The Edmonton Oilers are only two games into a new season, but the same old concern is already hanging over them: goaltending.
Tristan Jarry got the first crack and was tagged for six goals on 23 shots, finishing with a .739 save percentage in the opener. Then Devon Levi had an even rougher night in his first start with the Oilers, surrendering seven goals on 22 shots for a .682 save percentage.
Levi, acquired from the Buffalo Sabres in the offseason, was making his first NHL start since Jan. 20, 2025.
That’s not the kind of start anyone in Edmonton wanted to see, especially with Frederik Andersen also in the mix. The veteran free-agent signing likely won’t be ready until December, which leaves Jarry and Levi to hold the fort for now.
The Oilers need both to give them at least steady, workable goaltending while they wait for Andersen. The concern from the fan base is understandable.
But the front office should resist the urge to swing wildly unless a clear upgrade is actually there.
And that’s the catch: there just aren’t many clean solutions out there.
Edmonton already learned the hard way what a panic move can do. Last season’s trade for Jarry and Sam Poulin cost them Stuart Skinner, Brett Kulak, and a 2029 second-round pick.
General manager Stan Bowman paid a heavy price for a goaltender with term left on his contract, and the move hasn’t aged well. Jarry carries a $5.375 million cap hit, and he had cleared waivers less than a year before the deal.
The alternative path was sitting there, too. The Oilers could have sent Calvin Pickard down and brought up Connor Ingram in November.
A Skinner-Ingram tandem could have been cheaper and, in the source’s view, solid enough. Instead, Edmonton kept Pickard around too long, and that decision came back to bite them.
Ingram played well enough and outperformed Jarry over the stretch. If the Oilers had shown more patience with Skinner, they might have been able to move Kulak for an asset at the deadline instead of attaching him as part of a package.
Instead, they spent a third-round pick to bring in Spencer Stastney as Kulak’s replacement, and now Stastney is the eighth defenceman and could be on waivers soon.
That’s the pattern here: bad asset management stacking up on bad asset management.
Which is why the next move has to be handled carefully. Andersen could return in December and look like the answer.
He could even seize the No. 1 job down the stretch. Edmonton already jumped too quickly last season before fully evaluating Ingram, and it can’t afford to repeat that mistake.
The Oilers need to see what Andersen gives them before forcing another trade, while hoping Levi and Jarry can keep things afloat until then.
There’s another problem, too: everybody around the league knows Edmonton needs help in net. That drives the price up, and the Oilers don’t exactly have the kind of assets to start a bidding war, especially if they also want help in the top six.
Nobody is eager to absorb Jarry’s contract for the next two seasons, and if Edmonton were to waive him, it would only clear $1.15 million. That still leaves the question of who replaces him.
The organization has boxed itself in, and another rushed decision would only make it worse.
Unless the answer is Connor Hellebuyck, Edmonton probably shouldn’t force anything. Even that path looks unrealistic, since he likely wouldn’t accept a move to another Canadian team.
And if he did, other clubs could easily outbid the Oilers. A package of Matt Savoie, Isaac Howard, and a first-round pick, for example, probably wouldn’t be enough to land him from Winnipeg.
Edmonton is in a rough spot, but the solution is not another panic trade.
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The part Edmonton will likely like most is that it did not have to chase the game the way it sometimes has against Seattle. The Oilers stayed patient through a tight third period, with Draisaitl and Connor McDavid eventually supplying the separation and finishing touch when the margin was still there to be claimed. It was the kind of result teams talk about wanting in the fall, a different route to the same two points, even if there was still plenty of bite in the game along the way. [Read more 🡒]