of 38 shots against Edmonton’s bitter rivals.

Any momentum from those two games dried up immediately. Skinner allowed four goals on eight shots in the first period against Dallas on Tuesday, and then Pickard came in and allowed four more goals on 22 shots.

Friedman figures that Pickard saved his job as the backup goalie with that showing against the Lightning. The veteran also got some help from his teammates, who stood against the idea of placing him on waivers in favour of Connor Ingram. On the other hand, Skinner’s showing against the Stars might make the Oilers consider moving on from their starter.

Calvin Pickard basically saved his job with a strong performance in a 2-1 loss in Tampa Bay on a tough back-to-back. His teammates, who love Pickard, rallied around him in that one. Then, the Oilers won an emotional game in Florida. To go home and perform like that against the Mikko Rantanen-less Stars was ugggggggggggly.
One of the reasons the Oilers wanted it to work so badly is Skinner’s budget-friendly $2.6M AAV in a tight cap situation. They felt very strongly that they had to know they were getting a guaranteed upgrade to give up on that. Now, you have to ask yourself: are you losing by not trying to come out even? Is there a situation where you feel someone will be rejuvenated in Edmonton, like Skinner might be elsewhere? The other question you have to ask: will a change lift our team? Is this weighing on them, too?

The Oilers have been rolling with Skinner and Pickard for a little over two years now. After Jack Campbell posted a .873 save percentage in his first five starts of 2023-24, the $25 million free-agent signing was placed on waivers, and Pickard was called up from the American Hockey League.

A couple of weeks later, Edmonton made a coaching change and completely flipped a season that saw them start 3-9-1. They went 46-18-5 the rest of the way under Kris Knoblauch and marched all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, where they fell to the Panthers. Skinner and Pickard again got the Oilers to the Cup Final in 2024-25, where they wound up losing again to Florida, this time in six games.

If a team needs to make a goalie change in November, it’s much easier to call somebody up from the minors than it is to find a trade partner. But as the Colorado Avalanche proved last season, overhauling a goalie tandem early in the year isn’t impossible.

The Avs got out to a 14-11-0 start with Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen combining for a .873 save percentage in the first couple of months of play. On November 30, Colorado moved Annunen and a pick to the Nashville Predators for Scott Wedgewood. On December 9, they dealt Georgiev and some more picks to San Jose for Mackenzie Blackwood.

Both goalies were excellent for the Avs following the shake-up. Blackwood went 22-12-3 with a .913 save percentage, and Wedgewood went 13-4-1 with a .917 save percentage. Though Colorado lost in the first round to the Stars, their new tandem has helped them to a 17-1-5 record to start the 2025-26 campaign.

Unless Stan Bowman is comfortable punting this season and waiting for next summer’s influx of cap space to upgrade the crease, he’s going to have to follow the Avs’ blueprint and dig around for a hidden gem. Then again, maybe it’s simply in his nature to stare past the problems in front of him and pretend they aren’t there.

News

Featured

Recent articles from Cam Lewis

The Day After 27.0: Oilers feel they played ‘the right way’ in shutout loss to Wild

Friedman: Oilers need to ask themselves ‘if it’s time to trade Stuart Skinner’

The Day After 24.0: Oilers heading home with momentum on their side

Recent articles from Cam Lewis

Breaking News