Last off-season one of the big signings for the Edmonton Oilers was goaltender Jack Campbell. Unfortunately for both Campbell and the Oilers, Campbell had a subpar season. The good news for Edmonton though was Stuart Skinner stepped up and took over the starting job.
The Edmonton Oilers Are Stuck With This Duo
Edmonton Oilers fans right now may be upset with the play of Campbell and may even want to trade him for nothing or even buy him out just to get cap space so they can bring in a cheaper backup. I don’t see either of those things happening. No team is going to want to trade for Campbell at his cap hit and Holland is going to waste the dead cap space on him either.
I think what the Edmonton Oilers have in goal isn’t that bad. The Edmonton Oilers ranked 15th in the NHL in save percentage. That is all this Oilers team should need is average goaltending to win. They are so good offensively they just need to be average between the pipes.
While watching the playoffs this past season, there wasn’t a game you could blame directly on bad goaltending. The issues lay more so with the defensive breakdowns rather than the goalie play. If anything the Oilers need to upgrade that area first.
If They Could Make A Change, Should They?
As much as most Oilers fans would like to see the Edmonton Oilers bring in a proper number one goalie there just isn’t that many available. First, this isn’t the old NHL where a starting goalie plays 70 games and the backup only plays 12.
In this NHL, most teams have a 1A and 1B thing going on. Let’s take a look at the two teams in the Stanley Cup Final. The Florida Panther throughout the regular season used 3 goalies for their 82 games. Sergei Bobrovsky played 50, Spencer Knight played 21 and Alex Lyon played 15.
The Golden Knights on the other hand had 5 goalies start games in the regular season, as everyone seemed to get injured. Logan Thompson, 37 games, Adin Hill, 27 games, Laurent Brossoit, 11 games, Jonathan Quick, 10 games and Jiri Patera, 2 games.
Did both teams get lucky and have their current starting goalies get hot at the right time? Yes, they did and that could have happened to the Edmonton Oilers. It could happen next year to the Oilers and hopefully, it does.
This is why even if there is a true number-one goalie available I don’t think the Edmonton Oilers should go after him. First, it is likely going to cost you a lot if you want to trade for him and the Oilers need their assets. Second, if they try and sign one they will have too much money tied up in goal and that will affect the rest of the team.
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It Is What It Is
There is nothing the Edmonton Oilers are their fans can do now but hope Jack Campbell has a bounce-back season. If he does struggle again this season then Ken Holland must take a serious look at either moving him or finding some sort of way to increase the net position.
Till then though all we can do as Oiler fans are watch and see if we need to ride Stuart Skinner again this coming season or if there will be a nice 50/50 split throughout the whole 82-game season.