Player Discussion Stuart Skinner

[Aerchon]

I kind of feel this response is too big for this thread but I suppose I can just copy it around if needed.

Skinner is the goalie I thought Dubnyk would become. A solid but unspectacular starting goalie. He has manages this without the draft pedigree and is still very very young.

I don't expect Skinner to get significantly better but it's likely he will get a bit better... BUT! All goalies, barring a few extremely rare ones, have significant highs and lows. Look at Ottinger and Shesterkin this year to last for quick easy comparisons.

Where I am going. Let's not run Skinner out of town. Let's give him a lot of time to hopefully improve consistency and speed/skill. Grabbing another goalie just because of a few bad games when overall he has been good is an obvious overreaction.

All goalies are a product of the play in front of them to a greater extent. Few, if any, can survive poor team play.

The Oilers are obviously playing bad. Not as bad as they were to start the year, but bad. Skinner was obviously not the problem to start the year.

As for the playoffs. Skinner, when playing well, is good enough for the Oilers to win a cup. The oness is on our forwards, who get the vast bulk of proportionate cap space, to overcome opponents goalies. Not for Skinner the "steal" games. The Oilers are not built that way. Period. With the Oilers personnel, cap, skills, it's about outscoring the oppoent by any means nessasary. Edit: outscoring obviously includes keeping goals out with proper positioning backchecking by the forwards we have.

Proportionally it's up to McDavid Draisaitl ect... to make goaltending a non issue. That is on them and management.

If anyone is saying we "need" better goaltending it would theoretically have to come at the expense of moving out a big forward. That seems foolish to me.

The Oilers have made their bed. They are what they are. I don't see an easy fix in goaltending or team defense. The players that are there just need to be better. Including McDrai. Proportionally more so than Skinner.

Having said all that. Grabbing a cheap option for depth and praying to the voodoo goalie gods for a miracle isn't a bad idea.

 

[Zguy370]

Markstrom is 6'6 206 lbs

Skinner is 6'4 230 lbs.
He does need to trim some fat. He's very slow. Just watching their highlights, Markstrom is so much more agile and fluid.

I mean seeing is believing, the eye test doesn't lie, It's evident that Skinner is not a naturally skilled athletic guy. He can get away with his flaws , be it weight issue or lack of athleticism, in the minors,, but will easily get exposed at the pro level, as we've seen time and time again. We really have to protect shield him as much as we can by trying to reduce the high scoring chances against him, like the win streak.

The Oilers are among the leaders for lowest amount of high danger chances allowed in the league.

This narrative that he gets hung out to dry is simply not true.



He's the slowest goalie we've pushed as a starter in the McDavid era, probably one of the slower ones in franchise history.

Koskinen was faster post to post and had better 2nd/3rd effort on the ice.

100% and we shat on him, meanwhile Skinner?

 

[mkatcherin00]

I kind of feel this response is too big for this thread but I suppose I can just copy it around if needed.

Skinner is the goalie I thought Dubnyk would become. A solid but unspectacular starting goalie. He has manages this without the draft pedigree and is still very very young.

I don't expect Skinner to get significantly better but it's likely he will get a bit better... BUT! All goalies, barring a few extremely rare ones, have significant highs and lows. Look at Ottinger and Shesterkin this year to last for quick easy comparisons.

Where I am going. Let's not run Skinner out of town. Let's give him a lot of time to hopefully improve consistency and speed/skill. Grabbing another goalie just because of a few bad games when overall he has been good is an obvious overreaction.

All goalies are a product of the play in front of them to a greater extent. Few, if any, can survive poor team play.

The Oilers are obviously playing bad. Not as bad as they were to start the year, but bad. Skinner was obviously not the problem to start the year.

As for the playoffs. Skinner, when playing well, is good enough for the Oilers to win a cup. The oness is on our forwards, who get the vast bulk of proportionate cap space, to overcome opponents goalies. Not for Skinner the "steal" games. The Oilers are not built that way. Period. With the Oilers personnel, cap, skills, it's about outscoring the oppoent by any means nessasary. Edit: outscoring obviously includes keeping goals out with proper positioning backchecking by the forwards we have.

Proportionally it's up to McDavid Draisaitl ect... to make goaltending a non issue. That is on them and management.

If anyone is saying we "need" better goaltending it would theoretically have to come at the expense of moving out a big forward. That seems foolish to me.

