Player Discussion Stuart Skinner

[GrumpyKoala]

You can argue that Skinner is a decent goalie while understanding that he never delivered good post season performances.

2 QS in 12 playoff games, .883% isn't what a team trying to win a cup are looking for.

You would be hard pressed to find other cases of a team/coach that sticked up for that many post season games while not getting anything out of it.

 

[GOilers88]

Saros is a goalie that has showed elite form and elite stats. That doesn't disappear. Sometimes good goalies have good and bad ebbs and has a lot to do with team, injury etc. Oilers would only be able to get a goalie the quality of Saros when hes struggling.

as recenctly as last season Saros had a save % of .919. Career he's .917. I would take a bet on that guy anytime over what we have.

This is where you lose me.

I agree with everything you've said about Saros. But you leave out so much context.

Saros has played 330 games to Skinners 130.

In Saros first year with a starters load, he put up a good .914/2.70 season in 40 games, compared to Skinner's .914/2.75

That same season in the playoffs, Saros then went .895/3.22 in 4 games to Skinners .883/3.68 in 12 games.

So they both fell off hard from where they were for the year.

Stretching that out to now encompass their careers, I think it's fair to take into account that unlike Skinner, Saros was slowly worked in on a team that is generally known as a good defensive team. In his first 3 seasons he played 21, 26, and 31 games respectfully as a backup goalie behind some other guy.

As a rookie he saw the ice twice in the playoffs in relief and went .824/3.18
The next two seasons in the playoffs he saw a combined 5 games and posted really spectacular numbers, but was still in a backup role. The next season, where he finally assumes the starters load, brings us full circle. Now we add another 4 more seasons of work to Saros resume, and 3/4 of one to Skinner, where their numbers are again amazingly similar with Skinner coming out ahead despite the absolutely god awful start he had.

So when I compare the two goalies, what I'm seeing is a guy with 8 years experience and a guy with 1 year of experience. The guy with more time was developed slowly behind a solid defensive team and the other was immediately pushed into a workload heavier than anything Saros had seen until 2 years ago, and still managed to equal him.

The argument that Stu just doesn't have it, we need some other guy is absolutely silly when the others guys being pointed to have been given way more opportunity to develop their game. Skinner has literally stepped into the #1 role as a rookie on a team during probably it's most critical years since Gretzky left, and without the benefit of all that development time the other guys got, has still managed to basically equal them statistically, with the exception of one single playoff run being used to define him moving forward. Which is even crazier when you consider a guy like Oettinger who had an amazing rookie run, and then fell off a f***ing cliff as a sophomore. We all watched it with Fleury too. The guy was just as notorious for choking in the playoffs as he is for coming up clutch. The only difference is these guys have been in the league for YEARS, and Stu has been in the league for one.

Sorry for the text wall, I had a puff

 

[Drivesaitl]

This is where you lose me.

I agree with everything you've said about Saros. But you leave out so much context.

Saros has played 330 games to Skinners 130.

In Saros first year with a starters load, he put up a good .914/2.70 season in 40 games, compared to Skinner's .914/2.75

That same season in the playoffs, Saros then went .895/3.22 in 4 games to Skinners .883/3.68 in 12 games.

So they both fell off hard from where they were for the year.

Stretching that out to now encompass their careers, I think it's fair to take into account that unlike Skinner, Saros was slowly worked in on a team that is generally known as a good defensive team. In his first 3 seasons he played 21, 26, and 31 games respectfully as a backup goalie behind some other guy.

As a rookie he saw the ice twice in the playoffs in relief and went .824/3.18
The next two seasons in the playoffs he saw a combined 5 games and posted really spectacular numbers, but was still in a backup role. The next season, where he finally assumes the starters load, brings us full circle. Now we add another 4 more seasons of work to Saros resume, and 3/4 of one to Skinner, where their numbers are again amazingly similar with Skinner coming out ahead despite the absolutely god awful start he had.

So when I compare the two goalies, what I'm seeing is a guy with 8 years experience and a guy with 1 year of experience. The guy with more time was developed slowly behind a solid defensive team and the other was immediately pushed into a workload heavier than anything Saros had seen until 2 years ago, and still managed to equal him.

