Oilers 5v5 issues fall more on the players than the coach
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November 26, 2025Wallstedt blunder haunts the Oilers
EDMONTON, AB - NOV 12, 2023: Ken Holland addresses the media at Rogers Place. Photo Credit: Oilers TV
November 21, 2025 by Ryan Lotsberg
Let me take you back to the summer of 2021. The COVID pandemic was still in full force, which meant the 2020-21 NHL season was played without fans in stands. The divisions were re-aligned for that season to minimize travel issues, which meant that all of the Canadian teams were in the same division.
The Edmonton Oilers were swept at the hands of the Winnipeg Jets in the first round of the 2021 playoffs. Mike Smith and Mikko Koskinen were sharing the net for the Oilers. Smith was the playoff starter, but he was about to enter his final NHL season. Koskinen had one year left on his contract, and he went to play in Switzerland after his contract ran out. Stuart Skinner made his NHL debut that season, an 8-5 win over the Ottawa Senators. He got the win in less than spectacular fashion in his NHL debut.
The then 22-year old’s .914 save percentage and 2.62 goals against average in the AHL showed promise, but the Oilers didn’t know what they had in him. The future of Oilers goaltending was foggy.
An early playoff exit meant that the Oilers got a top twenty pick in the 2021 NHL draft. There were two highly touted goaltending prospects available in the first round of that draft, Sebastian Cossa and Jesper Wallstedt. Cossa went to the Detroit Red Wings with the fifteenth pick, five spots ahead of the Oilers pick.
Wallstedt was available for the Oilers with the 20th pick.
Instead of taking Wallstedt, the Oilers traded the pick to the Minnesota Wild to move back two spots and acquire an extra pick later in the draft (Luka Munzenberger, 90th overall). The Oilers got their man, Xavier Bourgault, with the 22nd pick while adding another pick in a draft they entered without a second, third, or fifth round pick.
As a fan, I was IRATE when this trade happened! Goaltending had been an issue with this team for many, many years. They had a chance to draft a highly touted goaltending prospect. They already had Skinner, but he had one game of NHL experience at that time. They didn’t know which way Skinner’s NHL career would go. That’s why they should’ve added Wallstedt. There was never a guarantee that Wallstedt was going to work out, but he had a greater potential ceiling than Skinner did at that time. The worst case would’ve been having to trade one of them down the road. The best case would’ve been having a great young goaltending tandem for years to come.
Look at what the Florida Panthers did with Spencer Knight. They drafted him with the thirteenth pick in the 2019 draft. They had Sergei Bobrovsky, a $10 million goaltender, on the books long-term; but they took the stud goalie prospect anyway. Knight couldn’t gain traction in Florida, so they traded him at last year’s trade deadline for Seth Jones, and they won a second Stanley Cup by beating the Oilers… again. A similar outcome would’ve been an excellent plan B had Wallstedt not panned out with the Oilers. That’s why you take the best player available regardless of position when you’re drafting in the first round.
Instead, the Oilers got the worst possible outcome. The Oilers traded Bourgault to the Ottawa Senators along with Jake Chiasson for Roby Jarventie and a fourth round pick that was used to get Vasily Podkolzin, traded back to the Oilers by the Vancouver Canucks for Evander Kane, and subsequently used to draft David Lewandowski.
Related: Oilers acquire Jarventie from the Senators for Bourgault & Chiasson
Podkolzin is wonderful, Jarventie is having a nice start to his AHL season but is still being limited because of his knee issue, and Lewandowski has real potential; but they aren’t starting goaltenders that could take the Oilers through the rest of the Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl era. Bourgault is spinning his tires with Ottawa’s AHL affiliate, the Belleville Senators. Munzenberger was not signed by the Oilers before August 15, 2025, meaning that they lost his NHL rights. He’s currently playing in Germany’s second professional league.
Meanwhile, Wallstedt is on an absolute tear with the Wild this season. He’s 5-0-2 with a perfect shootout record, a .926 SV%, a 2.02 GAA, and 3.3 goals saved above expected.
Skinner had a strong rookie season in 2022-23, but he has steadily declined since then. Part of it is the result of having been thrust into the starter’s role too early because of the Jack Campbell debacle, part of it is the result of having played a lot of hockey over the last three seasons, and part of it is the fact that he just isn’t an elite NHL goaltender. Skinner is providing average to below average goaltending this season, although I would suggest that his game is improving slowly under the tutelage of new goaltending coach Peter Aubry. I don’t envision it improving to Wallstedt’s current level though.
