February 1, 2026 by Ryan Lotsberg

Heading into Saturday’s game against the Minnesota Wild, the Edmonton Oilers had won three straight games for the first time this season. 

It started with Evan Bouchard’s historic and heroic six-point night against the Washington Capitals, then came the first set of back-to-back hat tricks by defencemen on the same team in NHL history thanks to Mattias Ekholm’s hat trick against the Anaheim Ducks. Finally, there was the dramatic three-goal third period comeback and overtime win against the San Jose Sharks.

Those wins weren’t without their worrisome spells. The Capitals tied the game at one on their second shot of the period, which was a rebound off their first shot, at 19:34 of the first period. It was 3-2 for the visitors 14:29 into the second period, and Connor Ingram got the hook. The Ducks got an early 1-0 lead and carried the play for most of the first period before the Oilers took the game over with a five-goal outburst in the second period. The Ducks still scored four goals in the loss. The Sharks scored three quick goals on Ingram and took a 3-0 lead just over half way into the first period and gave the Oilers fits until the third period.

Those wins were bookended by a 6-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins that featured three Penguins goals in :37 in the first three minutes of the game, and a 7-3 defeat at the hands of the Wild.

All of that came at the heels of a six-game stretch where the Oilers allowed two or less goals in five out of six games, including back-to-back shutouts two weekends ago. They only allowed two goals in one of those five games. They allowed either one or zero goals in the other four games. Just when it seemed like the Oilers had sorted out their defensive woes and found solid goaltending, the rug got pulled out from underneath them. The Oilers that struggle with puck management and mental lapses leading to breakdowns and high quality chances for the opponent are back.

Tristan Jarry had some interesting words after the loss on Saturday night. “I think that the chances that we’re giving up, some of the shots, they’re tough. I think it’s a lot of grade As, a lot of breakdowns. I think it’s tough to really think about your game at this point, I think it’s a whole team game.” 

Mark Spector asked Jarry if it’s hard to have a high save percentage when the team is playing like they did on Saturday night, and he said “It’s just hard… We were just on the wrong side of it tonight. There’s obviously a lot of goals that went in, and I think that everyone knows when we play the game that we want, I think that’s the game that we want to put on the ice and I think that’ll put us on the better side of things more so than not; but I think to be on that side, we just have to tighten up and eliminate some of the chances.” 

When asked this kind of team play is recurring theme, Jarry said “It’s tough because the way we want to play, we want to play fast, we want to play up, we want to play in their end, and I think when we’re taking some of those chances they come back at us and it’s tough; so I think we just have to make sure we’re managing the puck a little bit better.”

I found this interview interesting because Jarry pointed out the real issue in my opinion. The Oilers get into funks where they mismanage the puck at the offensive blue line and in the neutral zone and they give up a ton of rush chances. They also make a lot of defensive coverage blunders whether it be in the neutral zone or in their own end during those funks. That type of play usually coincides with poor goaltending. The goalies tend to get the lion’s share of the blame in Edmonton, but that’s only part of the equation.

When Reid Wilkins asked Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch if he needs a save when the team starts giving up goals in bunches like they have recently, he said “I think everything… We could get another save. I think we need to give up… I’m going to say fewer chances because I think we do a pretty good job of spending a lot of time in the offensive zone and the amount of chances we give up isn’t that many. The quality of the chances is something that has to be addressed. It has to get better, like more perimeter shots, less breakaways or two-on-ones, odd man rushes, those kinds of things that end up leading to goals.”

Sure, Jarry could’ve made a couple more saves. I didn’t love the Quinn Hughes goal, and I think Jarry would want the Mats Zuccarello shot off the faceoff back; but the result with those two saves would’ve been a 5-3 loss rather than a 7-3 loss. The goalie can only do so much. A goalie is the last line of defence, but you can only ask the goalie to bail the team out of trouble so many times on a given night.

I found Jarry’s words particularly interesting because he said the things that Stuart Skinner wouldn’t say. Skinner would always talk about himself first and how he needed to be better after losses like these. I wrote that the Skinner for Jarry trade was lateral for the Oilers. It’s been a small sample size thus far; but Skinner had a .891 save percentage and a 2.83 goals against average in 23 games behind this Oilers team this season, and Jarry has an .873 SV% and a 3.59 GAA in ten games for the Oilers since the trade. I can recall two goals that came in the final minute of garbage time in his first two games, but those don’t do much to the numbers at this point.

Related: Jarry for Skinner is a lateral move for the Oilers

My observation of Jarry’s play so far is that he makes a lot of saves that Skinner might not have made, but he lets in some questionable goals just like Skinner did while he was here. It’s a different face with similar results so far. This won’t be a popular take, but this tells me that Skinner wasn’t as terrible as a lot of Oilers fans thought he was and they were perhaps a bit harder on him than they needed to be. Skinner was inconsistent and he didn’t come up with the heroic saves to bail the team out of their plentiful egregious mistakes often. The new guy is making more breakaway saves, but the Oilers haven’t stopped allowing goals in bunches at times. The inconsistency hasn’t stopped since the trade.

For what it’s worth, Ingram had a .917 save percentage in his first nine starts with the Oilers. It has been .810 in his last three starts, two of which he was pulled in. Those three starts have brought his overall SV% down to .901 for the season. Ingram got most of the starts while Jarry was out and the Oilers were playing well for the most part. We’re seeing what happens when the team doesn’t play well in front of him.

“Save percentage is a team stat”, as Jake Walman reminded us after Saturday’s loss to the Wild. Skinner was able to play well when the Oilers played well. Jarry and Ingram have also played well when the Oilers have played well in front of them. The same can be said of Calvin Pickard, who was placed on waivers by the Oilers on Sunday.

I’m not saying that the Oilers shouldn’t have made the trade. It was clear that both goalies involved wanted or needed a change of scenery, and hearing and seeing the constant flow of negativity and hate towards Skinner and the constant complaining about the goaltending had long become exhausting as a fan. I’m saying that Oilers fans should expect similar results no matter who they put in net when they play like they have played the last five games, whether it’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, Connor Hellebuyck, Ilya Sorokin, Igor Sherterkin, or the second coming of Ken Dryden.

No, the new Oilers goaltending tandem isn’t the best in the league, but they’re good enough to win games when the team in front of them plays well, just like Skinner was. I don’t put the two Stanley Cup Finals losses on goaltending. The Oilers couldn’t find any depth scoring in either series, and their defensive lapses haunted them throughout both series. The Oilers have just as good of a chance of winning the Stanley Cup with Jarry as they did with Skinner, it’s as simple as that.