Oilers and GM Has Bad News for the Stuart Skinner Haters

Calvin Pickard picked up a big win for the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night, proving once again that the team tends to play well in front of their backup netminder. However, for Edmonton Oilers fans hoping Pickard becomes the starter or the organization moves on from Stuart Skinner, Stan Bowman’s latest comments may be disappointing.

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Speaking on After Hours following the Oilers’ 3-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks, the general manager stood firmly behind goaltender Stuart Skinner — even after another shaky moment earlier in the week.

The timing of Bowman’s comments were significant. Pickard had just delivered a steady performance in Saturday’s win, while Skinner’s misread in the season opener against Calgary led directly to a game-tying goal and an eventual shootout loss. As such, Bowman argued that recency bias was likely clouding some fans’ perspective on the two netminders.

Bowman defended Skinner’s play, suggesting the criticism has gone too far. “There’s a lot of attention on Stuart in particular,” Bowman said. “He made a bad play, sure, but the first two goals — nobody’s stopping those. They were kind of fluke plays.”

He even pointed out, somewhat ironically, that “nobody got a shot past our goalie that night,” noting that both early goals came off deflections or high sticks and that the game-winner was the result of a miscommunication with Evan Bouchard.

Bowman also compared Skinner’s error to a similar mistake Pickard made during preseason, one that didn’t spark the same uproar. “It happens to every goalie a couple times a year,” he said.

Don’t Expect the Oilers to Bail on Skinner Anytime Soon

While TSN’s Ryan Rishaug noted in a recent segment on Oilers Now that Bowman won’t be afraid to pull the trigger on a trade to get a different goalie for the playoffs, the GM’s message was clear — Edmonton isn’t panicking about its goaltending. “We’ve played two good games so far,” Bowman said. “If we keep playing like that, we’ll be okay.”

For Oilers fans tired of waiting for consistency in the net, “okay” may not be enough. But for now, it seems Bowman’s patience with Skinner isn’t running out anytime soon.

Next: GM Reflects on McDavid Scare: “Thankfully, It Never Got That Far”