Rumor: Rumors & Proposals Thread | The Oilers Biggest Roster Need Is?

[Yuke]

Skinner will become a defacto back up if the Oilers brought in anyone even half decent, this idea that the goaltending world revolves around Skinner is hilarious. The only reason he is the starter here is because he competed against a guy who may have been boozing away from the ice in Campbell and had major mental issues and then his other comp is Calvin Pickard, an AHL goalie.

If you brought in someone half decent, most of the Oilers fandom would forget about Skinner in 1-2 weeks.

Skinner is to young to toss away

 

[Soundwave]

Skinner is to young to toss away

Why? Because he was annointed Grant Fuhr for no reason other than the geography of where he was born? Young goalies get tossed like garbage all the time in this league, this guy will get exposed as a fraud if he ever has to compete 1:1 against an actual goalie, not even talking like the big money ones.

I bet a Talbot, maybe even a Blackwood would quickly and easily take the starting job from him and relegate him to the Pickard role fast.

 

[Yuke]

You need glasses then. The only reason the team is not 2-9-1 again this year is because their defensive structure 5-on-5 has been pretty good.

You think the offense and D are the reason they are above .500 right now? What are you watching?

EVERY TEAM makes mistakes, no team can play mistake free hockey. The Oilers defensive structure currently versus what it was under Woodcroft is night and day better.

All areas of our game need improvement.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Why? Because he was annointed Grant Fuhr for no reason other than the geography of where he was born? Young goalies get tossed like garbage all the time in this league, this guy will get exposed as a fraud if he ever has to compete 1:1 against an actual goalie, not even talking like the big money ones.

I bet a Talbot or even a Blackwood would quickly and easily take the starting job from him and relegate him to the Pickard role fast.

How about Khabibulin instead? JDD maybe? Jason LaBarbera?

 

[Soundwave]

All areas of our game need improvement.

Yes and the only reason we are even 8-7-1 and not 2-9-1 like last year is the 5 on 5 D.

All you guys crying about Emberson and Stetcher, these dude's are doing their job more or less after about game 2 and aren't losing us games.

The offence has sucked, the special teams has sucked, the goaltending has sucked ... obviously some aspect of the team must be working OK, otherwise they would be well below .500.

You just don't want to give the D any credit because you have a pre-baked bias that the D is bad when it hasn't been for a year+ now. You think Ceci and Desharnais are the reason they made a Cup Final? Put down the crack pipe. It was and always was because of Knoublaugh's defensive system and that's the only reason the team is not in the same situation as last year.

How about Khabibulin instead? JDD maybe? Jason LaBarbera?

I'd take a prime Khabibulin or even Oiler-era Khabibulin on this team over Skinner any day of the week. He was stuck here playing on teams that were purposefully trying to tank, can't judge a goalie on that.

 

[russ99]

Yes and the only reason we are even 8-7-1 and not 2-9-1 like last year is the 5 on 5 D.

All you guys crying about Emberson and Stetcher, these dude's are doing their job more or less after about game 2 and aren't losing us games.

The offence has sucked, the special teams has sucked, the goaltending has sucked ... obviously some aspect of the team must be working OK, otherwise they would be well below .500.

You just don't want to give the D any credit because you have a pre-baked bias that the D is bad. You think Ceci and Desharnais are the reason they made a Cup Final? Put down the crack pipe. It was and always was because of Knoublaugh's defensive system and that's the only reason the team is not in the same situation as last year.

It's not the the D is bad, its that the whole team is focused on offense.

While better the past 2-3 games there's still people flying the zone, there's still giving up on plays, there's still lack of rotating when someone changes coverage, ignoring the late trailer and still lack of moving, disrupting or tying up players in the crease. And it's the whole skater group, forwards and defensemen.

This is basic team defense that every team knows how to play, ingrained from the pee wee level. Why are we exempt from it, other than this overriding desire to play pond hockey? Watch a Dallas Stars game, do they do these things? Sure, mistakes end up in the back of the net, this isn't mistakes, this is systemic.

