The Edmonton Oilers and endless talk about goaltending, name a more iconic duo, I dare you.
GM Stan Bowman has publicly thrown support behind Stuart Skinner and his performance this year, but does that mean that the team isn’t looking at options in the crease? If not to replace Skinner, surely Calvin Pickard’s league-worst save percentage warrants some exploration of the market.
Of course, there are only so many NHL-calibre goalies in the world, so even if the Oilers are looking, the options may appear to be a bit thin. Plus, how many inseason trades involving goalies are there, really? We’ve all heard about how “hard” it is to make just any trade during the season, so adding in the wrinkle of a limited number of goalies should make that basically impossible, right?
Well, it turns out there have been some goalies traded during the year in the past. The question is, how well did those work out? For the purposes of this article, we are looking at trades where the goalie was the focal point of the trade, not a throw-in to make numbers work.
Also, we won’t include trade deadline deals, as that is way too far away from now, and I am pretty sure a large majority of Oilers fans will have had a stroke, heart attack, or some other kind of ailment if the Oilers do wait that long before making a move.
Mackenzie Blackwood to the Colorado Avalanche, December 9, 2024
Blackwood was a promising goalie for the New Jersey Devils, playing 47 games with a 0.915 save percentage in 2019–20 and even getting some consideration as the potential future goalie for Team Canada.
His play started to slip, however, and he ended up being traded to the San Jose Sharks in the summer of 2023 for a sixth-round pick.
His first season in San Jose wasn’t much to write home about. He played 44 games, but went 10–25–4 with a 0.899 save percentage. Granted, it’s not like San Jose was a powerhouse that year, so that certainly played a part.
The next year, Blackwood played much better, posting a 0.911 save percentage in 19 games. That performance led the Colorado Avalanche to trade for him to alleviate their goaltending woes, as Alexander Georgiev was not performing well at all.
That turned out to be a pretty good bet by the Avs, as Blackwood played 37 games, going 22–12–3 with a 0.913 save percentage and earned himself a nice new five-year deal worth $5.25M a year to be their new starter.
Trades for goalies don’t get much better than that.
Scott Wedgewood to the Colorado Avalanche, November 30, 2024
Right before acquiring Blackwood, the Avalanche first tried swapping out their backup, trading Justus Annunen to the Nashville Predators for Scott Wedgewood.
Now, unlike Blackwood, Wedgewood was not playing all that well, posting a 0.878 in his five games with Nashville. Granted, Annunen was rocking a 0.872, so technically it was an improvement.
But like Blackwood, Wedgewood was a good get, as he played 19 games with a 13–4–1 record and a 0.917 save percentage.
Most importantly, though, with Blackwood injured to start the season, Wedgewood has kept up his good play, playing in 15 games, winning 11 of them and posting a 0.917 save percentage.
So if there is anything to be learned from the Avs of last year, it is that you should definitely not be shy to swap out your goalies and that you don’t need to wait until the deadline to do so. Or find goalies with the word “wood” in their name, I’m not totally sure.
Devan Dubnyk to the Minnesota Wild, January 14, 2015
After the Oilers cut bait on Dubnyk, it appeared his career was potentially at an end, as he played just two games for Nashville before being traded to Montreal and spending the rest of the year in the minors.
But Dubnyk signed with the Arizona Coyotes and got back to form, going 9–5–2 with a 0.916 in 19 games. His performance caught the eye of the Minnesota Wild, who traded a third-round pick for him. Dubnyk excelled with Minnesota, playing 39 games, winning 27 of them and posting an unreal 0.936 save percentage and finishing the season as a Vezina Trophy finalist.
Dubnyk would play five more seasons for the Wild, playing 60+ games and posting over 0.910 in the first four of them. Dubnyk is second in Wild franchise history in wins and shutouts, and set the franchise record for most wins in a season.
Definitely a great midseason trade. Just don’t think about it too much if you are an Oilers fan.
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Dwayne Roloson to the Tampa Bay Lightning, January 1, 2011
I bet when you first read the title of this article, you immediately thought of Dwayne Roloson to the Oilers at the 2006 deadline, right? But then you saw my note that we are keeping this to non-deadline deals so you figured you wouldn’t see his name.
Wrong.
That’s right, Roloson was a part of another midseason deal when the New York Islanders traded him to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Roloson became the starter in Tampa, playing 34 games, winning 18 and posting a 0.912 save percentage. He would go on to play 17 playoff games, leading Tampa to the Eastern Conference Final with a 0.924 save percentage.
So I guess trade for Roloson is the other magic inseason trade bean, but that ship may have passed at this point.
Takeaways from these trades
Okay yes, the above list shows that there really aren’t that many midseason, non-trade deadline deals involving goalies that pan out super well. It isn’t impossible, but it definitely seems like the trade deadline is when you are more likely to get a goalie of substance (see Dwayne Roloson 1.0, Robin Lehner, and Marc-Andre Fleury, for a few examples).
But it is clear that if you are going to make a move at this stage of the season, you have to be taking on a goalie with some kind of risk, usually one who has not been great recently but is showing signs of getting back to that stage.
Is there anyone who fits that description this year? Maybe Sam Montembeault, who appears to have lost the net in Montreal to Jakub Dobes? Although he wasn’t exactly killing it before this season. Granted, a consistent 0.900 is maybe all this Oilers team needs in net.
Elvis Merzlikins and Jordan Binnington are two others who potentially fit the profile, although their more hefty contracts may make that a bit more difficult to squeeze in.
Time will tell what the Oilers do and whether they bring in a new goalie. But as the team is currently in 11th place in the Western Conference, it looks like that time is starting to run out.
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