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

[CanadasTeam99]

Stunning to me that people still think there's no concern with Skinner.

Does he have the potential and/or to be the guy? Yes.

Has he proven in isolation that he has the talent level to play on a SC contender? Yes.

Has he shown the consistency to be someone that we can 100% rely on to play well through the playoffs? No.

Has he shown the ability to narrow the size of the swings in his game? No.

It really isn't that complicated. He's a guy with some talent that can either give you good enough goaltending or be the sole reason we lose and it is never apparent how or when these instances will occur. This is not conducive to winning in the playoffs. It's not like he has one bad or underwhelming performance and then can jump right back and turn it around, it always drags for games at a time and you never know when it will happen. Just look at the playoffs last year:

Kings series - brutal for Games 1-3, then a stud in Game 4, then back to being mediocre at best in Game 5.

Nucks series - complete joke through games 1-3, then pretty steady for games 6 and 7 with the major caveat that the Oilers were on their game and dominated 6 and 7 severely limiting chances against. If anything, goaltending was why Game 7 in particular wasn't an easy multi goal win.

Stars series - Definitely good enough in Game 1 and 2 (but not without some hiccups), dog shit in games 3 and 4. Then good again in 5 and 6 (again, not without some hiccups in 5).

Finals - not objectively terrible in any of the games really, but struggled to make the "big save" that teams need at certain times to win the Stanley Cup when it really mattered. Missing that next step in his game.

I don't know how anyone could look at his playoff record last year and determine that he's definitely the guy. If anything we're very lucky to have gotten as far as we did with circus up and down net minding basically every series. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind we win the Stanley Cup last year with a different goalie even if everything else was exactly the same.

Dude, Skinner could have been on those 80's teams and EDM win every game 8-5 and people would call him one of the best goalies of all time b/c he got so many wins..

 

[Dirk Dangler]

Yeah, again, he wasn't good. Nobody is debating otherwise. But they still won the series so I couldn't really give a f*** that the Oilers almost lost the series. If he continued to suck ass then that would be a problem but he didn't for the remainder of the playoffs.

Has he been good this year? No, he hasn't. But we're not likely going to upgrade due to lack of assets and managerial stubbornness. You of all people should understand how Oilers management works.

You really should give a f***. Playoffs is a battle of attrition. Playing 1 or 2 games less in that series. Maybe 3 or 4 less games throughout the playoffs due to his subpar play could have put this team over the top.

 

[bucks_oil]

I posted this before - but again - the Reinhart goal in game 7 had the same xGF on it at Draisaitl's goal on Fluery from the other side of the red line.

View attachment 935429View attachment 935430

I'm not going to comment on the rest, but I mean c'mon. That's just ABSOLUTE BS and a huge indictment of xGoals.

If you honestly believe a dump in from center ice and a shot from just shy of the face-off dot, with the on-puck defender backing up into you and another oponent+defender driving the net (all of which can impact your postioning/sitelines) should have the same xGoal difficulty level then you are being deliberately obtuse or are quite frankly clueless.

Here is every angle of it:

There comes a time when you have to just use common sense and in this case xGoal is LYING to you.

I know we all like to blame Skinner for that goal, and he's not entirely blameless there,... but I was watching the game with non-Oiler-fan hockey friends, several of them ex AHL/ECHL/Div1 players and many of them current PAID coaches for various programs around Boston area. Not a single one of them was quick to blame Skinner... every one of them immediately said "what TF was Kulak doing there?".

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

You really should give a f***. Playoffs is a battle of attrition. Playing 1 or 2 games less in that series. Maybe 3 or 4 less games throughout the playoffs due to his subpar play could have put this team over the top.

And if my aunt had nuts she'd be my uncle. One could argue that the Oilers were lucky they didn't have to play a 7th game against Dallas because of... well, you can probably figure it out. The Panthers played one less game than us going into the Finals and that's not going into going all the way the previous year. That's why I don't put a ton of stock in these sorts of things.