Calvin Pickard played a whale of a game in Tampa Bay last night, but he has taken a giant step backwards this season. Having Wallstedt in the system and ready to go right now would have solved a big issue for the Oilers right now; but nope, Holland and then head of amateur scouting Tyler Wright made the wrong choice in 2021.
Goalies don’t often get selected in the first round, and Holland worked off the conventional wisdom that said “don’t take a goalie in the first round”. Only 16 goalies have been selected in the first round of the NHL draft since 2000. Among those are some true superstars like Marc-Andre Fleury, Carey Price, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Jake Oettinger. Pickard’s brother, Chet Pickard, is the only one of the sixteen that could be considered a bust. The others all carved out respectable NHL careers for themselves.
Cossa is the only goalie selected in the first round in this decade that isn’t currently playing well for an NHL team. Cossa played one game for the Red Wings last season, but is playing well in the AHL. The Oilers were believed to prefer Cossa over Wallstedt leading up to the 2021 draft, and once Cossa went to the Red Wings, their attention went fully to Bourgault. Wallstedt was never on the Oilers’ radar, which was an egregious error in judgment.
The other rationale for not picking a goalie in 2021 was the fact that goaltenders take longer to develop than players in other positions. That was especially an issue for the Oilers with McDavid and Draisaitl at the start of their primes. There was no time to wait for a goaltender to develop because having those two superstars meant everything had to happen immediately.
Here we are five years later. McDavid and Draisaitl are still with the Oilers and will be for multiple years, and the team is still in need of a goaltender for now and the future. Wallstedt is ready.
There was PLENTY of time to wait for Wallstedt to develop; but NOOOOOOOO, everything has to happen right now. A little bit of future-focused thinking and patience in 2021 would have come in handy now.
Even making an aggressive move for one of the goalies in the X post above (Knight, Yaroslav Askarov, or Arturs Silovs) would’ve been a great decision, but the Oilers were unwilling to pay the premuim for unproven commodities and their fans weren’t patient enough to wait for those unproven commodities to be ready.
The lack of patience that the Oilers have shown in the McDavid and Draisaitl era has been crippling.
Part of it has been trading draft picks for immediate help. Their 2021 second round pick was traded for Andreas Athanasiou, who was around for the 2020 playoffs and nothing more. Their third round pick that year was sacrificed as part of the Milan Lucic for James Neal trade. That was due to a ridiculous ruling by the NHL, but the pick was still traded nonetheless. Their fifth round pick was spent on Tyler Ennis. Losing all of those picks increased the team’s desire to get additional picks, which was a factor in the decision to trade back to get Bourgault rather than taking Wallstedt. Instant gratification rarely leads to long-term success.
There’s this insatiable desire to spend assets to add at every trade deadline thinking that’s the way to win. X becomes aglow with Oilers fans demanding the team go “all in” because of McDavid and Draisaitl every single year. The Oilers have done that to the point where they’re at a deficit of picks to spend at any given trade deadline. The Oilers entered this season with just four of their seven picks in the 2026 NHL draft because they have traded the others away already. They have already done some wheeling and dealing involving picks in the 2027 draft as well. That insatiable desire remains. Draft picks mean nothing to teams trying to win right now.
Look at where the Oilers are right now. They were unable to draft, develop, and retain any young talent after the 2018 draft. The roster became the oldest in the league. They almost won two Stanley Cups, but they still haven’t actually won yet. Some players priced themselves out of the Oilers’ budget and had to move on. Others got substantial pay raises as part of their career evolution.
The result is having to take a step backwards during these important prime years of McDavid and Draisaitl because everything needed to happen immediately.
Some of those trade deadline deals have worked out nicely. Mattias Ekholm has been a rock, Brett Kulak has been a steady presence aside from this current month, and Jake Walman has been a difference maker. All of those players have or will be a part of the team for a long time, which made those trade deadline trades worthwhile; but going after rentals all the time isn’t sound strategy.
Part of it has been an unwillingness to develop young players. Yes, I’m still bitter about Dylan Holloway and Philip Broberg. It took Holloway a while to get going because of injuries, but he had a short leash when he was with the Oilers. He finally got top six minutes in the middle two rounds of the 2024 playoffs, but the Oilers went out and got Jeff Skinner on day one of free agency that summer. Their analytics person and their head coach were against signing Skinner, but the pro scouts and the CEO/acting GM thought they knew better because Skinner was supposed to light it up next to McDavid or Draisaitl.
