Stuart Skinner

Born in Edmonton, Alberta on November 1, 1998, Stuart Skinner spent parts of five seasons as a goaltender for the city's NHL franchise before being traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in December 2025 — a deal that sent him back to the city where his professional career began and where, as a third-round pick 78th overall in the 2017 NHL Draft, he had worked his way from the minors to becoming the Oilers' starter.

Skinner's NHL debut came in 2020-21, a single appearance in which he earned a win. His footprint expanded the following season, going 6-6-0 in 13 games. The 2022-23 campaign marked his first full season as Edmonton's primary goaltender: 50 games, a 29-14-0 record, a 2.75 goals-against average, and a .914 save percentage. That season, he appeared on InGoal Radio for a wide-ranging conversation, an episode documented in the archive as ^[1].

In 2023-24, Skinner played the most games of any season in his career to that point — 59 — posting 36 wins against 16 losses with a 2.62 GAA and a .905 save percentage and two shutouts, his best statistical output as a starter. He carried that into 2024-25, starting 51 games for Edmonton with a 26-18-0 record, a 2.81 GAA, and a .896 save percentage, adding three shutouts.

During his time with the Oilers, Skinner became a subject of InGoal Magazine's coverage in both technical and situational contexts. InGoal captured the Edmonton Oilers' full goalie warm-up routine, with Skinner explaining the rationale behind the team's approach ^[2]. He described a preference for immediate movement over stationary work: "Me and Calvin (Pickard) talked about it last year because we were doing a couple stationary things and sometimes it's good to do stationary, like after a back-to-back when you're feeling kind of tired, so there's a time and place for it still, but if you want to get out there and get warm, I prefer to get moving right away." He also addressed the east-west orientation of the drills: "That's kind of where the game is heading towards, it's a lot of east-west and that's kind of all it is now." The full breakdown, including input from Edmonton goalie coach Dustin Schwartz, is available to InGoal members ^[2].

Skinner has spoken directly to InGoal about one of the more demanding situations a goaltender faces — crease chaos and puck-location in traffic — and his comments shed specific light on his physical setup. "I've got more of a narrow butterfly, so I've got to move more," he said. "It's so tough because it's just so unpredictable." Skinner told InGoal he experimented with paddle down in those situations but ultimately abandoned it: "It hasn't been superefficient and even if I make the first save and the puck goes to my left, I can't move. I'm stuck and the puck is going in the net. That happened to me a few times this year, so I made the decision I'm not going paddle down." His approach in scramble situations involves staying in a more athletic, upright-ready position, and also using auditory cues — listening for shouts of "shooter, shooter" or the sound of a stick on a puck — to locate where the play is going. The full article, which includes perspectives from several other NHL goaltenders on the same challenge, is available at InGoal Magazine ^[3].

On December 12, 2025, Skinner was traded from Edmonton to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Tristan Jarry. InGoal Radio's Kevin Woodley, who interviewed Skinner in Vancouver around the time of that trade, noted on the podcast that in the weeks following the deal, only two goaltenders in the NHL posted a better adjusted save percentage than Skinner ^[4]. A mid-season analytics piece from InGoal using Clear Sight Analytics data placed Skinner's adjusted save percentage at +1.9% in the period since the trade, 11th in the NHL despite an expected save percentage of just .873 — reflecting a challenging defensive environment in Pittsburgh ^[5].

Through 50 games with Pittsburgh in 2025-26, Skinner has a 23-17-9 record, a 2.92 GAA, a .888 save percentage, and two shutouts. Across 224 career NHL regular-season games, he has accumulated 121 wins, 71 losses, a 2.77 GAA, a .902 save percentage, and nine shutouts.

InGoal Magazine has covered Stuart Skinner in two podcast appearances, one drill breakdown, and two InGoal articles. His most recent conversation with InGoal — recorded in Vancouver and broadcast as InGoal Radio Episode 338 — covered his adjustment to Pittsburgh and, as Woodley noted on-air, how Skinner approaches reading the game and the role of video in that process ^[4]. That full interview is available wherever you listen to InGoal Radio.