 

[ManofSteel55]

They also had that random guy named Chris pronger. Do we have someone like him lol?

I would say having McDavid and Draisaitl more than make up for no Pronger, when you consider that our top six centers were Horcoff and Stoll.

It's pretty telling that our goaltending couldn't even look good with Pronger back there until we got Roloson.

 

[Dirk Dangler]

So as I've said numerous times, this is HFOil. If the Oilers win the game Skinner had absolutely nothing to do with it, and if the Oilers lose he's solely to blame. He gets blamed for almost blowing it vs. the Canucks but gets no credit for beating the Stars and performing reasonably well against the Panthers. What a fanbase, no wonder why we can't develop goaltending here. Four decades and counting of being unable to develop even ONE goalie.

We can’t develop goalies here because management has the attitude of “welp, that’s goalies. Crazy bunch. Can’t trust someone who wants to stand in front of 90mph frozen rubber for a living”. This organization has no clue how to draft and develop goal tenders. Treats the goaltending department like a joke. It has nothing to do with the fan base.

 

[McJadeddog]

The only thing that matters to me about Skinner's playoff performance is Reinhart's 2-1 goal in game 7 going under his glove. I don't care about the other series because we won, but that goal will haunt me. It was an even game that was decided by 1 goaltending mistake.

Yup, I will go to my dying breath that Skinner cost us that game, as that was a very stoppable shot.

 

[bucks_oil]

It's still not a fair comparison. I also have to question how these things are determined. Like the first goal that Skinner allowed vs. the Rangers was ranked a 0.03 even though Skinner deflected the puck behind him. Had he not touched it the puck doesn't go in. None of the goals allowed in that Rangers game rank above McDavid deking Quick out of his jockstrap to the tune of 0.09 xGF even though he's... well, McDavid. This puts all the goals at a very low value even though Quick was hardly at fault for many of them (maybe the Nurse goal he'd like back).

What's more, the "deserve-to-win" meter puts the Oilers winning in the low to mid 50s for winning. Anyone watching that game knows the Oilers were by far the better team. Moneypuck has the xGF as 2.92 to 2.62 for the Oilers while Natural Stat Trick actually has it 3.23 to 2.85 in favour of the Rangers. Likely these numbers are to do with score effects and the Rangers making a push when behind.

Advanced stats have their place but they shouldn't be the bible. The advanced stats paint the last game as a close one while the eye test says the Oilers ran the Rangers right out of the building. And in this case the eye test is correct. It's important to use both to judge.

I'm with you. I like the idea of advanced stats as much as the next excel nerd, but at present I think they are exceptionally limited for evaluating individuals, especially a position with as narrow a margin of error (with as many external variables influencing it) as goaltending.

Come back at me when we are using RFID-based data that is truly accounting for shot speed, degree of deflection, true sightlines (which would require interpolation from multiple sensors on players torsos and limbs) and the number of "outs" the shooter had (ie did he have viable options to pass, deke, etc when the shot was made? How many of those did the goalie need to account for in his positioning?).

 

[McTonyBrar]

I would say having McDavid and Draisaitl more than make up for no Pronger, when you consider that our top six centers were Horcoff and Stoll.

It's pretty telling that our goaltending couldn't even look good with Pronger back there until we got Roloson.

Yeah but Pronger and Spacek helped us so much in breakout passing. All we have right now is Bouchard. We need one more.

AND A goalie

 

[syz]

Loved his game in the OHL. Wouldn't be surprised to see him figure it out in Pittsburgh.

Unfortunately don't think he'll get much of an opportunity under Sullivan anyways.

 

[McJadeddog]

Oh I thought we only cared about his sv%? Now it's another stat, I see.

And the fact that those two goals carry the same "Weight" or whatever you want to call it is extremely laughable. This is the concern I have with these advanced stats. Who's recording these? Is it subjective? What are they based on? How is a shot from the opposing blue line worth the same as a snipe? Should he have saved it? Sure, but how are those goals even remotely the same? What was this goal worth on the scale?




