Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner is trending for the wrong reasons…

The Four Nations Face-Off is set for February 2025 and some experts believe that Edmonton Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner could crack the Canadian roster along with teammates Connor McDavid, who was one of the first six players named on the squad, and Zach Hyman and Evan Bouchard, who are projected to make the team.
However, when the experts made the projection that Stuart would be one of the goalies, along with Aidan Hill of Las Vegas and Jordan Binnington of St. Louis, several fans took to social media to express their frustration with the pick. When the panel debated about Team Canada’s projected roster, writer Paul Campbell of In Goal Media questioned the goalie pipeline, saying, via the Edmonton Journal:

“We need a goaltending summit 🇨🇦.”

And while NHL.com Editor-in-Chief Bill Price attempted to defend Stuart, his explanation reminded fans that weren’t overly thrilled with the pick that the Oilers’ netminder is the only one without a Stanley Cup.

“The good news is that two of these goalies are Stanley Cup champions and the other — Skinner — just took his team to Game 7 of the Cup Final. The not so good news is that there is not a clear No. 1 of this group at this point, and there is not really a dominant goalie in this group either. We had Connor Ingram, who is now with the Utah Hockey Club, in this group in February, but Binnington, a Stanley Cup champion in 2019, made the cut this time.”

To be honest however, the three goalies to be selected for Canada might be a match for the projected picks in America with Connor Hellebuyck, Jeremy Swayman, Jake Oettinger or Thatcher Demko, Finland who can choose from Juuse Saros, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Ville Husso and Joonas Korpisalo and what about Russia who can count on Ilya Sorokin, Igor Shesterkin, Sergie Bobrovsky and Andrei Vasilevsky…

Canada, the United States, Sweden and Finland will play in the tournament, scheduled for Feb. 12-20 at TD Garden in Boston and Bell Centre in Montreal.

Maybe then, Skinner will be red-hot and ready to bring his Oilers back to the Stanley Cup Final with a different outcome.
Canada will play Sweden at Bell Centre on Feb. 12, the United States at Bell Centre on Feb. 15 and Finland at TD Garden on Feb. 17. Lightning head coach Jon Cooper will lead Team Canada at the tournament.