The argument that Stu just doesn't have it, we need some other guy is absolutely silly when the others guys being pointed to have been given way more opportunity to develop their game. Skinner has literally stepped into the #1 role as a rookie on a team during probably it's most critical years since Gretzky left, and without the benefit of all that development time the other guys got, has still managed to basically equal them statistically, with the exception of one single playoff run being used to define him moving forward. Which is even crazier when you consider a guy like Oettinger who had an amazing rookie run, and then fell off a f***ing cliff as a sophomore. We all watched it with Fleury too. The guy was just as notorious for choking in the playoffs as he is for coming up clutch. The only difference is these guys have been in the league for YEARS, and Stu has been in the league for one.

Sorry for the text wall, I had a puff

I just cited articles today that statistically indicate that goalies do not improve with GP or with age. They are unlike other players in that regard. Goalies generally are ready and statistically at peak already by age 22 and going to age 30 after which there is fall off.

I know that everybody thinks that goalies getting mroe seasons, games, experience makes a big difference. But that isn't shown in the several studies that have shown this and that there is no age effect with goalies other than decline past age 30. i didn't just state this, I researched it.

How well do goalies age? A look at a goalie aging curve.

A few weeks back, I unveiled Hockey Marcels: an extremely simplistic system for projecting goalies performance going forward, utilizing just the last four years of a goalies’ play to d…

hockey-graphs.com

This is the key takeaway from the study:

Second, you’ll notice that, blatant outliers notwithstanding, goalies DO NOT IMPROVE. Goalie performance is on average ALWAYS worse relative to average as they get older, even at young ages. Your lousy 25 year old goalie is not going to get better with experience – he’s just going to get worse.


This is what actual studies have found. It runs counter to what people would think.

 

[snag]

You can argue that Skinner is a decent goalie while understanding that he never delivered good post season performances.

2 QS in 12 playoff games, .883% isn't what a team trying to win a cup are looking for.

You would be hard pressed to find other cases of a team/coach that sticked up for that many post season games while not getting anything out of it.

He. Was. A. Rookie.

He has to grow into the role.

 

[Drivesaitl]

And you know that we’d win with those goalies in our net, how? When numbers show that they too got absolutely torched against the Knights in their respective playoffs series. I’m not saying Skinner is a guarantee to a Cup and will beat the Knights by the way, you are saying any of those 3 but Skinner IS the path guaranteed. I don’t know, that statement seems like more mental gymnastics than what I’m doing which is just posting the legit factual numbers of what actually happened. You can agree or disagree with my framing of the numbers though, but the numbers still are what they are.

Please. Hellebuck in net wouldn't get us to the final. Are you serious? he's a goalie that beat us despite the Oilers having generational superstars in the lineup. He's a primary reason Jets make playoffs some season.

Florida got all the way to the final mainly due to Bobo who was exhausted and overused by that time.

My main objection to your selective look is that you're not looking at the respective goalies total work in the playoffs and that is specious.

Who would you rather have in net in playoffs. Look at the list for min 7 games played last playoffs.

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Adin Hill tops the list in save %, no surprise, and the Knights don't win without him. The team was up and down with Brossoit in net.

Skinner amongst the goalies is 2nd worse in save % AND GAA. Its hard to argue anything that he was the 2nd worst goalie in playoffs last season among goalies with minimum 7GP. Thats what the total sample, not selective sample shows, your specious attempts notwithstanding.

Normally I wouldn't be terse with you but it really looks as if you're trying to state in some way that it doesn't matter, that Skinner was just as good as Bobo, or Hill, or Hellebuck, or Ott. But nothing indicates that. Its your opinion.

 

[Drivesaitl]

He’s not though. There’s plenty of Skinner supporters around here that understand that sometimes you just have to go with your best bet and that that bet isn’t a dumb one, including the entirety of Oilers media which includes the Cult of Hockey, Oilers Nation, Got Yer Back, and now even TSN/Sportsnet guys are on board with Skinner being a viable bet for the playoffs.

