Stan Bowman has swung the bat.

Will it be a single? A double? Or did he just hit a grand slam?

That all will depend on how Tristan Jarry plays for the Edmonton Oilers over the remaining three years on his contract.

But what drew Stan Bowman and the Oilers to acquiring Jarry in a package deal that saw them send back Stuart Skinner on Friday morning was his consistency over the years.

“We’ve done a lot of work on this position,” said Bowman after the trade was made official. “Tristan’s had a really consistent performance as a pro, really up until last season. So certainly that was something we look into and wanted to see how he started this year.

“We’ve watched him very closely and we’ve been impressed with his performance over the course of his career. I think he’s shown to be a very solid goaltender. A lot of the metrics that we track, he’s been very good on those for many years and (there’s) a large sample size.”

That level of consistency isn’t something that Skinner had during his tenure with the team. Now four seasons of large sample sizes into his career, Skinner took over the reins as the starting goalie in the 2022-23 season after the Jack Campbell experiment blew up in their face, and the early results were tremendous. Between that season and the next, Skinner posted strong numbers for the team — a .909 save percentage, a 2.68 goals against average with a 61 percent quality start percentage.

The same can’t be said for the most recent two, as all three metrics fell: his save percentage to .894, his goals against average to 2.82 and his quality start percentage to 47.9 percent.

“I just felt it was time for something different,” said Bowman. “I think it’s not so much a comment on the Stuart Skinner, it’s just really maybe time for something different here.”

There’s an undeniable risk in the deal. Jarry is three years older, carries a cap hit nearly $3-million more than Skinner ($5.375-million compared to $2.6-million), and has an injury history. Jarry’s contract isn’t the only one that expires for the Oilers after the 2027-28 season, either, as captain Connor McDavid’s two-year sweetheart extension will be up at that time.

It’s intrinsic to the Oilers’ chances of winning a Stanley Cup over the length of McDavid’s deal that they nail the goaltending element — something that had an impact on back-to-back losses to the Panthers. Bowman feels

“We wanted to make sure that the person we were bringing in, we felt confident, you know,” said Bowman. “The fact that he’s got two more years on his contract, we have our goalie for the next three playoff runs, which I think is important, knowing that he is signed.

“It’s a number that we’re going to be able to manage well in our salary cap over the coming couple seasons.”

Another element in it all is that Jarry has minimal playoff experience at the NHL level, playing just eight postseason games for the Penguins with the team failing to make the dance since the 2021-22 season, where he played one game. He had six during the 2020-21 season, posting a 2-4 record, a .888 save percentage and a 3.18 goals against average, getting just one quality start.

There is, of course, Jarry’s experience with the WHL’s Edmonton Oil Kings, where he posted tremendous numbers helping the team win the Ed Chynoweth Cup, the league championship, as well as the Memorial Cup in 2014, but that came a decade ago.

Again, Bowman referred back to Jarry’s consistent regular season play.

“I think that sometimes your playoff success or your record is in line with where your team is and their trajectory,” said Bowman. “Certainly, the Oilers have been in a good trajectory the last few seasons, a little bit different than where Pittsburgh has been, so that’s part of it.

“And I think really looking at his body of work over a number of years (is another part). It’s that old adage that the sample size when you look at a goalie and how he’s performed over a few hundred or a thousand shots, that’s different than a couple thousand shots tend to show you what that goalie can be.

“It always comes down to, in the end, one or two moments for every goalie, not just for the Oilers goalies, but everyone’s measured sort of by what they remember in a playoff series. But there’s a lot of things that have to get your team to that point, and we think that Tristan has a a very solid track record for being a good goaltender.”

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.