Edmonton Oilers general manager Stan Bowman understands how difficult it is to acquire a high-end goaltender.
"The way the reality of the world is, it's not like you just go down to the corner and pick up an elite goalie," Bowman said Friday. "They're not just waiting for you to join your team, right? How many are there anyways in that group? Then, even if you look at the guys that I think are considered to be elite, some of them have had some tough playoffs. So, there's no guarantee."
The Oilers' goaltending was a key point of discussion throughout the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Edmonton used both Stuart Skinner and Calvin Pickard throughout the postseason and in the Final; their combined .888 save percentage ranked 13th among the 16 playoff teams.
"Goaltending's a strange part of the game," Bowman said. "On the one hand, it's kind of simultaneously the most important thing, but also it's the hardest thing to really understand, because sometimes, the goaltenders who you think are the best, aren't the best.
"Just this playoff run is a perfect example. In three of the four rounds, we had better goaltending than our opponent. You look at (Darcy) Kuemper, Adin Hill, and (Jake) Oettinger, our goalies were better than them in each of those series, and I think that's the reason we went to the final. Then in the final, it flipped."
Kuemper had a .889 SV% in the first round, Hill posted a .893 SV% in Round 2, and Oettinger had a .853 SV% in the Western Conference Final.
Bowman isn't sure why the Oilers had the better goaltending through three rounds, considering the caliber of netminders Edmonton faced.
"It's hard to explain how that happened or why it happened, and I'm not disputing that in the final, (Sergei) Bobrovsky was excellent," Bowman said. "He made a lot of big saves when we had chances early in games, and we didn't get the lead. Credit to him, or our players needed to pick the corners better. Like, it's one of the two."
Bobrovsky turned the tide against Edmonton with a .919 SV% in the Cup Final.
Bowman will consider making changes in net, as he will with the rest of the roster.
"We're going to examine not just our goalies, but our whole team, and see if there's a way to be better prepared next season," he said. "It could involve the goaltending, it could not."