Skinner is average at best, but also costs $3M. Where do we find better at the same price point and also not get taken to the cleaners on cost. And who's to say another goalie wouldn't falter with the same issues. Skinner is failing the most on the rush and on late trailers and that all can improve with a better overall team effort, taking defense seriously, and being responsible, not cheating for offense and in a giant hurry to get to the other side of the ice.

 

[Yuke]

Yes and the only reason we are even 8-7-1 and not 2-9-1 like last year is the 5 on 5 D.

All you guys crying about Emberson and Stetcher, these dude's are doing their job more or less after about game 2 and aren't losing us games.

The offence has sucked, the special teams has sucked, the goaltending has sucked ... obviously some aspect of the team must be working OK, otherwise they would be well below .500.

You just don't want to give the D any credit because you have a pre-baked bias that the D is bad when it hasn't been for a year+ now. You think Ceci and Desharnais are the reason they made a Cup Final? Put down the crack pipe. It was and always was because of Knoublaugh's defensive system and that's the only reason the team is not in the same situation as last year.



I'd take a prime Khabibulin or even Oiler-era Khabibulin on this team over Skinner any day of the week. He was stuck here playing on teams that were purposefully trying to tank, can't judge a goalie on that.

Defence is a team game.
Emberson is looking better and better. Stetcher does ok.
Skinner is young and he is improving. He plays a positional game and isn't a reactive tender. He shouldn't even be a number one yet but Campbell threw a twist into that

 

[Soundwave]

It's not the the D is bad, its that the whole team is focused on offense.

While better the past 2-3 games there's still people flying the zone, there's still giving up on plays, there's still lack of rotating when someone changes coverage, ignoring the late trailer and still lack of moving, disrupting or tying up players in the crease. And it's the whole skater group, forwards and defensemen.

This is basic team defense that every team knows how to play, ingrained from the pee wee level. Why are we exempt from it, other than this overriding desire to play pond hockey? Watch a Dallas Stars game, do they do these things? Sure, mistakes end up in the back of the net, this isn't mistakes, this is systemic.

Skinner is average at best, but also costs $3M. Where do we find better at the same price point and also not get taken to the cleaners on cost. And who's to say another goalie wouldn't falter with the same issues. Skinner is failing the most on the rush and on late trailers and that all can improve with a better overall team effort, taking defense seriously, and being responsible, not cheating for offense and in a giant hurry to get to the other side of the ice.

Team is focused on D too, you don't limit Dallas to like 8 shots against through almost 2 periods if you're just focusing on offense. Vancouver had very little 5 on 5 against our D.

It's clear a lot of you just think the Oilers are Woodcroft's Oilers and don't know defensive structure at all.

Just because a player flies the zone once in a while or Bouchard has 1 bad game out of 15 doesn't mean the defense is bad. Every team has those kinds of breakdowns here and now.

If the defense was legitimately bad the team's record would be like 3-12-2 right now and we'd be having a very different discussion because the offence has sucked donkey balls this year, even McDavid hasn't been good aside from the last two games.

We're not winning games by offense, our goaltending sucks, our special teams suck, McDavid hasn't even been good this year ... how exactly do you think we're even 8-7-1? The tooth fairy and Santa Claus?

 

[Soundwave]

Defence is a team game.
Emberson is looking better and better. Stetcher does ok.
Skinner is young and he is improving. He plays a positional game and isn't a reactive tender. He shouldn't even be a number one yet but Campbell threw a twist into that

Skinner isn't improving. He is still as slow as he ever was. He took zero from last year's playoffs and improved at nothing.

You can't teach athleticism. You either have it or you don't.

Skinner will probably never be a legit no.1 because of his physical limitations, the league is too good, the offensive players are too good to not exploit someone who moves like a fat kid climbing stairs laterally in net.

