The Edmonton Oilers will waste another season if they don’t address goaltending issues originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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The disappointment of a backward-step season is still resonating with Edmonton Oilers fans, and former Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch paid for Edmonton’s first-round Stanley Cup playoff exit with his job.
However, what is just as maddening for Oilers fans is the prospect of the team coming back next season with the same goaltending tandem of Tristan Jarry and Connor Ingram. And that’s because there’s no justification for returning the same two goalies who couldn’t get the job done.
Although Ingram had a slightly better season than Jarry, as Ingram posted a save percentage of .899 and a goals-against average of 2.60 in 32 appearances, Ingram’s playoff stats (including a .876 SP and 3.86 GAA) do not inspire confidence that he can be ‘The Man’ in net for Edmonton next season. Ingram is going to be a UFA this summer, so there’s no guarantee he returns to the Oilers for the 2026-27 campaign.
Unfortunately, Jarry is under contract – not only for next season, but for the next two seasons at $5.375-million per season. Oilers GM Stan Bowman took a calculated risk when he acquired Jarry in mid-December, but that gamble has blown up spectacularly in Bowman’s face.
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Indeed, after Jarry posted a brutal .858 SP and 3.86 GAA in 19 regular-season games with the Oilers, he put up an abysmal .895 SP and 3.84 GAA in his only playoff appearance. If Knoblauch had believed he could win with Jarry, he would’ve kept him in the net. But what will the next Oilers coach be dealing with in terms of the team’s netminding?
There have been reports that the Oilers will run it back with Jarry, and that seems like a terrible idea. The last thing Edmonton stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl want is to endure another lost season due in part to their goaltending, but that’s where the Oilers are headed if they don’t do something drastic with their goalies.
Maybe that means throwing a lot of money at someone like Florida Panthers goalie and looming UFA Sergei Bobrovsky. Bowman has approximately $16.4 million in salary cap space, but they also need to fill out their roster with that money, and right now, they have only 15 players signed for next season. That makes it highly unlikely they make a play for one of the few notable free-agent goalies.
What about making a trade for an experienced netminder? The Toronto Maple Leafs have a goalie logjam, and they could be persuaded to move either Joseph Woll or Anthony Stolarz. However, the Leafs will be asking for something significant in any goalie trade, and the Oilers don’t have their first-round draft pick in either of the next two drafts. Bowman would have to give Toronto a high-end prospect, and they don’t have many of those assets, either.
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Regardless of who they go with for their goalies next season, here’s what really needs to happen: the Oilers must have the guts to do what’s necessary by buying out the contract of Jarry. If they did buy out the final two seasons of Jarry’s deal, they’d free up only approximately $666,667 next season, and $1.16-million next season. After that, Edmonton would still be on the hook for two additional years of paying Jarry – in this case, $458,333 per season.
You can see, then, why acquiring Jarry is so maddening for Oilers fans. Bowman gambled that Jarry – who’d been waived through the league in 2024-25, with zero takers for his services – was going to bounce back. And that simply didn’t happen this season. The Jarry trade has proven to be a complete and utterly indefensible disaster, to the point that Oilers fans are calling for Bowman’s head. And while some fan revolts aren’t justified, in this case, anger over the Jarry trade is absolutely justified.
Thus, things are starting to feel really bleak for this Oilers group, so time is of the essence for Bowman to get them back into relevancy by solving his netminding situation. Edmonton is on the clock with McDavid’s future, and if the Oilers can’t come up with a reasonable solution between the pipes, the overall effect on the franchise could be as catastrophic as it gets.
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