Speaking of moving the goalposts, now it's xGF. I guess sv% doesn't matter anymore... People would rather castrate themselves than admit he was pretty decent after the bad Vancouver series.

Save% is an older stat, that most stats people haven't really used in quite some time. Just because you think the two statistics are equal, or that save% is still the defacto best, doesn't make it so. The stats community has moved on from straight save% quite a while ago. That doesn't constitute "moving the goal posts", it means that people who follow this stuff have determined that there are better ways of tracking it.

"Goals save above expected/60" is the one used the most I would argue now, or at least in the top-3 or so, and in that stat, Skinner is 56th of 63 goalies (min 5 GP). Since we are also talking about last playoffs, Skinner was 13th of 19 goalies with minimum 3 GP in that same stat. Skinner was below average last playoffs, and is one of the very worst in the league this year. He was 37th or 73 goalies with min 10 GP last regular season, in case you are wondering, so pretty much exactly average.

Skinner is an average in the best case, and greatly below average in the worst case, goalie in the league. There are lots and lots and lots of data points supporting this.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

I'm with you. I like the idea of advanced stats as much as the next excel nerd, but at present I think they are exceptionally limited for evaluating individuals, especially a position with as narrow a margin of error (with as many external variables influencing it) as goaltending.

Come back at me when we are using RFID-based data that is truly accounting for shot speed, degree of deflection, true sightlines (which would require interpolation from multiple sensors on players torsos and limbs) and the number of "outs" the shooter had (ie did he have viable options to pass, deke, etc when the shot was made? How many of those did the goalie need to account for in his positioning?).

That different sites seem to have different data too compounds the issue. According to MP we had the better xGF but according to NTS it was the Rangers who did. There are thousands of different factors that go into any hockey game: Weird bounces, flow of play, score effects, penalties, broken equipment, Cody Ceci, overextending on plays, etc etc etc. Hockey is a very different game from the other major sports and certainly some things can be measured, it's still not always super indicative of what happens on the ice. The Oilers all too often have little "oopsie" moments such as Nurse's giveaway on the final goal the Rangers scored. Like yeah, ideally you get a save there but it was still a careless play on Nurse's part. The eye test isn't always everything but it shouldn't be discounted too.

 

[bucks_oil]

Save% is an older stat, that most stats people haven't really used in quite some time. Just because you think the two statistics are equal, or that save% is still the defacto best, doesn't make it so. The stats community has moved on from straight save% quite a while ago. That doesn't constitute "moving the goal posts", it means that people who follow this stuff have determined that there are better ways of tracking it.

"Goals save above expected/60" is the one used the most I would argue now, or at least in the top-3 or so, and in that stat, Skinner is 56th of 63 goalies (min 5 GP). Since we are also talking about last playoffs, Skinner was 13th of 19 goalies with minimum 3 GP in that same stat. Skinner was below average last playoffs, and is one of the very worst in the league this year. He was 37th or 73 goalies with min 10 GP last regular season, in case you are wondering, so pretty much exactly average.

Skinner is an average in the best case, and greatly below average in the worst case, goalie in the league. There are lots and lots and lots of data points supporting this.

Thanks for this...

I think even his "defenders" would agree Skinner is a below average starter in this league.

But here is my frustration: why are you guys complaining and/or on what basis would you expect more?

There are only 4 teams in the league that spend LESS on goaltending than the Oilers. https://puckpedia.com/teams. (you can sort cap% by position)

I don't think you can spend bottom-percentile cap-dollars on goaltending and then legitimately complain about bottom-percentile goaltending performance. You are getting exactly what you paid for.

Maybe if we want better goaltending we should invest in better goaltending instead of wasting our precious dollars on soft, no-production forwards like J. Skinner? It's just a thought.