That tends to happen when a goalie puts up a long stretch of performance that has him breaking all time records from Fuhr, getting Team Canada consideration chatter, and getting All Star of the Month nods. But keep ignoring all that and the stats to continue saying he sucks.

What other goalie has EVER been pulled 4X/12GP in the history of playoffs in any one season? name one other. Skinner was found to be so bad the team had to pull him in 4/12 playoff starts. Even by a coach that was so in his corner and biased towards Skinner.

I've never seen anything like it in my life following hockey.

Skinner was pulled on average 2X/round for a total of 4. Only Akira Schmidt was in the same league in that regard and he was injured afairc. Ott was pulled 3X but that was on average once/series.

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

 

[TheNumber4]

Please. Hellebuck in net wouldn't get us to the final. Are you serious? he's a goalie that beat us despite the Oilers having generational superstars in the lineup. He's a primary reason Jets make playoffs some season.

Florida got all the way to the final mainly due to Bobo who was exhausted and overused by that time.

My main objection to your selective look is that you're not looking at the respective goalies total work in the playoffs and that is specious.

Who would you rather have in net in playoffs. Look at the list for min 7 games played last playoffs.

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Adin Hill tops the list in save %, no surprise, and the Knights don't win without him. The team was up and down with Brossoit in net.

Skinner amongst the goalies is 2nd worse in save % AND GAA. Its hard to argue anything that he was the 2nd worst goalie in playoffs last season among goalies with minimum 7GP. Thats what the total sample, not selective sample shows, your specious attempts notwithstanding.

Normally I wouldn't be terse with you but it really looks as if you're trying to state in some way that it doesn't matter, that Skinner was just as good as Bobo, or Hill, or Hellebuck, or Ott. But nothing indicates that. Its your opinion.

And yet Helly posted 4 straight games of sub .900 goaltending behind a good Defensive Team like the Jets. You can pretend all you want that you KNOW for certain that we win the hardest of all trophies in Sports, with this or that goalie but the truth is you just don't know. No one knows. Just like the Knights themselves didn't know that Hill would bring them to the promise land and just like the Avs didn't know that Francouz would do the same.

You keep saying it's a "selective" look but I qualified my post by saying specifically what it addresses. The Knights ability to make even "elite" goalies look like trash. On that front it addressed the exact issue I was aiming for, the narrative that Skinner blew it against the Knights and it's why we lost.

Yeh Hill ended up being the defacto starter. But tell the Knights that this time last year and they had no idea. That's why they went with Brossoit plus a boatload of others before going with Hill. Hill now has shown to be a great regular season goalie as well, after the confidence boost from Winning the Cup and also still playing behind literally the best team in the League with arguably the best defensive system. The Oilers aren't there yet, but under Knob they've shown long stretches where they too can get there and provide that kind of support to Skinner. Again proven by Skinner's elite numbers under the best stretch of defensive Hockey this Club has ever seen in the McD Era.

What other goalie has EVER been pulled 4X in the history of playoffs in any one season? name one other. Skinner was found to be so bad the team had to pull him in 4/12 playoff starts. Even by a coach that was so in his corner and biased towards Skinner.

I've never seen anything like it in my life following hockey.

Skinner was pulled on average 2X/round for a total of 4. Only Akira Schmidt was in the same league in that regard and he was total shit. Ott was pulled 3X but that was on average once/series.

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

You are asking the wrong question. What Playoff team has ever won with a shoddy and exposed defensive system is the more relevant question. The answer is none, of course. Now if you want to pretend that Defense and Goaltending aren't related, go ahead, but it's not the truth. And if you want to pretend that we haven't improved our defence under Knob's system go right ahead again, but it's not the truth.

 

[Drivesaitl]

The takeaway from those numbers is that you could have also come away watching as a Stars, Panthers, or Jets fan and saw your goalie “blow it”. This speaks to not those goalies quality but the quality of the Knights and their ability to make all goalies look like trash. It also disproves that Skinner blew it on some unique level against them. Nothing unique about it when even guys with those types of reputations get torched.

You want to act like this is some irrelevant comparison cause of your metaphor. But these numbers and this type of analysis is a shit load better than just saying he gave up a bunch and blew it, based on zero perspective of how strong that Knights team was against even the best goalies in this League.