The Oilers have made their bed. They are what they are. I don't see an easy fix in goaltending or team defense. The players that are there just need to be better. Including McDrai. Proportionally more so than Skinner.

Having said all that. Grabbing a cheap option for depth and praying to the voodoo goalie gods for a miracle isn't a bad idea.

Nobody is asking Skinner to "steal games". We don't need that. We just need less shitty goals going in

 

[Canovin]

I mean seeing is believing, the eye test doesn't lie, It's evident that Skinner is not a naturally skilled athletic guy. He can get away with his flaws , be it weight issue or lack of athleticism, in the minors,, but will easily get exposed at the pro level, as we've seen time and time again. We really have to protect shield him as much as we can by trying to reduce the high scoring chances against him, like the win streak.


100% and we shat on him, meanwhile Skinner?

I said Kosko was better than Skinner and people laughed about it lol

The Oilers are icing the best team in over a decade with a great system under Knob and Skinner still isn't even putting up better average than Kosko and we thought Kosko sucks. That should be alarming

 

[ConnorNova0929]

I said Kosko was better than Skinner and people laughed about it lol

The Oilers are icing the best team in over a decade with a great system under Knob and Skinner still isn't even putting up better average than Kosko and we thought Kosko sucks. That should be alarming

And that is entirely on Ken Holland. He signed Jack Campbell to be the starter and Skinner was supposed to be the backup.

He has been moved into a starter position when he's clearly not fit for that because management was incompetent.

 

[Aerchon]

Nobody is asking Skinner to "steal games". We don't need that. We just need less shitty goals going in

Every goalie is different.

Talbot was on another level for one year. Not sure if Skinner can ever be "that" good. But Talbot has a bad tendency to let in and goals even when playing well. Smith too. Talbot, outside his one good year, was significantly worse than Skinner has been this year.

Skinner, imo, let's in less bad goals that he should be saving than either of those two.

But.

He makes slightly less great saves that look unstoppable in comparison as well.

I would rather have Skinner than either Smith or Talbot. Outside that one amazing year Talbot had.

In today's nhl you just don't typically have elite goalies on the same team as elite forward groups. And goaltending is too volatile to pit too much trust in any goalie nowadays either.

Edit: Save percentage is also significantly down this year if I am not mistaken. Comparing numbers this last couple years to goaltending even to 5 years ago is tough. The league scoring has gone up dramatically.

 

[Soundwave]

Every goalie is different.

Talbot was on another level for one year. Not sure if Skinner can ever be "that" good. But Talbot has a bad tendency to let in and goals even when playing well. Smith too. Talbot, outside his one good year, was significantly worse than Skinner has been this year.

Skinner, imo, let's in less bad goals that he should be saving than either of those two.

But.

He makes slightly less great saves that look unstoppable in comparison as well.

I would rather have Skinner than either Smith or Talbot. Outside that one amazing year Talbot had.

In today's nhl you just don't typically have elite goalies on the same team as elite forward groups. And goaltending is too volatile to pit too much trust in any goalie nowadays either.

Edit: Save percentage is also significantly down this year if I am not mistaken. Comparing numbers this last couple years to goaltending even to 5 years ago is tough. The league scoring has gone up dramatically.

If this team had 16-17 Talbot with last year's post deadline team we likely win the Cup and the job would be done already, so tell me again how you'd prefer Skinner.

Talbot had really only one terrible season here, the other seasons his save percentage was respectable and he could take over games at times for sure.

Skinner is a step down from Mike Smith and Cam Talbot, he's more like a Mikko Koskinen who plays behind a better team and is maybe a bit better.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Skinner doesn't have the lows that Smith and Koskinen did but his highs aren't as high either.

Those guys could play like elite guys for a couple games per dozen, while Skinner looks like the same old slow backup every game

 

[Drivesaitl]

Every goalie is different.

Talbot was on another level for one year. Not sure if Skinner can ever be "that" good. But Talbot has a bad tendency to let in and goals even when playing well. Smith too. Talbot, outside his one good year, was significantly worse than Skinner has been this year.

Skinner, imo, let's in less bad goals that he should be saving than either of those two.

But.

He makes slightly less great saves that look unstoppable in comparison as well.

I would rather have Skinner than either Smith or Talbot. Outside that one amazing year Talbot had.

In today's nhl you just don't typically have elite goalies on the same team as elite forward groups. And goaltending is too volatile to pit too much trust in any goalie nowadays either.