He knows it too, he is snapping off at teammates because he knows the contract extension he was fantasizing about all summer long is slipping through his fingers, no one is going to pay him with the shit numbers he has. That's why he angry about a nothing third goal in a 7-3 game.

 

[Soundwave]

And Soundwave and others want both on our team instead.

lol you really think Skinner would outplay Cam Talbot? Go f***ing look at who is no.2 in the league above Hellebuyck for GSAA and then go look where Stuart "he's got a fun mustache so he must be good" Skinner is.

Talbot would eat this fraud's lunch if he was here and take the starting role in 2-3 games tops. It wouldn't even be hard.

 

[LTIR]

lol you really think Skinner would outplay Cam Talbot? Go f***ing look at who is no.2 in the league above Hellebuyck for GSAA and then go look where Stuart "he's got a fun mustache so he must be good" Skinner is.

Talbot would eat this fraud's lunch if he was here and take the starting role in 2-3 games tops. It wouldn't even be hard.

There are no guarantees that Talbot would be an upgrade here. We pretty much chased him out of town. Those horrible angle goals he allowed when he was here cant be forgotten.
Skinner is hopefully fighting through something because he did look very slow last game. Maybe a reason why Pickard is starting even after a Skinner win on a non back to back night.

Skinner is an NHL average starter IMO who is playing sub par at the moment.

 

[aspin3]

Why? Because he was annointed Grant Fuhr for no reason other than the geography of where he was born? Young goalies get tossed like garbage all the time in this league, this guy will get exposed as a fraud if he ever has to compete 1:1 against an actual goalie, not even talking like the big money ones.

I bet a Talbot, maybe even a Blackwood would quickly and easily take the starting job from him and relegate him to the Pickard role fast.

This isnt going to age well Soundwave like many of your other posts. Interesting how much you are promoting Talbot and ignore his playoff last year. smh

lol you really think Skinner would outplay Cam Talbot? Go f***ing look at who is no.2 in the league above Hellebuyck for GSAA and then go look where Stuart "he's got a fun mustache so he must be good" Skinner is.

Talbot would eat this fraud's lunch if he was here and take the starting role in 2-3 games tops. It wouldn't even be hard.

your emphasis on 10 - 12 games and no understanding of looking at the big picture and even as little as 6 months ago is what is the fraud

 

[Soundwave]

This isnt going to age well Soundwave like many of your other posts. Interesting how much you are promoting Talbot and ignore his playoff last year. smh

Who was Talbot facing in the playoffs? Playoff McDavid and Draisaitl.

Skinner was facing uh ... Arvidsson and Kempe. Swap the goalies and McDavid and Draisaitl would've been arrested in LA for the things they'd do to Skinner.

No way, no chance in hell Skinner is as good as Talbot.

The only goalie Skinner has ever outplayed in Edmonton is a guy (I'm not making light of it, but it's likely true) who had a substance abuse/drinking problem in Campbell. You don't just develop that problem over night, almost certainly that guy was drinking here and probably in Toronto too.

Pickard is an AHL goalie who literally has identical stats to Skinner since coming here (he's not good enough either).

Name one aspect of his game that Skinner is presently better at than 2 years ago. *crickets*

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

lol you really think Skinner would outplay Cam Talbot? Go f***ing look at who is no.2 in the league above Hellebuyck for GSAA and then go look where Stuart "he's got a fun mustache so he must be good" Skinner is.

Talbot would eat this fraud's lunch if he was here and take the starting role in 2-3 games tops. It wouldn't even be hard.

I mean he did exactly that like half a year ago.

The thing you're failing to consider is that if Talbot is so amazing why does Detroit trade him away?

 

[Soundwave]

This isnt going to age well Soundwave like many of your other posts. Interesting how much you are promoting Talbot and ignore his playoff last year. smh


your emphasis on 10 - 12 games and no understanding of looking at the big picture and even as little as 6 months ago is what is the fraud

Stuart Skinner has never been as good as Talbot and never will be. If Talbot was on the present team, Skinner would be a back up.