 

[McJadeddog]

That different sites seem to have different data too compounds the issue. According to MP we had the better xGF but according to NTS it was the Rangers who did. There are thousands of different factors that go into any hockey game: Weird bounces, flow of play, score effects, penalties, broken equipment, Cody Ceci, overextending on plays, etc etc etc. Hockey is a very different game from the other major sports and certainly some things can be measured, it's still not always super indicative of what happens on the ice. The Oilers all too often have little "oopsie" moments such as Nurse's giveaway on the final goal the Rangers scored. Like yeah, ideally you get a save there but it was still a careless play on Nurse's part. The eye test isn't always everything but it shouldn't be discounted too.

haha to the bolded, nicely done

Agree that you need both (stats and eye tests) for a sport like hockey that has a LOT of "luck" baked into the sport. That is why you arguing for Skinner is so strange to me. He has been absolute garbage by both the advanced stats AND the eye test.

Agree about needing both though for certain. However, due to how luck based hockey is, and how many freaking variables there are in the sport on every play, you can't get caught up with a certain shot having 0.01 xGF, while another has 0.09. All stats are "clumpy" at the best of times, and hockey especially so. You have to look at all these stats in the aggregate, so drilling down into 1 game or 1 shot doesn't really prove much one way or the other.

 

[McJadeddog]

Thanks for this...

I think even his "defenders" would agree Skinner is a below average starter in this league.

But here is my frustration: why are you guys complaining and/or on what basis would you expect more?

There are only 4 teams in the league that spend LESS on goaltending than the Oilers. https://puckpedia.com/teams. (you can sort cap% by position)

I don't think you can spend bottom-percentile cap-dollars on goaltending and then legitimately complain about bottom-percentile goaltending performance. You are getting exactly what you paid for.

Maybe if we want better goaltending we should invest in better goaltending instead of wasting our precious dollars on soft, no-production forwards like J. Skinner? It's just a thought.

You don't have to preach to me about the importance of goaltending, however, I won't claim to know where to spend those resources. Goalies are voodoo, and other than the top-5 guys in the sport, the rest are exceptionally variable it seems to me. I'm an ex-goalie, so have more appreciation for the position than any other, but I have no insight into which goalie (other than the very tippy-top) will be good from year to year. They are just SOOO variable, so I kinda understand spending less on them, and hoping to hit the lottery one of the years. But it's not an easy answer either way, I grant you that.

 

[McShogun99]

I'm not going to comment on the rest, but I mean c'mon. That's just ABSOLUTE BS and a huge indictment of xGoals.

If you honestly believe a dump in from center ice and a shot from just shy of the face-off dot, with the on-puck defender backing up into you and another oponent+defender driving the net (all of which can impact your postioning/sitelines) should have the same xGoal difficulty level then you are being deliberately obtuse or are quite frankly clueless.

Here is every angle of it:

There comes a time when you have to just use common sense and in this case xGoal is LYING to you.

I know we all like to blame Skinner for that goal, and he's not entirely blameless there,... but I was watching the game with non-Oiler-fan hockey friends, several of them ex AHL/ECHL/Div1 players and many of them current PAID coaches for various programs around Boston area. Not a single one of them was quick to blame Skinner... every one of them immediately said "what TF was Kulak doing there?".

That goal was on Foegele. Him losing his man caused both Kulak and Skinner to cheat for the pass.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

haha to the bolded, nicely done

Agree that you need both (stats and eye tests) for a sport like hockey that has a LOT of "luck" baked into the sport. That is why you arguing for Skinner is so strange to me. He has been absolute garbage by both the advanced stats AND the eye test.

Agree about needing both though for certain. However, due to how luck based hockey is, and how many freaking variables there are in the sport on every play, you can't get caught up with a certain shot having 0.01 xGF, while another has 0.09. All stats are "clumpy" at the best of times, and hockey especially so. You have to look at all these stats in the aggregate, so drilling down into 1 game or 1 shot doesn't really prove much one way or the other.

