Proposal: Alex Nedeljkovic to Edmonton

[StIvany4Norris]

A third is fine

They need to clear him out for the younger guys

 

[MessierThanThou]

I mean, Pickard has been as much as we could ask for from a backup this year. I don't think he's the problem necessarily, although if Oiler management is set on Skinner being part of the team in the future, we might have to upgrade on Pickard just as a piece of insurance. Pickard is clearly a backup, and a good one, but he's not a 1B, and it wouldn't be ideal to have him come in to bail out Skinner in the playoffs yet again this year.

As numerous people myself included have pointed out, Skinner and Pickard rank pretty low in GSAx and play relatively poorly given the quality of their team.

I have a soft spot for Pickard, but he was brought in as a third-string goalie and that's what he should really still be. Ned (GSAx 27th - min. 20 games) is performing better than Stu in GSAx (GSAx 35th - min. 20 games) on a much worse team, behind a defense that's even worse now than at the start of the year, and he's actually still somehow stringing together strong performances. It's not like Stu playing behind Nurse-Kulak when they were doing well, Ned is playing behind an aging Letang and Karlsson neglecting all zero defensive awareness, and then Vinny Desharnais and guys slightly above, at, or below his level...

Again, if there's no other goalies, adding Ned and keeping on Pickard as our third string is better than the status quo come playoff time, and his 2.5 cap hit makes it relatively low risk.

There needs to be some kind of goalie insurance in the playoffs anyway given how often Stu implodes and how unproven Pickard is. And our Bakersfield goalies inspire zero confidence right now.

If we can get Gibson at 50% retained, which I hope more than anything else we get, perfect, but it's looking like Vej isn't available, so if we can't get either guy, better to hedge our bets with Ned than do nothing. You just know Stu will collapse as he's done the last two playoffs...and his last game...and the game two games before that...and the game three games before that, and Pickard's GSAx (75th) is even lower than Stu's, which is even more concerning when you realize that Pickard has mostly played the weakest teams all season. And I say this as a fan of Picks who is very grateful that he saved our playoffs in the Vancouver series.