The guy simply moves like a sloth in net, you think "youth" is magically going to correct that.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Stuart Skinner has never been as good as Talbot and never will be. If Talbot was on the present team, Skinner would be a back up.

The guy simply moves like a sloth in net, you think "youth" is magically going to correct that.

Then why does Talbot switch teams almost every summer?

 

[Soundwave]

I mean he did exactly that like half a year ago.

The thing you're failing to consider is that if Talbot is so amazing why does Detroit trade him away?

No he wasn't. Talbot had better numbers than Skinner last year, he just got lit up by playoff McDavid/Draisaitl who know all of Cam's weaknesses in a playoff round, but you are lying to yourself if you think Skinner wouldn't similarily be lit up.

You really think that LA series goes any different in you swap goalies? LOL, I've got a bridge to sell you in that case.

Skinner would lose his starting job to a goalie like Talbot in no time flat and never get it back.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

No he wasn't. Talbot had better numbers than Skinner last year, he just got lit up by playoff McDavid/Draisaitl who know all of Cam's weaknesses in a playoff round, but you are lying to yourself if you think Skinner wouldn't similarily be lit up.

You really think that LA series goes any different in you swap goalies? LOL, I've got a bridge to sell you in that case.

Then why did LA move on from him????

 

[Yuke]

No he wasn't. Talbot had better numbers than Skinner last year, he just got lit up by playoff McDavid/Draisaitl who know all of Cam's weaknesses in a playoff round, but you are lying to yourself if you think Skinner wouldn't similarily be lit up.

You really think that LA series goes any different in you swap goalies? LOL, I've got a bridge to sell you in that case.

Skinner would lose his starting job to a goalie like Talbot in no time flat and never get it back.

Are you saying we should never have gotten rid of Talbot?

 

[Soundwave]

Then why did LA move on from him????

Because they had to dump the massive mistake that was the Dubois contract, but their management is actually proactive (unlike the Oilers) and they moved on, but they had to take on the Kuemper contract back.

Having Kuemper at 5.25 + Talbot at 2.5 doesn't work cap wise.

Talbot is very underrated in this league, virtually everywhere he's gone he's given teams reasonable to great goaltending at least for some stretches without any big money contract, never been paid over 3.5 mill yet has 10 seasons of .910 or better save percentage.

His playoff numbers are overall very good too.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Because they had to dump the massive mistake that was the Dubois contract, but their management is actually proactive (unlike the Oilers) and they moved on, but they had to take on the Kuemper contract back.

Having Kuemper at 5.25 + Talbot at 2.5 doesn't work cap wise.

Talbot is very underrated in this league, virtually everywhere he's gone he's given teams reasonable to great goaltending at least for some stretches without any big money contract, never been paid over 3.5 mill yet has 10 seasons of .910 or better save percentage.

His playoff numbers are overall very good too.

His playoff numbers haven't been good since 2021.

But once again, if he's this amazing, why does Detroit trade him?

 

[Soundwave]

His playoff numbers haven't been good since 2021.

But once again, if he's this amazing, why does Detroit trade him?

Because they're probably not making the playoffs and likely still have years of rebuilding ahead of them, taking futures for a 37 year old makes sense. Like does this really need to be explained to you? This is all news to you? Have you been following the league at all since the salary cap was enacted?

 

[guymez]

It's not the the D is bad, its that the whole team is focused on offense.

While better the past 2-3 games there's still people flying the zone, there's still giving up on plays, there's still lack of rotating when someone changes coverage, ignoring the late trailer and still lack of moving, disrupting or tying up players in the crease. And it's the whole skater group, forwards and defensemen.

This is basic team defense that every team knows how to play, ingrained from the pee wee level. Why are we exempt from it, other than this overriding desire to play pond hockey? Watch a Dallas Stars game, do they do these things? Sure, mistakes end up in the back of the net, this isn't mistakes, this is systemic.

