for free off waivers<\/a>), but at his core, he is still another volatile goalie. What\u2019s especially concerning, again, for a team with Stanley Cup aspirations, is the fact that he doesn\u2019t have a trusty record when it matters most. Problem No. 1 is that durability issues have held him out of postseasons past. No. 2 is that when he has been healthy enough to play, the results have been rough. Throughout his nine years of experience, Jarry has only appeared in eight\u00a0playoff games (and allowed eight goals above expected in that time). That\u2019s the starting goaltender the Oilers are tying to Connor McDavid\u2019s two-year extension.<\/p>\nAs much as his value has rebounded so far this regular season \u2014 with a 0.909 save percentage and GSAx of 9.09 \u2014 this move is incredibly risky. And the Oilers had to give up Kulak and a second-rounder to pull it off.<\/p>\n
Kulak is basically a cap casualty here because the Penguins aren\u2019t retaining any of Jarry\u2019s $5.375 million cap (despite having three open retention spots). So Skinner\u2019s $2.6 million cap and Kulak\u2019s $2.75 million had to go. Defenseman Spencer Stastney, acquired Friday in a separate deal with the Predators, brings an $825,000 price tag. Maybe the cap gymnastics wouldn\u2019t have been necessary if management didn\u2019t sign Trent Frederic, a fourth-liner, to an eight year contract contract worth $3.85 million last summer. It\u2019s the consequences of more questionable actions coming back to bite Stan Bowman and the Oilers\u2019 front office.<\/p>\n
From Pittsburgh\u2019s side of things, this is a tidy bit of business. The Penguins add more depth that can either help contribute to a surprising playoff run or get flipped at the deadline if they fall out of it. A depth defender like Kulak with a team-friendly contract will generate interest ahead of the playoffs. And even if the team can\u2019t move Skinner, his contract is up this summer (while Jarry has another two years). At worst, he can be a stopgap to rotate with Art\u016brs \u0160ilovs while Joel Blomqvist and Sergei Murashov develop.<\/p>\n
Penguins grade: B+
Oilers grade: D<\/p>\n
Dom Luszczyszyn: Finally, after years of speculation between the pipes, the Oilers got their guy. Apparently, their guy is Tristan Jarry, a goalie who cleared waivers less than a year ago. That the Oilers traded their current starter, Brett Kulak and a 2029 2nd round pick to make it happen is genuinely baffling.<\/p>\n
Goalies don\u2019t often carry a lot of value on the trade market and that\u2019s for good reason. It\u2019s a fickle position and Jarry himself is a perfect example of that. The Penguins couldn\u2019t give him away a season ago because he was playing so poorly and was so expensive. Now he\u2019s apparently the answer to Edmonton\u2019s goaltending prayers after 14 games of bouncing back?<\/p>\n
Goalies are notoriously up-and-down, making it difficult to peg what many can offer. Jarry falls firmly in that bucket, which is what makes it difficult to understand why the Oilers would pay this much for him. If they wouldn\u2019t claim him for free last January, the 28 games since where Jarry has ranked 20th in GSAx per game shouldn\u2019t have swayed them to add Skinner, Kulak, and a second to the price tag.<\/p>\n
The main issue at hand is Skinner\u2019s inclusion in the deal. Jarry, on his own, would\u2019ve been a fine target to pair with Skinner as an upgrade on Calvin Pickard. But this is just playing musical chairs with two equally hot-and-cold starters that are impossible to depend on long-term. Unless there\u2019s another move on the docket to improve on Pickard, the Oilers will have the same problem with Jarry that they had with Skinner: The lack of a safety net behind a risky starter.<\/p>\n
Jarry coming in for Skinner instead makes it difficult to see much of any tangible upgrade. Jarry is just as inconsistent, just as prone to bad stretches, and has a similar ability to save goals above expected as Skinner. Jarry has been better since returning to NHL action last March, but any longer outlook leans Skinner. Jarry is also older and more injury-prone, leaving further reliance on Pickard. By Net Rating, this trade literally doesn\u2019t move the needle; Jarry looks just as poor as Skinner relative to other starters. The Oilers paid Kulak and a second for a lateral move.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible Jarry is the answer and thrives behind a stronger team. But it\u2019s a risky bet that cost a lot more than it should\u2019ve to make \u2014 and credit to Kyle Dubas for extracting that value out of a desperate team.<\/p>\n
Along the way, the Oilers also replaced Kulak with Spencer Stastney from Nashville which does seem like a modest upgrade to the third pair. But if the best Oilers headline here is \u201crandom analytical darling defenseman improves Oilers third pair\u201d on a day where management believes they finally fixed their long-standing goaltending problems, that\u2019s a bad sign. It\u2019s because they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Oilers grade: C-
Penguins grade: A<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oilers get: Goalie Tristan Jarry, forward Samuel Poulin Penguins get: Goalie Stuart Skinner, defenseman Brett Kulak, second-round pick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,3275,575,4785,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-343513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-edmonton-oilers","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}