Some of the Knights, particularly Marchassault etc were having trouble scoring until slumpbuster Skinner came along.

Marshassault scored zero goals in the Jets series and filled the net pumping 5 against the Oilers. He never stopped after that because he got going. All shooters seem to fare decently against Skinner in playoffs. They get going.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Some of the Knights, particularly Marchassault etc were having trouble scoring until slumpbuster Skinner came along.

Marshassault scored zero goals in the Jets series and filled the net pumping 5 against the Oilers. He never stopped after that because he got going. All shooters seem to fare decently against Skinner in playoffs. They get going.

Perhaps coincidentally most of the Oilers forwards vanished off the face of the earth in the final two games.

Imagine having team depth. Wonder what that’s like.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Perhaps coincidentally most of the Oilers forwards vanished off the face of the earth in the final two games.

Imagine having team depth. Wonder what that’s like.

Its called Adin Hill stoning a club. He stoned 3 clubs in the playoffs. Amazing what quality goaltending can do. Unfortunately the Oilers injured Brossoit. Teams can hate us for that too.

have you watched Vegas lately? Depth scoring isn't exactly the picture. Lately its more like WTF offensive players do they have. Stone and Eichel injured. Vegas offense was a dried up prune. Not that Vegas were stellar scoring last year either they had some guys get hot at the right time. Marshassault, Karlsson. The latter hadn't had his scoring touch in 5yrs but heated up just at the right time.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Its called Adin Hill stoning a club. He stoned 3 clubs in the playoffs. Amazing what quality goaltending can do. Unfortunately the Oilers injured Brossoit. Teams can hate us for that too.

And yet Kane didn’t score in the series regardless of the goalie. RNH and Hyman were ghosts. Bottom six scoring non-existent for the fourth year in a row.

At some point it’s more than just the goalies. Maybe Skinner told Nurse to lose his mind in the dying moments of game 4.

 

[Drivesaitl]

And yet Kane didn’t score in the series regardless of the goalie. RNH and Hyman were ghosts. Bottom six scoring non-existent for the fourth year in a row.

At some point it’s more than just the goalies. Maybe Skinner told Nurse to lose his mind in the dying moments of game 4.

I've not maintained Skinner is sole reason we lost to Vegas. I have maintained goaltending was the margin of difference in the series. That is a different and more nuanced position.

Conversely Hill is the reason Vegas got by us and why our superstars Dryed up. We were getting scoring chances, Hill was stoning. It happens. Goaltending has a lot to do with granting, or taking away scoring confidence.

 

[GrumpyKoala]

He. Was. A. Rookie.

He has to grow into the role.

I appreciate the sentiment and hopefully he does better if he the defacto goalie come playoffs time.

But the window won't last forever so don't crucify the fans, including me, that hope the team do not make this gamble again.

 

[GOilers88]

I just cited articles today that statistically indicate that goalies do not improve with GP or with age. They are unlike other players in that regard. Goalies generally are ready and statistically at peak already by age 22 and going to age 30 after which there is fall off.

I know that everybody thinks that goalies getting mroe seasons, games, experience makes a big difference. But that isn't shown in the several studies that have shown this and that there is no age effect with goalies other than decline past age 30. i didn't just state this, I researched it.

How well do goalies age? A look at a goalie aging curve.

A few weeks back, I unveiled Hockey Marcels: an extremely simplistic system for projecting goalies performance going forward, utilizing just the last four years of a goalies’ play to d…

hockey-graphs.com

This is the key takeaway from the study:

Second, you’ll notice that, blatant outliers notwithstanding, goalies DO NOT IMPROVE. Goalie performance is on average ALWAYS worse relative to average as they get older, even at young ages. Your lousy 25 year old goalie is not going to get better with experience – he’s just going to get worse.


This is what actual studies have found. It runs counter to what people would think.

I just can't buy this. Gaining experience in any field is the surest way to improve your skills in said field. It's even more egregious when I see all the talk of Adin Hill, who has markedly improved as his career has gone on.

