The Edmonton Oilers goaltending situation this past season was, to put it diplomatically, a mess. The Oilers cycled through Stuart Skinner, Calvin Pickard, Tristan Jarry and Connor Ingram across a single regular season.
The crease cost them in October, it cost them in February and ultimately, it cost them in April when Anaheim sent them home in six games in the first round.
Now the offseason is here, and the goaltending question is right where it was. Stan Bowman has a lot of explaining to do and finding a legitimate starter between the pipes has to be the number one priority heading into 2026-27.
On a completely different note, word out of Pittsburgh is that the Penguins are not expected to bring Stuart Skinner back next season. His three-year, $2.6 million cap hit deal expires this summer, making him an unrestricted free agent and by most accounts, Kyle Dubas and the Penguins front office are leaning toward moving on.
Between the emergence of Arturs Silovs and the presence of prospect Sergei Murashov waiting in the wings, Pittsburgh appears ready to turn the page.
Which means Stuart Skinner, Edmonton boy, former Oiler, two-time Stanley Cup finalist, is about to hit the open market.
Last week, The Oil Rig's Lexi McFarlane floated the idea of a possible Skinner-Ingram tandem in Edmonton, and honestly? We haven't been able to shake it since.
So let's talk about it.
Goaltending hasn't really seen an upgrade in Edmonton
To understand why a Skinner return could actually make sense, you have to understand just how badly the Tristan Jarry experiment went.
When Bowman pulled the trigger on the trade back in December sending Skinner, Brett Kulak and a 2029 second-round pick to Pittsburgh in exchange for Jarry and Samuel Poulin, the logic was understandable on paper. Jarry was coming in with a career .909 save percentage and 161 NHL wins. He'd been a legitimate starter in Pittsburgh for years. The thinking was that a proven, established goalie was exactly what this team needed for another Cup run.
It didn't work out that way.
In 16 regular season starts as an Oiler, Jarry went 9-6-2 with a 3.86 GAA and a .858 save percentage, the worst numbers of any of the four goalies the Oilers used this season. There were bad stretches where he couldn't buy a win and rumblings of friction with teammates at practice didn't exactly help the locker room vibe. By March 15th, Kris Knoblauch officially handed the net to Connor Ingram for the rest of the year.
Ingram, to his credit, was solid. He steadied the ship, gave the team a legitimate chance most nights and earned genuine respect as Edmonton's starter down the stretch and into the playoffs. But the Ducks still sent the Oilers home in six exposing, once again, that this team needs more from that position if it's ever going to go deep again.
And now? Jarry has two more years left on his deal at a $5.375 million cap hit. He's not going anywhere. That contract is essentially locked in and paired with the Mike Smith buyout still on the books, the Oilers are already looking at nearly $8 million tied up in goaltending before they've even signed a starter. It's a tough spot.
The case for putting Stu back on the menu
A few things actually make the Skinner conversation worth having. First, the price. Skinner's last deal was $2.6 million a year and even with a modest bump on the open market, he's realistically NOT looking at something in the $3-3.5 million range on a short-term deal. For a 27-year-old goalie who has played 191 regular season games and 50 playoff games, and been to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals, that doesn't seem a bad deal if we also consider the team already cap-strapped from the Jarry situation.
Second, Connor Ingram is a UFA too. The Oilers should absolutely be working to bring him back. He earned it this season. But if they re-sign Ingram, they still need a tandem partner and the free agent goalie market this summer is genuinely thin.
A Skinner-Ingram pairing, with clear roles and real competition for starts, would in theory give Edmonton the settled, two-headed crease situation that was completely absent this season.
Third and maybe most importantly Skinner knows exactly where he'd be going. Edmonton is his hometown. He grew up in the Oilers system, was drafted here, lived here. He knows what playoff hockey in this city demands. There's no learning curve and no adjustment period. He already has the scar tissue from two Finals runs.
There's also something to be said for the redemption angle. Skinner was traded mid-season and, by most accounts, it stung. He came to Pittsburgh motivated, rebounded from a rough start and played well enough that the Penguins rode him as their starter into the playoffs. A return to Edmonton, on his terms as a UFA with something to prove, is a very different story than the guy who lost the net.
The very, very honest counterpoint
The concerns are real, and it would be dishonest to wave them away.
Skinner's playoff save percentage has dipped below .900 in consecutive postseasons now. The narrative that he struggles when the stakes are highest has followed him from Edmonton to Pittsburgh and fair or not, it's a legitimate concern for a team that isn't just trying to make the playoffs but actually win in them.
The Oilers have also been connected to bigger names. Ilya Sorokin, Juuse Saros and Sergei Bobrovsky have all been floated as potential targets. If Bowman can land a true number one through trade, that obviously changes the conversation entirely.
And yes, there's an optics element. The organization publicly moved on from Skinner just five months ago. A quick reversal is an awkward story to tell, though frankly, the entire 2025-26 goaltending chapter is already awkward enough, so maybe that ship has not sailed?
Connor Ingram is a UFA the team should be working hard to retain. But put those two together in a true tandem and suddenly Edmonton might have something that actually resembles a real goaltending situation for the first time in a long time.
Is it the dream scenario? Probably not. But is it cost-effective and underrated? Absolutely.
Put the Stu back on the menu. The conversation is worth having.
Foresight On Whyte is Oil on Whyte's offseason series exploring where the Oilers go from here.
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