If you said it before you were obviously wrong because he played very well on NY and played great for 73 games last season and 2 rounds of the playoffs. Talbot has been the least of problems. I am not worried about Talbot for even one second. The Oilers played like complete garbage his last 3 starts. I am pretty confident you will be proven wrong saying it again.
I think that's probably part of the problem. 73 games is too much for a goaltender these days. Pile a couple playoff rounds on top of that and it's an even heavier workload. All played behind a team that isn't exactly stingy defensively either. And for a guy who had never been an NHL starter before.
I think most savvy followers of the game would actually fully expect a bit of a hangover for Talbot coming off that season. Which means you want a backup who can really spell him and lighten the load significantly this season - in terms of physical fatigue, but also probably more importantly, in terms of mental fatigue.
There are plenty of other flaws in the Oilers team construction though. Their defence is not deep in Top-4 calibre guys, much less Top-3 guys who can carry a pairing, and it's missing the all-around horse to carry things when a guy like Sekera is missing. The forward corps revolves entirely around 2 players and goes as they go. Depth guys all over the team overachieved last year...with no significant help brought in as insurance against their entirely plausible drop-off. In fact, they ditched a soft/floater but at times dynamic play driving winger for a soft/floater passenger in the Eberle/Strome deal.
They basically took an overachieving team last year that still fell
well short, and rested on their laurels. They'll still be okay though, eventually. McDavid+Draisaitl will be enough to drag them through, and there's always the potential to add a piece or two. But eh...can't just stand pat with a team that's not good enough, and outside of McDavid/Draisaitl...really not even that young and improving anymore.
