Oilhawks
Like Some Snow-White Marble Eyes
- Nov 24, 2011
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I feel like this was a pretty informative breakdown of how it’s not a sure fire thing that Gibson would immediately be the savior here like many think. Two very specific scenarios that he struggles with that hypothetically would have resulted in 19 more goals against versus the tandem that’s currently here. It’s also a bit of insight into how much deeper of analytics actual teams have over what JFresh and Rono print into easily readable cards that are essentially clickbait.
Woodley knows his stuff when it comes to goaltenders and like Bobo pointed out, teams have far more information and data to chart their moves. I’m not opposed to Gibson but it has to be minimal cap and asset spend to mitigate the risk and they better be damn sure it’s going to be a net positive if you’re replacing a guy who you went to game 7 of the final with last year in favour of a guy who hasn’t played a meaningful game in 8 years.
Yes, there is risk. It exists for any goalie they could potentially bring in (ex: how well will they do in the team's system). But what we do know is Skinner has a history of not being consistent enough to 'bet the farm' with. He has had more poor series than good ones IMO. Could this change? Sure. Do the Oilers have time to waste worrying about that? Not really
Ideally they need to do what a lot of the Cup-winning teams have done the past while; have a tandem that you are confident playing either of them as a starter if the other falters. They currently do not have that. No secret that I'm not a fan of Skinner, but I think their best bet is to keep him and upgrade on Pickard with a sure-fire veteran tandem goalie that can take some pressure off Skinny. Pickard is a solid backup and there are things I like better about him, but clearly the org is not confident enough in him to give Skinner more a rest and split the starts more.