The Detroit Red Wings made a big dent in the goaltender market Saturday with the announcement they’d acquired veteran netminder John Gibson from the Anaheim Ducks. Gibson was probably on the radar of at least a few teams, including the Edmonton Oilers. And now that Gibson is off the market, what will the Oilers do if they decide, as many think they have to, that their goalie tandem of Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard needs to change?
To be sure, the goaltender market in this off-season is about as thin as it gets. As we covered in this THN.com article about available UFA goalies, only veterans Jake Allen of the New Jersey Devils, Ilya Samsonov of the Vegas Golden Knights and Alex Lyon of the Red Wings stand out as goaltenders who can provide at least an average performance. And even then, you can poke holes in the games of all three of those goalies.
So, does Edmonton want to probably overpay in a seller’s free-agent market for a goalie? Clearly, they’re not going to get a Vezina Trophy candidate via free agency. And other teams will be bidding on Allen, Samsonov and Lyon, so the cost could put all of them out of the Oilers’ reach. And that brings us to the next possibility for Edmonton: a trade for a goalie of consequence.
That said, no team will be charitable in providing Edmonton with help in net. Oilers GM Stan Bowman would easily be able to take a chance on a reclamation project like Pittsburgh Penguins veteran Tristan Jarry, but Oilers fans would probably run Bowman out of town – firstly, for making a trade for a player any team in the league could’ve had when the Penguins waived Jarry last season before sending him to the American league, and secondly, for acquiring a goalie whose save percentage has dropped every year from 2021-22 through 2024-25, from .919 in 2021-22 to .909 in 2022-23 to .903 in 2023-24 to .893 in 2024-25.
Jarry has a salary cap hit of $5.375 million for the next three years, but even if the Oilers are patient and Pittsburgh buys out Jarry’s contract this summer, Edmonton would still be looking at signing a goalie who couldn’t stop enough pucks to keep himself at the NHL level last season.
Elsewhere, the Columbus Blue Jackets also have a reclamation project in veteran Elvis Merzlikins, but like Jarry, Merzlikins’ performance has been well below average, as he put up a SP of .892 last season, and he hasn’t had a SP above .897 in the past three years. Merzlikins has a cap hit of $5.4 million for the next two years, and while Columbus might be amenable to retaining some of Merzlikins’ cap hit, he’s still a goalie who could continue to be a major disappointment.
Otherwise, teams are almost assuredly going to be hanging on to the goalies they have, and that will leave Edmonton in a sticky situation. Is running it back with Skinner and Pickard truly an option for this organization?
The Oilers fell to the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup final for the second-straight year, not primarily because of their goaltending, but the undeniable fact is that Skinner had a .889 SP in the playoffs, and in the Cup final, Skinner had an SP better than .881 just once in five appearances. Meanwhile, Pickard wasn’t better, with a .886 SP in the post-season, and a SP of .875 or worse in two of three appearances he made in the Cup final.
Thus, you can see why Bowman will have his work cut out for him when trying to find a different look between the pipes. And remember, when Bowman won three straight Cups with the Chicago Blackhawks, his primary goalies were Corey Crawford, Antti Niemi and Scott Darling – hardly a row of future Hockey Hall of Famers. That experience might mean Bowman settles on a less-proven netminder while he tries to improve Edmonton’s defense in front of a B-grade goalie. And that philosophy could sink the Oilers’ Cup aspirations yet again.
In any case, Edmonton almost assuredly will be making a change in net. Going with the status quo could prove to be disastrous, and if the Oilers once again fail to win a Cup next season in part due to their choice to keep the same netminding, Edmonton fans will be rightfully livid.
The Oilers have tried repeatedly to win it all with, at best, average goaltending, and it hasn’t worked. Bowman has to do his utmost to come up with a solution for his goalie tandem, and he needs to do it before other teams step in and scoop up any and every goalie who might be available via trade.
The Panthers have won back-to-back Cups partly because they had a Grade-A goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky. Edmonton has no comparable netminder. And Bowman’s most important job this summer will be to shake the trees of the rest of the NHL and try to come away with a goalie who can keep the Oilers in crucial games long enough for their high-octane offense to carry the load and deliver them to championship glory.
Because if he fails to do so, Edmonton could yet again be on the losing side of the ledger in the next post-season. And no one should feign surprise if that’s how things unfold.
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