Over the last two days, I looked into the forwards and defencemen that could make up the two teams. One of those exercises proved much more difficult than the other. Today, I’m going to look at who the two goaltenders could be and honestly, I thought this was going to be the easiest position to figure out but as I dug into it, it got more and more difficult.

A big chunk of these 25 years for the Oilers was spent in a very long and painful rebuild. That led to a bit of a revolving door when it came to the goaltending position.

When you look at the last 25 seasons, the Oilers have had 13 goalies play 50+ games in the regular season. To take it a step further, they had eight goalies play more than 100 games over that stretch and Mike Smith just missed the mark, playing 99 regular season games.

One piece of criteria that I had been using when selecting the forwards and the defence is that the player must have been a part of at least one memorable playoff run. It didn’t have to result in a Stanley Cup Final appearance, but they needed to have one positive playoff appearance attached to their name.

So when we apply that to the goaltenders, we get a much shorter list.

Names like Jussi Markkanen, Tommy Salo, and Mikko Koskinen all had 100+ games played with the team and had appeared in some playoff games, but none really had any sort of succes. Sure, Markkanen was massive in the Stanley Cup Finals back in 2006, but that was Dwayne Roloson’s run.

Here are the candidates for the two spots:

Next to Chris Pronger and maybe Fernando Pisani, was any player more important to the 2006 Stanley Cup run than Dwayne Roloson? I mean, if we doesn’t get hurt there’s probably a sixth Stanley Cup banner hanging up in the rafters in Edmonton.

What he did in that 2006 run was magical and it’s what gets him on this list of candidates.

Once that ‘06 run ended, there wasn’t a lot of good in Roloson’s time here. He did play in 193 regular season games, which ranks him third among goalies in this time frame, but he only won 78 of those games. After 2006, there was no success and that will hurt him.

Cam Talbot probably deserved to be a Vezina candidate in 2016-17 with his 2.39 GAA and .919 SV%. Without him, the Oilers may not have ended their playoff drought.

His peak season was sensational and he helped them get to within one game of going to the Western Conference final.

Among goalies in this era, only Tommy Salo played more regular season games than him so he gets some points for longevity. Similar to Roloson though, after his first season and the playoff run, his numbers took a nosedive and the team never had any more success.

While he didn’t hit the 100 regular season game mark as an Oiler, he played a very big role in the team’s run to the Western Conference Final in 2022. You want to talk about memorable playoff moments? How about his shutout in game seven against the Kings? Or when he came back down the tunnel in game four against the Calgary Flames after being pulled by the concussion spotter?

His highs were very high, and his lows were pretty low but all things considered, he was a very good goalie for the Oilers.

His sample size is smaller than some other deserving candidates probably hurts him though.

No goalie in this conversation has played more playoff games than Stuart Skinner and he’s had some success. He was instrumental in the team’s run to the playoffs last spring, only losing one elimination game in the entire playoff run. He was great against the Kings, rebounded nicely in games six and seven against the Canucks, and was nails in the closing games against the Dallas Stars.

The playoff success is there and Skinner has a good amount of regular-season success to back it up, winning 88 of his 150 appearances in an Oilers jersey.

The local product stepped up and quite frankly bailed out the organization from the horrific Jack Campbell contract and despite only being in his third season in the league, he’s established himself as a workhorse number one goaltender.

He is the clear-cut pick for the number one spot on the quarter century team, which brings me to my selections…

I really debated between all three of Roloson, Smith and Talbot for the spot on the second team but ultimately, the fond memories of 2006 pulled me in Roloson’s direction. Without him that run doesn’t happen and while he never had another playoff appearance with the Oilers, he still stuck around for a few more seasons and that’s worth something too.

Here are my full predictions for the first and second teams.

Leon Draisaitl – Connor McDavid – Ryan Smyth

Evan Bouchard & Jason Smith

Stuart Skinner

Alex Hemsky – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Shawn Horcoff

Darnell Nurse & Oscar Klefbom

Dwayne Roloson