Edit: Save percentage is also significantly down this year if I am not mistaken. Comparing numbers this last couple years to goaltending even to 5 years ago is tough. The league scoring has gone up dramatically.

Skinner has more clownshow goals than any goalie I remember here in recent memory. Conklin comes to mind.

What kind of doofus does this in the NHL several times?

This is basically Skinner in a nutshell. This is the worst single play by an NHL goalie I've ever seen. But Skinner has done this multiple times and only once (playoffs) was due to a broken stikc.



not only does Skinner make the worst goalie play, he stumbles after, then falls on his ass and shits on the ice.

Then the Camera pans to the Oilers bench and Nuge asking what that was and Derek Ryan raising eyebrows, then closing eyes like its the worst goal he's seen in his pro career.

That Skinner is so casual in front of his net playing the puck is incredible. That he's a pro goalie and doesn't even practice this regularly worse. That even if he had put the puck where he wants he's not putting it to a good space. At best just a suicide hot pass to Bouchard who would get mauled.

Nor was this intense pressure. The dump was made with Devils at Center ice. Skinner so slow ass getting to puck and deciding what to do the pressure arrived by the time his neurons fired.

This play was when I first started questioning this guy. So bad. Debrusk almost manages to be worse in his play call.

FF to last night and two mins into third period Skinner is behind his net and not even aware the first incoming player is a Bruin. Who swoops right in on Skinner. he never even saw it. He just assumed in his brain that it would be an Oilers D arriving first. He didn't even look. This guy is so lacksadiasical and dangerous with the puck.

Anybody remember the goof star play he made earlier this year where he comes out 50ft to try to reach a puck and loses by 10ft resulting in an easy GA? Skinners postgame assessment that it was "a 50/50 so I went for it". Thats his dimbulb thought process. .

Another game this season Skinner is trying to skate pregame. does a couple pushes across pretending to do it, falls on his ass, does a tumble into opponent zone, they all look at him remembering who this clown is and pump 4 goals by him quickly in first period. lol Skinner was a joke in the game before it even started.

 

[McDeepika]

We are very likely going to have to to through guys like Hellebuyck, Demko, Hill if wanna get out of the west. Skinner isn't even close to their level. Oilers are going to have to be perfect to win.

 

[Zguy370]

We are very likely going to have to to through guys like Hellebuyck, Demko, Hill if wanna get out of the west. Skinner isn't even close to their level. Oilers are going to have to be perfect to win.

Would you kindly elaborate to the term "perfect" with Skinner still as our starter

 

[MessierThanThou]

Skinner is not our guy. I have no idea why so many people are talking about adding another forward when him and Ceci are the most glaring problems on our roster as of late.

 

[bellagiobob]

 

[tardigrade81]

I kind of feel this response is too big for this thread but I suppose I can just copy it around if needed.

Skinner is the goalie I thought Dubnyk would become. A solid but unspectacular starting goalie. He has manages this without the draft pedigree and is still very very young.

I don't expect Skinner to get significantly better but it's likely he will get a bit better... BUT! All goalies, barring a few extremely rare ones, have significant highs and lows. Look at Ottinger and Shesterkin this year to last for quick easy comparisons.

Where I am going. Let's not run Skinner out of town. Let's give him a lot of time to hopefully improve consistency and speed/skill. Grabbing another goalie just because of a few bad games when overall he has been good is an obvious overreaction.

All goalies are a product of the play in front of them to a greater extent. Few, if any, can survive poor team play.

The Oilers are obviously playing bad. Not as bad as they were to start the year, but bad. Skinner was obviously not the problem to start the year.

As for the playoffs. Skinner, when playing well, is good enough for the Oilers to win a cup. The oness is on our forwards, who get the vast bulk of proportionate cap space, to overcome opponents goalies. Not for Skinner the "steal" games. The Oilers are not built that way. Period. With the Oilers personnel, cap, skills, it's about outscoring the oppoent by any means nessasary. Edit: outscoring obviously includes keeping goals out with proper positioning backchecking by the forwards we have.

Proportionally it's up to McDavid Draisaitl ect... to make goaltending a non issue. That is on them and management.

If anyone is saying we "need" better goaltending it would theoretically have to come at the expense of moving out a big forward. That seems foolish to me.

The Oilers have made their bed. They are what they are. I don't see an easy fix in goaltending or team defense. The players that are there just need to be better. Including McDrai. Proportionally more so than Skinner.

