Should Edmonton Oilers consider giving Calvin Pickard more starts?

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Edmonton Oilers reach the two-thirds mark of the 2024-25 season tonight, sitting in first place in the Pacific Division holding both a two point lead and a game in hand over the Vegas Golden Knights. After stumbling out of the gate with three lopsided losses, all at home, they have rebounded nicely to win 34 of their next 51, losing just 13 in regulation and sprinkling in 4 single points from lost games decided in gimmick time.

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All’s well in Oil Country, right? Yeah, no, not so fast.

Of all the talking points that keep followers of the team roiling in Oil, the top issue this season surely surrounds the goalers. Is Stuart Skinner a true #1? Is Calvin Pickard an adequate backup? Is the tandem of the two men strong enough for another deep playoff run? For many critics, the answers to these questions seem to be no, no and no.

Let’s add a fourth question to the mix: should Pickard be receiving a greater share of the workload? Consider that the Oilers have played 17 games since the calendar turned to 2025. Skinner has started 11 of them, recording 6 wins. Pickard has started the other 6, also recording 6 wins. Looking further back to even out the sample size, in his own last 11 games, Pickard has 10 wins compared to those 6 by Skinner. Seems a no-brainer to give the guy on a lengthy winning streak a bigger share of the load, no?

Let’s dig a little deeper. When we last posted on this hot-button issue early last month, we took note of coach Kris Knoblauch’s consistent pattern of splitting the schedule into 3-game sets with a 2:1 share of starts in favour of Skinner. Another feature of this rotation was that Skinner typically got the toughest opponents, befitting his status as the club’s #1 stopper.

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Updating the table from that post through Game 54:

As before, blue background represents Skinner starts, orange for Pickard. Wins are presented in black font, regulation losses in red, gimmick-time losses in grey. Home games in ALLCAPS, away in lower case. Asterisks highlight a game score inflated by an empty-net goal against, while # and ## symbols represent back-to-back games.

All usage patterns identified earlier continue to be followed, with the coach always starting Pickard in one game of three, always splitting back-to-backs, and always giving Skinner the tougher assignments. In cases where there was a trio of games against ~equally strong opponents, e.g. Games 43-45 vs the Kings, Wild and Avs, Konobaluch stuck to first principles and gave Pickard one start and, as importantly, Skinner one game off. Skinner has yet to start more than three straight games all season, while Pickard has het to start even two in a row.

Splitting the above results into three sets of 18 games, here are results for each netminder and for the team as a whole.

Looking first at team results (blue font), we see steadily improving results from 9 wins in the first 18 games, to 12 and then to 13. Goals against average and save percentage both improved dramatically in the middle segment and then further still in the third. Same is true of Goals Saved Above Expected, collected here from Evolving Hockey.

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Turning to the individual results for each stopper, that GSAx figure in particular supports the notion that the Oilers have got it right with respect to their starter. In the most recent set of 18 games (orange background), Skinner stopped about 0.8 goals per game better than might be expected based on the number and quality of shots he faced. That surplus was largely amassed through five  games (Utah, Boston, Los Angeles, Buffalo, Detroit) in which Skinner saved more than 2.0 goals above expected in each, with the Oilers going 4-0-1 in those games despite some indifferent performances by the team as a whole.

So what explains Pickard’s perfect 6-0-0 record vs. Skinner’s decent but not outstanding 7-4-1? Biggest difference maker here has come in the form of goal support or lack thereof. In Pickard’s most recent six-pack of starts, the Oilers scored at least 4 goals every single time, averaging 4½ goals for per game (GFA column). Skinner on the other hand received 4 goals of support in just 3 of 12 games, winning all of them. No fewer than 6 of the 12 ended up with a 3-2 scoreline, with the Oilers going 3-2-1 in those games. Skinner also posted a 1-0 win over Los Angeles, but dropped 5-3 and 4-3 decisions to Pittsburgh and Toronto.

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On the season as a whole, the Oilers have scored nearly two-thirds of a goal per game more with Pickard in net, while limiting opponents to 2.2 shots per game fewer than those faced by their #1 man. Skinner’s GAA is slightly worse, his Sv% slightly better, and his GSAx significantly better. My take is that all of those comparative numbers are predicated in quality of opponent; Skinner faces better teams who get more and higher quality shots while giving up fewer goals to the Oilers.

Conclusions:

• Kris Knoblauch has found a workable and repeatable formula for long-term success.
• The #1 goalie has clearly identified himself as such in the statistical register.
• Both goalies have rebounded sharply from a dismal start.

Then there’s this one: while the Oilers are a dominant team in terms of shot volumes at both ends of the rink, they currently rank 13th in save percentage and a lowly 23rd in shooting percentage (all situations). For all the fixation on the ‘tendies, perhaps the bigger issue for this squad is its poor conversion rate at the other end of the sheet.

Tonight’s line-up

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No surprise then that Stu Skinner gets the start tonight as the Oilers host the Avalanche in the last game for both teams before the 4 Nations Face-Off. He was the goalie of record in both prior meetings of the two Western Conference powers, with the Oilers winning the first by a convincing 4-1 tally and coming back from 0-3 down to win the more recent match-up 4-3.

No changes to the line-up that barely squeaked past Chicago last game, with the key feature being a four-deep crew of pivots in Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Adam Henrique.

The game will feature the NHL’s top two scorers in Nathan MacKinnon and Draisaitl. The Oiler briefly took over the league lead on Wednesday night, but MacKinnon responded with a three-point outing in Calgary on Thursday to reclaim the top spot, 83 points to 81. That same game featured another Avs superstar, defenceman Cale Makar, hitting the 20-goal mark for the third time in his impressive career.

Both teams will be playing their third game in three different cities in four nights, suggesting both are “scheduled” to lose this one. Very hard to figure why this particular contest was slated for tonight rather than tomorrow, when it could have been featured on Hockey Night in Canada with two slightly more rested combatants.

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It will be the last home game for the entire month of February, with most of the Oilers heading their various ways for a two-week break followed by a tough five-game southeastern road trip when league play resumes in the last week of the month.

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