The Edmonton Oilers are making a change in goal.
The club announced Friday that it has traded goaltender Stuart Skinner and defenceman Brett Kulak to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for goalie Tristan Jarry and forward Samuel Poulin.
Edmonton’s second-round draft selection in 2029 will also belong to the Penguins as part of the trade.
In a separate trade, the Oilers exchanged their third-round 2027 draft pick to the Nashville Predators for defenceman Spencer Stastney.
Jarry, 30, has previous experience playing in Edmonton as a member of the WHL’s Oil Kings for four seasons, including the 2014 Memorial Cup championship run.
This year with the Penguins, he’s appeared in 14 games (starting 13) and recorded a 9-3-1 record, a .909 save percentage and 2.66 goals against average (GAA).
The six-foot-four, Surrey, B.C., native is a two-time NHL all-star and made an impact on the Penguins’ record books during his tenure in Pittsburgh, finishing third all-time in games played, wins and goals against average (GAA), and fourth in save percentage, as well as tying for second place among Penguins goaltenders in shutouts.
However, Jarry, who is in the third year of a five-year contract worth $5.375 million annually, has fewer playoff games under his belt than Skinner with a 2-6 record in eight starts.
He will join the Oilers on Saturday in Toronto where they face the Maple Leafs.
“His performance over a number of years has been very good,” Oilers general manager Stan Bowman said Friday morning on a media video call.
“We wanted to make sure that the person we were bringing in, we felt confident,” added Bowman.
“The fact that he’s got two more years on his contract, we have our goalie for the next three playoff runs, which I think is important knowing that he is signed and it’s a number that we’re going to be able to manage well in our salary cap over the coming couple seasons.”
The departure of Skinner, whose hometown is Edmonton, is a seismic move for the Oilers.
The 27-year-old started the majority of games in two straight playoff runs to the Stanley Cup final. Edmonton lost to Florida in seven games in 2024 and six to the Panthers in 2025.
Skinner started this season 11-8-4 with a 2.83 goals against average and .891 save percentage. He was in the final season of a three-year contract worth US$2.6 million annually and there had been no talks on a contract extension, according to Bowman.
The trade is “not so much a comment on Stuart Skinner. It’s just really maybe time for something different here,” Bowman added.
“It always comes down to in the end, one or two moments for every goalie, not just for the Oilers’ goalies, but everyone’s measured sort of by what they remember in a playoff series,” Bowman said. “There’s a lot of things that have to get your team to that point and we think that Tristan has a very solid track record for being a good goaltender.”
The 31-year-old Kulak, also a native of Edmonton, has been a mainstay on the Oilers’ back end during their recent layoff runs.
He was also in the final year of his contract that counts $2.75 million against the salary cap.
“We certainly weren’t trying to trade Brett Kulak,” Bowman said. “But in order to make the transaction work and the money going back and forth, that had to be part of it.”
Twenty-five-year-old Stastney, who is in the second and last year of a contract worth $825,000, has appeared in 81 NHL games across four seasons with Nashville. He had a goal and eight assists and was minus-1 in 30 games this season .
‘”The thing we’ve liked about Stastney is his excellent mobility,” said Bowman. He’s a great skater, a lot of quickness, and he’s been very effective in a penalty kill, and he’s got some offence to his game. He really hasn’t reached his true potential yet.
“We’ve been able to reshape our defence a bit here in the last year to we’ve now got three guys that are 25 and (Evan Bouchard) is 26.”
Poulin, 24, was a first-round draft pick of the Penguins in 2019 and has spent most of the past five seasons with their AHL affiliate, recording 135 points in 207 games. The right-winger from Blainville, Que., has played two games for Pittsburgh this season with no points and is a minus-2.
Oilers star Connor McDavid signed a two-year contract extension in October, effectively starting the clock running on the NHL club to make the moves necessary to win a Stanley Cup before the captain becomes a free agent in 2028.
With files from The Canadian Press.