Having said all that. Grabbing a cheap option for depth and praying to the voodoo goalie gods for a miracle isn't a bad idea.

Well said. Agreed with this. Goalies are built on momentum too. The all star break seems to have killed Skinners mojo a bit. With that said. Bad streaks happen. Shasterskin was the best goalie in the league last year, and look at him this year. I still think skinner can get back to where he was before the break

 

[MoontoScott]

Skinner isn't a world class goalie but the Oilers can still win in the playoffs providing we don't see all of these defensive train wrecks that we've witnessed since the all-star break.

The same bad habits from the early season have emerged. Opposing forwards are simply drifting into the slot areas unmolested. 3 or 4 Oilers in front of the net are playing whack a mole with the puck instead of gaining possession and clearing the zone. They get outworked early in the game.

Inconsistent goaltending is a warning sign but inconsistent goaltending+ five alarm defensive mistakes means the exit sign.

 

[onetweasy]

Oilers have not played nearly as well since the all star break but a strong starting goalie can carry a team through these stretches.

Skinner is a good goalie when the Oilers play elite defensive hockey. The minute we get sloppy with defensive coverages his numbers cave in.

If the Oilers are going to win a cup with Skinner they will have to play perfect hockey for 2 months. It’s not impossible, but it is a very tough ask.

 

[Ninety7]

Yeah this guy ain’t it.

 

[Spawn]

Oilers have not played nearly as well since the all star break but a strong starting goalie can carry a team through these stretches.

Skinner is a good goalie when the Oilers play elite defensive hockey. The minute we get sloppy with defensive coverages his numbers cave in.

If the Oilers are going to win a cup with Skinner they will have to play perfect hockey for 2 months. It’s not impossible, but it is a very tough ask.

They don’t even need Skinner to carry the team. Even if you buy into Woodleys numbers, Skinner still gave up an extra goal more than just average goaltending. A 6-5 loss and that’s the difference.

Flat out the goaltending doesn’t give the team a chance to be competitive. Forget stealing a game. I’m not sure that’s happened a single time this season.

 

[Soundwave]

They don’t even need Skinner to carry the team. Even if you buy into Woodleys numbers, Skinner still gave up an extra goal more than just average goaltending. A 6-5 loss and that’s the difference.

Flat out the goaltending doesn’t give the team a chance to be competitive. Forget stealing a game. I’m not sure that’s happened a single time this season.

If you want to win a Cup you kinda do need a goalie that will steal games.

 

[GMofOilers]

He’s a fraud, one day Oiler fans will finally figure it out.

 

[elmeroil]

I said it during the streak and so many were like oh Skinner is so good now. No, he was still average at best, the team played incredible defense and he was protected and not exposed.

They need a guy that can bail them out when things aren't going well. He doesn't steal games, never has likely never will.

 

[GrumpyKoala]

Am gonna be as nuanced I can.

It's a 32 team league. If you're not in the top 16 at goaltending, you are part of the problem an awlays be a liability, no matter how good you have to be to get to the nhl.

It's an unfair and ungrateful position to occupy.

Skinner have some quality, he big and hell am gonna go full 360* and state hat he have a blocker side that is almong the very best at the momment. But that about it.

There awlays the off chance a mediocre goalie (nhl standard) goes hot at a very specific momment and get it done post season but that a Hella roll of a dice a team in Edmonton position should not take.

Get a goalie, sincerely

 

[GMofOilers]

I said it during the streak and so many were like oh Skinner is so good now. No, he was still average at best, the team played incredible defense and he was protected and not exposed.

They need a guy that can bail them out when things aren't going well. He doesn't steal games, never has likely never will.

Still let in o2 GA every game even though the team was playing elite. That should be all you need to know. That streak the team went on was a history event, and it wasnt because of goaltending.

 

[Frank Drebin]

Better now than in the playoffs, again. For a big guy he sure gets beat up top a lot. And on side to side plays. And with traffic up front. And on rebounds....

But he's pretty decent at breakaways, I'll give him that.

The question is, will or can Holland do something about it?

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

I said it during the streak and so many were like oh Skinner is so good now. No, he was still average at best, the team played incredible defense and he was protected and not exposed.

They need a guy that can bail them out when things aren't going well. He doesn't steal games, never has likely never will.

Wow, you mean playing well defensively is conducive to good goaltending?

Who would've guessed?

But this team will never be good defensively. They can't draft a goalie because their drafting sucks and nobody's going to give them a good goalie.