Skinner is average at best, but also costs $3M. Where do we find better at the same price point and also not get taken to the cleaners on cost. And who's to say another goalie wouldn't falter with the same issues. Skinner is failing the most on the rush and on late trailers and that all can improve with a better overall team effort, taking defense seriously, and being responsible, not cheating for offense and in a giant hurry to get to the other side of the ice.

Good post and you make some valid points.
I have posted this before....when a team has so much firepower in 2 players like this a team does drift away from playing a team defensive game. That happens because being able to outscore mistakes has 2 sides to it. You can secure wins that you had no business winning but it can also be a problem over the long term.

This team has on many occasions outscored their mistakes because of Connor and Leon and if they insist on playing like that then an average NHL goalie like Skinner is not going to work.
I dont think that they will win much of anything until the team (as a whole) commits to playing defence but having the 2 best offensive players in the NHL makes that quite challenging.
Especially when those 2 players dont commit to proper puck management and proper defensive coverage. The grade A chances against they do give up are 10 bell chances and are usually rush chances.

If Connor and Leon can commit (full time) to playing a smarter defensive game (which includes more responsible puck management) then the rest of the team will follow their lead.
If that happens then this team is going to be very hard to beat as the average goaltending then becomes 'good enough' to win with.

All that being said the only thing I would suggest is that Skinner (obviously) needs to be better and the team does need to upgrade the defence (and possibly the bottom 6 functional grit) by trade deadline.
The current version of this team is very soft. Softest team in the NHL and I am not sure how well that is going to work in the grind that is the playoffs.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Because they're probably not making the playoffs and likely still have years of rebuilding ahead of them, taking futures for a 37 year old makes sense. Like does this really need to be explained to you? This is all news to you? Have you been following the league at all since the salary cap was enacted?

They're sitting one point out of a playoff spot right now with the mandate to make the playoffs. Throwing in the towel this early would cost Yzerman his job. At best we're hoping for months down the line and acquiring a goalie late into the season makes no sense.

 

[Soundwave]

They're sitting one point out of a playoff spot right now with the mandate to make the playoffs. Throwing in the towel this early would cost Yzerman his job. At best we're hoping for months down the line and acquiring a goalie late into the season makes no sense.

They're not trading him now, but at the deadline, sure.

They're not making the playoffs in that conference, they're not good enough, the only reason they probably even have a shot is because Talbot is playing lights out.

Good post and you make some valid points.
I have posted this before....when a team has so much firepower in 2 players like this team does drifting away from playing a team defensive game because being able to outscore mistakes is a bit of a problem.
This team has on many occasions outscored their mistakes because of Connor and Leon and if they insist on playing like that then an average NHL goalie like Skinner is not going to work.
I dont think that they will win much of anything until the team (as a whole) commits to playing defence but having the 2 best offensive players in the NHL makes that quite challenging.
Especially when those 2 players dont commit to proper puck management and proper defensive coverage. The grade A chances against they do give up are 10 bell chances.

If Connor and Leon can commit (full time) to playing a smarter defensive game (which includes more responsible puck management) then the rest of the team will follow their lead.
If that happens then this team is going to be very hard to beat as the average goaltending then becomes 'good enough' to win with.

All that being said the only thing I would suggest is that the team does need to upgrade the defence (and possibly the bottom 6 functional grit) by trade deadline.

Tell me you haven't watched Oilers hockey for a year without telling me.

They didn't make a Cup Finals because they "outscored mistakes", they made a Finals because they shut down LA/Vancouver/Dallas and even Florida's offense for the last 3-4 games of each playoff round and came back from behind in 2/3 rounds to win almost damn near won the Finals too.

The only reason they are 8-7-1 this year instead of the same 2-9-1 as last year is because the 5 on 5 D has actually be OK. Every other aspect of the team including scoring has sucked.