The Edmonton Oilers are now playing the type of hockey which took them all the way to the Stanley Cup Final last season. After beginning the 2024-25 campaign with essentially a .500 record at 10-9-2, they have since gone a tremendous 14-3-1 in the past 18 games.
At the heart of this excellent run of from has been an improvement between the pipes, particularly by the erratic Stuart Skinner, who is now showing the talent everyone knows is there, but just on a more consistent basis. December was significantly his best month yet this season, with a 2.30 Goals Against Average (GAA), .914 save percentage and .925 five-on-five save percentage.
Skinner has started 2025 in a similar fashion, stopping 27 of the 29 shots he faced in a 3-2 win against the Anaheim Ducks, which worked out as a .931 save percentage. Yet this is still not enough for some critics, and not just because of concern that his consistency could waiver again at any given moment.
Pickard better than Skinner?
No, it comes down to how well Calvin Pickard has been playing in comparison. Consider that even as Skinner was having his best month yet in December, Pickard was performing even better, with a 2.02 GAA, .919 save percentage and .935 five-on-five save percentage.
Further, for the 2024-25 season as a whole up to this point through 39 games, statistically-speaking Pickard has performed better, save for both goalies having a .898 save percentage. Among other things, the Oilers number two has a stronger GAA, win percentage, quality starts percentage, and lower really bad starts percentage.
With all this in mind, there are those who wonder why Pickard doesn't get more starts, citing that his play thus far shows he deserves to. Certainly we've seen what he can do when called upon in critical situations, with the prime example being when he made three starts in last season's second round playoff series versus the Vancouver Canucks, in place of a then struggling Skinner.
McCurdy makes the case for Skinner
However, when you dig deeper, there is compelling evidence for why Skinner deserves to remain as the Oilers number one in goal, at least for now. Giving all due credit where it's deserved, this compelling evidence comes courtesy of the Edmonton Journal's Bruce McCurdy.
McCurdy goes into a lot of details in his latest article, to break down the Oilers' goalie play up to this point of the campaign. And what stood out particularly, was the opponents' collective win percentage for Skinner and Pickard respectively for the season thus far.
Going up to and including Jan. 4, 2025 -- still taking some getting used to following a ridiculously quick 2024 -- Skinner's opponents this season have a collective .582 win percentage. By comparison, Pickard's opponents have a collective win percentage of just .478, which basically means his teammate is facing tougher games that are undoubtedly going to impact his productivity.
Living in the moment
We decided to take this exercise a step further, by tabulating the opponents' collective win percentage based on what it was when the Oilers faced each team. While not foolproof we still thought this would help, especially with McCurdy noting the New York Rangers had a .694 win percentage ahead of facing Skinner and the Oilers, compared to a lowly .474 win percentage following Sunday's slate of NHL games.
In any event, our results showed that Skinner has faced even tougher opposition compared to his goaltender teammate. While the 2023 NHL All-Star's opponents have a collective .593 win percentage at the time of facing them, Pickard's opponents have a collective .476 win percentage.
What both sets of results allude to is that in general, Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch is going to start Skinner rather that Pickard against more quality opponents. However, rather than this being a perception of a lack of trust in the latter, it instead shows how -- for the most part -- Knoblauch maintains confidence in his current number one.
The only caveat we would add to any of this, is more of a general note about the Oilers goalie position, with the duo's combined .898 save percentage as of Monday morning ranking just tied-19th best in the NHL. In short, fans will be hoping Skinner and Pickard can continue to trend upwards as the 2024-25 season progresses, otherwise it could negatively impact the team come playoff time. (Pending Stan Bowman making a move for a goalie prior to the Mar. 7 trade deadline.)