National Post (National Edition)
Oilers' net situation needs sorting out
Ken Holland knows you are worried about the Edmonton Oilers' goaltending situation. He's worried, too.
This is a general manager who in a previous life was an NHL goaltender, and who in his previous jobs with the Detroit Red Wings employed Mike Vernon, Chris Osgood and Dominik Hasek on his Stanley Cup-winning teams. He knows how important the position is. But he also knows Mikko Koskinen is not the sole reason the Oilers are 1-3-0 to start the season.
In back-to-back losses to the Montreal Canadiens, the Oilers combined to allow eight goals. But for a team that has Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, they also combined to score just two goals.
“We haven't played good enough,” Holland said in a phone interview with Postmedia on Tuesday. “Obviously, the focus is on the goaltending for a variety of reasons. But we haven't played good enough. We played good in the bounce back win against Vancouver. But we didn't play good enough against Montreal.
“We have to go into the road here and bounce back and find a way to win.”
That won't be easy.
The Oilers travel to Toronto for games against the Maple Leafs on Wednesday and Friday, followed by games against Winnipeg on Sunday and Tuesday. And with backup goalie Mike Smith still injured, they will have to do so without a safety net.
On the same day that Smith was placed on the long-term injured list, Carolina claimed Edmonton's third-stringer Anton Forsberg off waivers. Worse, the Hurricanes then placed Forsberg on waivers, where the Jets promptly picked him up. The Oilers managed to claim 31-year-old Troy Grosenick off waivers from Los Angeles, but he's stuck in 14-day quarantine.
That leaves Edmonton with Koskinen as its starter and 22-year-old Stuart Skinner, who has yet to play in an NHL game, as the backup for the foreseeable future.
In another year, Holland might have traded for a better backup. But since you have to trade within the country to avoid a 14-day quarantine — or within the province of Alberta to avoid a seven-day quarantine — Holland's hands are tied.
After all, even if they could, what are the chances that Calgary would want to help Edmonton out?
“I'm not going to call the NHL (and complain),” Holland said of the situation the Oilers find themselves in regarding their goalies and the complicated waiver wire. “They worked hard to put these rules in place. I don't see them making changes. The goalie thing was a domino effect that started with the retirement of Corey Crawford in New Jersey. If you look at it, he retires and then (Winnipeg's) Eric Comrie goes on waivers and is picked up by New Jersey. Now, Winnipeg loses Comrie and they pick up Forsberg.
“And Mike Smith tweaks something in warm-up and — bang! — two guys are gone and we're scrambling and in a position where we have to play Koskinen every day. But we're going to battle through it. We'll be OK next week.”
Next week, of course, cannot happen soon enough.
And yet, even with Smith healthy — or had Forsberg gone unclaimed — the Oilers were still in trouble. After all, it's not like goaltending was ever this team's strength.
While the rest of Canada beefed up its goaltending in the off-season, the Oilers stood pat thinking that the same tandem that had them finishing second in the Pacific Division last year would be good enough to get them into the playoffs this year. But then the pandemic forced the NHL into lumping all the Canadian teams into the same division.
In the process, it crammed together some of the best goalies in the world.
Rank the teams in the North Division by their goaltenders and you'd be hardpressed not to have Edmonton near the bottom. And this was before they were forced to play Koskinen, who has a 3.80 goals-against average and a .896 save percentage, every night.
“We're off to a shaky start, but I don't think you can say it's just goaltending,” said Holland. “We're only four games in.”
Four games might be a small sample size. But the results are surprising no one after Koskinen and Smith combined to allow 16 goals in a four-game loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in last year's playoff qualifier.
With that knowledge, why didn't Holland upgrade the position? After all, his competitors did.
Montreal added Jake Allen to be Carey Price's backup, while Calgary got Jacob Markstrom to play ahead of David Rittich, and Vancouver signed Braden Holtby after losing Markstrom to free agency. Even Ottawa improved with the acquisition of Matt Murray.
Any of those goalies would have been better than what Edmonton has in net.
Holland said he “kicked tires” on the free agent goalies available in the off-season. But with so much money already tied up in the forwards — McDavid and Draisaitl account for US$21 million — and with Koskinen earning $4.5 million, the team didn't have the cap space to get into a bidding war.
Instead, the Oilers signed defenceman Tyson Barrie and added centre depth with Kyle Turris, believing that if the players in front of their goalies improved, then so would their goalies.
So far that hasn't happened. But don't necessarily blame Koskinen, who is facing more shots (36.3 per game) than any other goalie in the league.
“It's a team effort,” said Holland. “It's not supposed to be easy.”