Even though the Oilers have had two days off since the opener and haven\u2019t traveled, the team announced on Saturday morning that Calvin Pickard would get the start against the Vancouver Canucks.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a familiar situation for this Oilers team, which chose for the third straight season to roll with a tandem of Skinner and Pickard.<\/p>\n
Last season, the Oilers finished with the 10th-worst even strength save percentage in the NHL. Among playoff teams, only the Montreal Canadiens and Carolina Hurricanes ranked worse.<\/p>\n
![\"Pickard-Oilers\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pickard-Oilers.jpg\"\/ "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n
The Oilers are turning to Calvin Pickard earlier than expected in 2025-26. (Stephen R. Sylvanie\/Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
In fairness to Pickard, despite being a career backup, he\u2019s statistically been better than Skinner.<\/p>\n
Pickard\u2019s save percentage over the last two seasons is .903, just narrowly ahead of Skinner\u2019s .901. Digging deeper, Pickard\u2019s goals saved above expected per-60 at even strength of 0.08 ranks 26th among 62 regular goaltenders since the beginning of 2023-24.<\/p>\n
Skinner\u2019s goals saved above expected per-60 over the last two seasons ranks 44th (-0.11). The only true starting goaltender he sits ahead of is Elvis Merzlikins of the Columbus Blue Jackets.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still a long season, but it\u2019s troubling for the Oilers that they\u2019re already turning to Pickard in Game 2 of the season.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Kris Knoblauch is playing the matchup. In four career regular-season games against the Canucks, Pickard has a .918 save percentage. Skinner\u2019s career save percentage against the Canucks is .859, with two wins in seven games.<\/p>\n
Of course, Skinner was also yanked in the 2024 postseason series between the Canucks and Oilers, before returning in Games 6 and 7 to help Edmonton advance to the Conference Finals.<\/p>\n
You might also like:Rival GM explains why Ken Holland came back to NHL after Edmonton Oilers departure<\/a>The 2025-26 NHL standings as predicted by oddsmakers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are the Edmonton Oilers already in a goalie rotation? The Stanley Cup favourites are already experiencing issues in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-205821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}