Skinner needs to be better, I don't think anyone would debate that. But I also point to a lack of secondary offense as also an issue. McDavid and Draisatl are doing what they normally do but most of the rest of the forwards (especially the top 6 wingers) are lagging behind horribly. Mattias Janmark absolutely should not have more points than every forward not named McDavid or Draisatl. The offseason additions have been a big disappointment, especially given how necessary they might've been when other issues should've been addressed.

 

[iCanada]

I'm with you. I like the idea of advanced stats as much as the next excel nerd, but at present I think they are exceptionally limited for evaluating individuals, especially a position with as narrow a margin of error (with as many external variables influencing it) as goaltending.

Come back at me when we are using RFID-based data that is truly accounting for shot speed, degree of deflection, true sightlines (which would require interpolation from multiple sensors on players torsos and limbs) and the number of "outs" the shooter had (ie did he have viable options to pass, deke, etc when the shot was made? How many of those did the goalie need to account for in his positioning?).

xGF pretty much takes all of that into account, except the number of outs a player may have, which is kind of irrelevant for the current discussion in my opinion.

Variables In Shot Prediction Model:

1.) Shot Distance From Net
2.) Time Since Last Game Event
3.) Shot Type (Slap, Wrist, Backhand, etc)
4.) Speed From Previous Event
5.) Shot Angle
6.) East-West Location on Ice of Last Event Before the Shot
7.) If Rebound, difference in shot angle divided by time since last shot
8.) Last Event That Happened Before the Shot (Faceoff, Hit, etc)
9.) Other team's # of skaters contesting the Shot
10.) East-West Location on Ice of Shot
11.) Man Advantage Situation
12.) Time since current Powerplay started
13.) Distance From Previous Event
14.) North-South Location on Ice of Shot
15.) Shooting on Empty Net

MoneyPuck.com -About and How it Works

About MoneyPuck, Models, Analytics, Corsi, Fenwick

www.moneypuck.com

The reality is that it was a contested wrist shot from a long distance and bad angle with full sightlines. A right shot from the right side with no change in angle prior to release.

There was no significant velocity on the shot. Reinhart is a good goslscorer, but he himself basically never scores from that range. He's not a sniper; in fact statistically he's got an average NHL shot.

 

[iCanada]

That different sites seem to have different data too compounds the issue. According to MP we had the better xGF but according to NTS it was the Rangers who did. There are thousands of different factors that go into any hockey game: Weird bounces, flow of play, score effects, penalties, broken equipment, Cody Ceci, overextending on plays, etc etc etc. Hockey is a very different game from the other major sports and certainly some things can be measured, it's still not always super indicative of what happens on the ice. The Oilers all too often have little "oopsie" moments such as Nurse's giveaway on the final goal the Rangers scored. Like yeah, ideally you get a save there but it was still a careless play on Nurse's part. The eye test isn't always everything but it shouldn't be discounted too.

To be clear, the raw data is typically the same for each site.

There's a couple of different models for expected goals though. These are different things.

You can say you don't like one model, or think another is more accurate or whatever, but the dates comes from the nhls' own feed and has pretty strong fidelity at this point in time.


For example, you can look at any event from any game under the play by play on the nhls' website that shows where it happened, when, etc;

Edmonton Oilers - New York Rangers - Nov 23, 2024 | NHL.com

NHL Gamecenter - Edmonton Oilers vs. New York Rangers, Nov 23, 2024 - summary, stats, boxscore, play by play, recap and more.

www.nhl.com

Every game is real time tracked by 10 people, each who track a single player at a given time. Take time to watch the breakdowns of a given goal;

 

[Spawn]

Thanks for this...

I think even his "defenders" would agree Skinner is a below average starter in this league.

But here is my frustration: why are you guys complaining and/or on what basis would you expect more?

