All Oilers struggles stem from one player and locker room, says analyst

The Edmonton Oilers are in crisis now 25 games into the season and still outside a playoff spot, and one analyst is explaining Stuart Skinner has broken the locker room.

There are so many overarching issues with the Oilers right now, but they may be stemming from just one critical issue: no trust in the team goaltending.

Oilers analyst says team has checked out entirely on Stuart Skinner

Coming into last night’s game there was an expectation the Oilers would begin to turn things around after a long road trip. Instead, they had a pathetic showing against a Western Conference Final on home ice and lost 8-3.

What would cause a team to come out so flat? Oilers analyst Bruce Curlock says the team has clearly just given up on Skinner. Some of that responsibility lies with the players, the coaches, and the goalies too.

It’s impossible to ignore the league-worst numbers from the Oilers goaltending. If the fans can’t stop talking about it, it’s surely crossed the players’ mind.

The reality is, this is the worst goaltending the Oilers have had in franchise history - going back to 1979-80.

The coaching staff seems to have implemented a number of new strategies to shelter the goaltending, and it’s just not working. The Oilers are playing with a stretch-pass heavy breakout system, which is getting crushed by the opposition and putting more stress on defence. Forwards have been largely useless in any d-zone play.

With the combination of never getting a save and being unable to break the puck out, it looks like the Oilers are wilting. They look entirely lifeless. In a game they needed to respond, they got blown out on home ice with absolutely no pushback. That’s an issue on the locker room leadership, and also the Coach for setting the team up. 

Coach Knoblauch assured that no players have ‘checked out’, but did admit they’re heavily discouraged. 

It’s not that they’ve checked out or don’t care. That would be a concern. These guys do care, they haven’t checked out, but they definitely are discouraged and don’t see much optimism right now.

• - Coach Knoblauch

It’s a tough accusation to make that the team has checked out on Skinner, but the difference in their play in front of him compared to Pickard should raise serious questions. 

The fact that the Oilers players are being questioned about ‘checking out’ in a must win season is a major alarm bell. Simply put, the team needs a shake-up move - and they need to finally have confidence in net.