Am I to believe a goalie who improves on his previous seasons is not actually improving? This seems silly.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I just can't buy this. Gaining experience in any field is the surest way to improve your skills in said field. It's even more egregious when I see all the talk of Adin Hill, who has markedly improved as his career has gone on.

Am I to believe a goalie who improves on his previous seasons is not actually improving? This seems silly.

Numerous studies show, as the one I cited did, that by and large goaltending does not improve in the NHL with age and experience. Thats what the studies show from looking at hundreds of goalies through longitudinal studies. you don't seem to understand what is being stated. Maybe you should look at the citation. No its not talking about individuals, and was just posted by me due to the assumption being that all goalies improve with age. That is not the case.

The study, again, goes as far as to even state that if a goalie is not good at age 25 its likely that they are only going to get worse.

I suspect what it has to do with is the specific skillsets involved in goaltending that maybe people not aware of. To be elite form these days you have to be excellent at stretching out. If you don't have this at age 25 its exceedingly difficult to develop that flexibility. Usually such flexibility is something honed from youth on through dedication. Similarly athleticism, quick cat like responses. Goalie specific skillsets, the ones that are great at it, they are great when they are 20, 22, 25 ALREADY. Not many goalies become BETTER after age 25.

 

[Tobias Kahun]

Please. Hellebuck in net wouldn't get us to the final. Are you serious? he's a goalie that beat us despite the Oilers having generational superstars in the lineup. He's a primary reason Jets make playoffs some season.

Florida got all the way to the final mainly due to Bobo who was exhausted and overused by that time.

My main objection to your selective look is that you're not looking at the respective goalies total work in the playoffs and that is specious.

Who would you rather have in net in playoffs. Look at the list for min 7 games played last playoffs.

NHL Stats

The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.

www.nhl.com

Adin Hill tops the list in save %, no surprise, and the Knights don't win without him. The team was up and down with Brossoit in net.

Skinner amongst the goalies is 2nd worse in save % AND GAA. Its hard to argue anything that he was the 2nd worst goalie in playoffs last season among goalies with minimum 7GP. Thats what the total sample, not selective sample shows, your specious attempts notwithstanding.

Normally I wouldn't be terse with you but it really looks as if you're trying to state in some way that it doesn't matter, that Skinner was just as good as Bobo, or Hill, or Hellebuck, or Ott. But nothing indicates that. Its your opinion.

Helle hada 3.44 GAA and .886 save% last season.

 

[alphahelix]

Wrong thread, why is this thread even here

 

[Drivesaitl]

lol Skinner.

KK doesn't seem like much for goalie pulls. 3 bad goals in period there.

 

[oilexport]

I see Skinner as a 1b for this team (serious contender). Things will get tough again in the playoffs. We are not really built for playoff hockey. Get a proven number 1 goalie, and a lumberjack to help with D as well.

I rest my case

 

[harpoon]

So in addition to Helly and Oettinger, can we add Swayman to the list of goalies that are objectively no better than Skinner? Those two monster saves on Draisaitl in OT notwithstanding.

 

[TheSuperElite]

yea we ain't winning anything with this guy between les pipes

 

[Oilhawks]

So in addition to Helly and Oettinger, can we add Swayman to the list of goalies that are objectively no better than Skinner? Those two monster saves on Draisaitl in OT notwithstanding.

Skinner is likely going to top out around a mid range starter at best, which isn't bad for his pedigree.

But not good enough right now, which is all that matters

 

[Ninety7]

We might be seeing what we did last year with him.

Fatigue seems to be a problem for him.

 

[Spawn]

We might be seeing what we did last year with him.

Fatigue seems to be a problem for him.

It might also just be he’s not actually that good of a goalie.

 

[harpoon]

But not good enough right now, which is all that matters

Someone said in the PGT that Skinner starts playing worse when he gives up a couple weak ones and starts getting into his own head. Obviously that’s a normal human reaction, but you cannot be that mentally weak in the NHL playoffs. Last night after reading all these heartfelt defenses of Skinner in this thread I went back and (painfully) watched the goals against in the Vegas series. There were many objectively bad GA and no amount of stat parsing is ever going to change that. Gotta hope that changes this year, but performances like Skinner put out tonight shouldn’t fill anyone with confidence.