Skinner ended up in the coach’s dog house all year long, and Evander Kane spent the whole year on LTIR. Skinner’s money clearly should’ve been used to retain Holloway. Greater focus on making room for a young player to develop over getting an immediate fix would’ve led to Holloway being retained and the team being younger and faster last year and this year.
Holland signed Ryan Murray right before training camp started in 2022 just a matter of weeks after saying that Broberg would have a roster spot to lose in camp. Of course, Murray was given the roster spot out of camp. Markus Niemelainen was even given a spot over Broberg, which I felt was entirely unjustified. Broberg ended up going down to the Bakersfield Condors. He hurt himself in a kitchen accident and missed a bunch of time, which only slowed his development further. Murray played thirteen games before his nagging back issue forced an end to his career.
Why was the Murray signing necessary? It wasn’t necessary at all. Had the Oilers made making room for Broberg a priority, they would have another top four defenceman in their group right now. They likely wouldn’t have traded for Jake Walman either, which would mean that they would still have their 2026 first round pick. I like Walman, but I would give him up for Broberg and a first round pick this year in a heartbeat because that’s the decision that would keep the Oilers’ championship window open for a longer time.
If you’ve followed my work with the Heavy Hockey Network in the last four years, you know that I’ve been preaching about the importance of long-term thinking during this era. You don’t get to be a competitive team for a decade or longer without drafting and developing young players that can contribute on cheap contracts and that don’t cost anything to acquire. The Oilers weren’t able to do that in the early years of McDavid and Draisaitl’s primes, and the organization is paying for it now with what we’re seeing this season.
The Wallstedt blunder needs to be a lesson to the organization and to fans as well. I don’t care if you have the two best players in the world or not, draft picks and prospects matter. Of course you should try to make your team better with trades, but incessantly wasting draft picks on non-impactful players at every trade deadline is like carrying a balance on a credit card. You get all the shiny things now, but you pay for it dearly in the end. In the Oilers’ case, they haven’t even gotten the shiny thing they truly desire from all of their spending.
Oddly enough, the one internally drafted and developed player that they have shown an unwavering desire to stick with is the Skinner that mans the crease. They brought in Campbell to start ahead of Skinner, but Skinner ended up starting 50 games in his rookie season. That wasn’t an expected outcome. It had more to do with Campbell struggling than it did with Skinner taking that role from him, although he did play well enough to earn a nomination for the Calder Trophy that year. Campbell’s buyout will be on the books until 2029-30. That has certainly impacted the Oilers’ ability to address their goaltending issue. This season, it’s costing the Oilers $2.3 million against the cap.
Since then, the Oilers have placed their full trust in Skinner. They have given him the lead role through thick and thin. Why were the Oilers so willing to be patient with Skinner but not Wallstedt, Holloway, or Broberg? I’m not saying they shouldn’t have been patient with Skinner because I believe it was the right thing to do to keep him here as he rose to his peak, but I’m saying they should’ve made patience for young players more of an organizational philosophy rather than a one-off out of necessity.
The good news is that the new regime under Oilers CEO Jeff Jackson appears to be more focused on developing young players. Jackson has developed a new player development department headed by Kalle Larsson, which shows a desire to develop prospects and an understanding of how important it is. Matt Savoie is the first piece of evidence to suggest that the team is on the right path with developing young players. It remains to be seen what happens with Ike Howard, but they did right by him by giving him an opportunity to get some NHL games while Zach Hyman was out and by sending him to Bakersfield.
Related: Oilers hire Kalle Larsson as Senior Director of Player Development
There are growing pains with young players, but the need to have young players contributing and developing into impactful players is important for long-term success. Draisaitl has committed nineteen years to the Oilers, seven of which lie ahead after this one. McDavid has been here for ten years already, and he has at least two more after this season. All those two want is to win over anything else. McDavid’s short-term deal has only increased the desire to spend on immediate gratification, but we need to learn from past mistakes and have more of a big picture and future-focused mindset about this. Draft picks and prospects matter when you’re trying to keep a championship window open for a long time. It isn’t “all in” or “draft and develop”. Both are important and need to be a part of the strategy.
