He was thrown in, in relief. Then put up 2 decent performances. To me, we used our backup properly then decided to go back to Stu. We won that series with those types of adjustments and Pickard did his job.
Matheson or Fowler, pretty obvious.
i agree, Skinner is far from perfect, but at 2.6 per, he gives you a great game about 25% of the time, average/adequate game about 25%, good about 25%, and not good enough about 25%. Great goaltending is all about consistency, the big money goalies are good on a more consistent basis than the lower paid goalies, usually. Even high paid goalies sometimes go into the tank, as people say, goalies are voodoo. Skinner is more than worth his deal, this year got off to a rough start, but he's bounced back nicely. People expecting Stu to be Hasek or Price, are always going to be disappointed. The Oilers don't have money for a top 10 goalie, so why should we expecting to have one? If you want to be upset at someone, be upset at how Holland built this team and how much they left for the goalies, it's not much. Stu makes less than the league average salary, and wayyyyyyyy less than the league average for a #1 goalie, which based on his last 2 plus seasons, he clearly is. People need to adjust their expectations. I believe they could use a 2nd Skinner level goalie, that is in the same pay range and skill level. I liked the idea of Blackwood, age wise, skill wise, even the salary wasn't too bad. He's off the table now, they team needs to keep looking for that upgrade, luckily, Pickard has done a nice job in his role, again, worth every penny he makes.
If he turns around their glaring goaltending issue then no it wasn’t bad. Their cup window is the same as ours.
It's Matheson or Provorov.
Georgiev is even worse than Skinner and I’m not big on Kovalenko.
I was replying to this part: "There is no chance you can rely on him if there is an injury or Skinner falters."
Yup. I would agree with everything here. Including Blackwood being the only decent option out there, but he's now gone. So we are looking at a bunch of dice rolls or pipe dreams (Sheshterkin or whoever in the elite money range).
This is exactly it. He was thrown into a starter's role at 24 because the team's big gamble in goal failed almost straight out of the gate.
I don’t think this org understands it. They won’t draft top tier goalie prospects in the draft, they never develop these guys, they’re never there in free agency. Should be drafting these goalies, now the only option is run with subpar goaltending or make a big trade.
We had to rely on him round 2 last year when Skinner shit the bed.
I'd be down for another try on Talbot. We are a whole different team defensively today compared to when we moved on from him. Good stats on a bad Wings team. Lyon is good there too. They've got to be a bit cheaper than Blackwood was.
37 years old and out with injury. History of mental weakness in our market. But yeh maybe it would be a viable dice roll, it's still a dice roll though.
goalies age better. I didn't know about the injury. That is concerning but maybe the team could have him checked out first if he gets back in time to be traded
