Montembault actually plays in front of the leakiest team in the league, the Habs are actually what the some people think the Oilers are (or were like 3-4 years ago). St. Louis plays no defensive structure at all like Woodcroft.
Montembault would probably be quite good here. Really good athletic ability.
Adin Hill is just flat out better than Skinner. One poor start doesn't erase a Stanley Cup performance for the ages, great playoff numbers, decent .909 regular season last year too. I'd drive Skinner to the airport myself if Vegas was willing to do Hill for Skinner straight across. He'll find his game, I don't think I've seen anyone who likes playing more in Edmonton than that dude.
If you trade goalies in the 2023 playoffs, we win the Stanley Cup and Vegas is at home licking their chops. In '24 we probably would win again with Hill in net.
The sad thing is to think about it that way, that's all it would have taken for even probably 2 Cups already. This organization just cannot bring themselves to even put in that kind of effort to find that player.
That seems to be twisting reality for the sake of being able to complain some more.
For one, Edmonton tried multiple times to solve the position. It's just that you can't make people magically want to come to your place, nor can you magically force good goalies to be on the market. They tried to get Markström, and Markström signed elsewhere. They got one of the few available options in Campbell, and it failed completely. And at the same time, all the other "big" goalie UFA-signings didn't fare any better.
The UFA-market for goalies has been barren for years, and the trade-market hasn't looked much better. Half the players you might clamor for are the very type of players you would have complained about if Edmonton had tried to get them, because they hadn't shown much at all or never got to play an increased role in the league.
Be precise. Who would you have gone after at which specific point in time. How would you have made him agree to come to the Oilers / made another team agree to trade him, how would you have fit him under the cap, and how would you have made sure he stayed around for the long-term.
And no "I would have signed Nurse to a 6m contract instead" does not fly, because that's not realistic from the situation at that time.
Basically all noteworthy UFA-signings of the past few years haven't shown much at all, if not been downright bad. And most of the goalies who have done somewhat well have never played more than in a backup role, or had a tough time stringing more than one good season together.
The actual elite was never available, and what has risen through the ranks was either well regarded by their teams for a long time, or didn't look like much (to put it mildly) when they were traded for (e.g. Gustavsson, Daccord).
There is exactly one really good goalie who was made available lately, and that's Ullmark. And he just signed a deal with a cap-hit of 8m+. Good luck trying to fit that in with a cap that had stagnated for years and with new contracts to Draisaitl, Bouchard and McDavid coming up. Now, you could of course say "screw the future, if we win the Cup this year it doesn't matter if we can keep him", and that's true, but you still need to get Boston to trade him to you and not someone else, and find the necessary cap-space for it. And you also don't have a longterm solution if you happen to fall short again, which can happen to the best of teams, as you still need to be healthy and in good shape and not run into a team that is not a good fit for you or just on too much of a hot streak to beat.
Half the league is looking for a good goalie. Half the league is looking for a 2nd pairing RD. Half the league is looking to improve their top 6. There is only so much talent that is being made available, and only so much money you can spend when the cap stays stagnant for a long time. Look at Ottawa, the've been struggling for years to get good goaltending. They'd get a decent performance out of someone, and then he suddenly sinks. And that happened again and again. And they are hardly the only ones dealing with that.
Should the Oilers have drafted Wallstedt in 2021? Yes. Would it make any different right now? No. But at least you could have hoped for him to become this elite talent a few years down the line.
Should they probably have tried to go with a new goalie coach? Absolutely. Would that have guaranteed success? No, but it would have been worth a try.
Could they have tried to find anyone at the deadline? Sure, but there wasn't much worth of note available, and with that it could just as easily have caused an early exit as it could have led to a better performance in net.
Outside of that, they tried to do something, they went after multiple goalies, tried different ones on the team, it didn't work out. That happens to most teams, as only one team can win every year, and plenty of very good teams never make it all the way through. Goalies with a proven track-record are anything but in abundance. And everyone else can just as easily give you a catastrophic year as they can give you a great one. Almost every team tries to solve roster-issues every year, and plenty of times they do not find a solution. You just hope that your team can get it done regardless. And sometimes luck plays into your cards, like Vegas with Hill, who could have just as easily shown nothing at all when he came in, or could just as easily not been used at all, if the coach had opted to stay with Brossoit for one or two games more.
