The Oilers have signed goaltender Mike Smith.

Fans of the Edmonton Oilers do not appear to be happy about this announcement. 

According to an official announcement from the Edmonton Oilers, the team has signed goaltender Mike Smith to a brand new contract. The deal will be just a 1 year deal, which should help to calm some of the fans going apoplectic over this news, and it will come in at a relatively reasonable price of $2 million against the salary cap for the 2020 - 2021 regular season.

The Oilers of course had been in the news as of late as potential suitors for some of the goaltenders that were on the open market, something that made some sense given the Oilers relative weakness at that position. The organization does however appear to have lost out on the game of goaltending musical chairs, although to be fair given their current cap situation it did always seem like they were more of a longshot to land some of the bigger names out there. The addition of any of the top free agent goalies available this offseason would have required getting creative with the contract of current Oilers goaltender Mikko Koskinen, who comes at a cap hit of $4.5 million for two more seasons thanks to a questionable deal on the part of former Edmonton Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli.

This means that the Oilers will return with the same goaltending tandem that they put out last season, a decision that likely won't inspire much confidence in that position. Koskinen was decent during the regular season with a 2.75 goals against average and a .917 save percentage over 38 games, but his playoff performance left much to be desired. Over 4 games in the bubble he recorded a 3.16 goals against average and an .889 save percentage.

Smith on the other hand struggled during the regular season with a 2.95 goals against average and a .902 save percentage and given that he was even worse for the Flames the previous season I am not seeing a great deal of upside here. For this reason I can certainly see why fans are frustrated, but any big money investment in another goalie was never truly realistic.

Let us know what you think of this move in the comments.