There are only 4 teams in the league that spend LESS on goaltending than the Oilers. https://puckpedia.com/teams. (you can sort cap% by position)

I don't think you can spend bottom-percentile cap-dollars on goaltending and then legitimately complain about bottom-percentile goaltending performance. You are getting exactly what you paid for.

Maybe if we want better goaltending we should invest in better goaltending instead of wasting our precious dollars on soft, no-production forwards like J. Skinner? It's just a thought.

The 4 teams that are spending less according to your list are:

4th, 7th, 11th and 13th in save percentage this season. Oilers are down in 27th.

You’ve disproved your own point. You absolutely can pay bottom dollars and get good goaltending. You’ve just got to find the right goalies at the right time. Something this team hasn’t been able to do in more than 20 years with the exception of the odd season here or there.

 

[TheNumber4]

Friedman on Saturday Headlines says teams are making legitimate pitches and Columbus is mulling a Jiricek move. He notes there are reports about Edmonton, but Friedman himself doesn't think we are a match because we don't necessarily have what Columbus wants, a "young player similar in return"

Drake makes an impact. Get f***ed Wild.

 

[McTonyBrar]

Is that reddit guy correct? Did Jiricek get moved to Vancouver?


Maybe Nashville got him. They did just move Tomasino

 

[bucks_oil]

That goal was on Foegele. Him losing his man caused both Kulak and Skinner to cheat for the pass.

Wow... you win the prize.

Now I know WTF Kulak was doing!

I'd honestly never noticed that... now that I have seen it... you can even see Reinhart looking pass (hard-sell) and then on the overhead view it's pretty telling that Kulak was taking that pass away... ugh... you kinda just wish he jammed the breaks on a bit earlier to allow Skinner to stop at the top of the blue, but it's a fast game.

Thanks for that. Very solid.

xGF pretty much takes all of that into account, except the number of outs a player may have, which is kind of irrelevant for the current discussion in my opinion.

MoneyPuck.com -About and How it Works

About MoneyPuck, Models, Analytics, Corsi, Fenwick

www.moneypuck.com

The reality is that it was a contested wrist shot from a long distance and bad angle with full sightlines. A right shot from the right side with no change in angle prior to release.

There was no significant velocity on the shot. Reinhart is a good goslscorer, but he himself basically never scores from that range. He's not a sniper; in fact statistically he's got an average NHL shot.

View attachment 935489

Wow... are you really doubling down?

The dump in by Draisaitl is the same xGoal as the Reinhart goal and you are ok with that?

lol....

 

[TheNumber4]

In 2024, yes. The league average is around .900 if I recall correctly and Skinner was playing three of the top offensive teams in the league exclusively during that stretch.

He also had better stats than the other final 4 goalies in that stretch. So yes, after a rough series with the Nucks where he recovered, he gave us winnable goaltending in the final four, which is why the cup was winnable for us.

 

[bucks_oil]

The 4 teams that are spending less according to your list are:

4th, 7th, 11th and 13th in save percentage this season. Oilers are down in 27th.

You’ve disproved your own point. You absolutely can pay bottom dollars and get good goaltending. You’ve just got to find the right goalies at the right time. Something this team hasn’t been able to do in more than 20 years with the exception of the odd season here or there.

No actually I think it proves my point perfectly.

Unless you pay absolute top-dollar for established, elite-level, goaltending... then your goaltending is likely not going to be a difference maker.

To my point: you can't expect difference making goaltending unless you pay top dollar. You may or may not get lucky depending (perhaps) on the talent of your goaltending evaluation and coaching... which again, is to my point... we don't make it a priority (as you allude, our 20-year history)

So what HAVE we made a priority to? OFFENSE. We spend a TONNE. We have arguably the best on-paper offense ever assembled. That's our priority. That's where we spend our money. That's what we deem to be worthwhile, perhaps because it is more predictable. How can you possibly say that investment is not the problem? It's sitting 21st !!!