Oilers Stuff and Things – Goaltending Edition

Stuff

Season is over, Phew.

I don’t really have much “Stuff” to talk about this week. The season ended on Saturday night with a 6-5 OT loss at the hands of the playoff bound Vancouver Canucks. It was a perfect game in terms of showing the fans and tall foreheads of this team just where the Oilers stand talent wise and what next season would look like if management was to stand pat with the current roster.

On Monday General Manager Craig MacTavish came out and gave us the state of the union, I agree with some of his statements and disagree with some of his statements. You can read about it more in depth here if you happened to miss it.

One thing that I enjoyed about the presser is that MacT’s tone seems to have changed when it comes to over promising and under delivering, and it’s about damn time. There was no talk of Norris Trophy winners, playoffs or other teams being jealous of this roster. I’ve been saying for some time that MacT talks to much at these availabilities, that he shows his cards to readily when he talks of changing the roster. So this conference, if you will allow, was a breath of fresh air, or at least it was the same stale air with a healthy dose of febreze added.

Things

During the year end gathering MacT made it clear that one of, if not the, top priority is to bring in help at the goaltending position. We know that along with defense that the net minder position was the weakest this season. I don’t blame MacTavish for trying with Scrivens and Fasth, plenty of teams bring in a few promising younger goalies and often it seems to work itself out (See Ben Bishop of the Tampa Bay Lightning). Well this time it didn’t work for the Oilers and it’s another offseason looking for help between the pipes.

Will MacT try what didn’t work before and go after another unproven yet promising guy, or will he go after a veteran that has spent time as a real NHL number 1 goalie? Strong arguments can be made for both cases. I’m going to list a few of the guys that I think might be available and who I think some of the best choices might be.

Young Talent

Martin Jones is the back up behind Jonathan Quick, and much like Ben Scrivens I’m sure he’d welcome a move out of Hollywood where he spends a lot of time riding the pine behind the Kings all-star. His numbers are decent but so were Scrivens’. IMO this is a very risky move, the sample sizes of the players above are all small but at only 34gp here leave just way to many questions left unanswered.

Cam Talbot, The New York Rangers back up did a great job this year filling in for an injured Henrik Ludqvist. Like Jones he’s 27 and hasn’t played many games. He’s also signed for another year at reasonable money.

Eddie Lack is a name I haven’t heard thrown around very much, but he’s behind Ryan Miller and his huge contract. He’s played the equivalent of one full NHL season and has ok numbers, and if anything we know he’ll be entertaining on the twitter.

Robin Lehner is probably the most talked about option, when the Senators traded Bishop they were betting on this guy becoming the new number one in the nations capital. It hasn’t happened yet and with the emergence of Hammond, Lehner is probably the next one to go. Sens management will probably still want the veteran Anderson to bring Hammond along.

Scott Darling, the least experienced on this list, is a long shot. At only 14 regular season NHL games he’s got great numbers but far to small of a sample size. The Hawks also have Antti Raanta to back up Crawford so there is a chance he’ll be available and with so little experience he’d probably come cheap or even as an addition in some sort of larger deal.

Jacob Markstrom is not really an improvement at all IMO, he spent the year in the AHL after clearing waivers and being sent down by the Canucks at the end of pre-season. Once highly touted, which is why he’s on the list, his numbers have been in steady decline the last few seasons.

Old Guards

Antti Niemi is the most likely on this list if MacT fails to trade for a guy before the draft. At 31 he still has a few good years left. I watch quite a few Sharks games (Blame my wife) and I’m just not sold on Niemi. Yeah he’s got a cup ring, and his numbers are decent, but there is something about his game that just leaves me wanting more. He rebound control could be much better as well.

Cam Ward, another goalie in decline. Maybe relocation would serve him well, but as a local guy I’d be nervous if he was our tender. Edmonton area players seem to struggle here, maybe it’s too much pressure, who knows. Ward has battled injury the last few seasons and that is something to be wary of too.

Devan Dubnyk is only on this list to show everyone how good his career numbers are. Listen I was happy when he was traded too, but I wonder where our tending would be if he was still here? There isn’t a chance in H-E double hockey sticks that he signs with the Oil, that bridge is burned.

Brian Elliot is possibly my favorite player on these two lists. He’s been great in the regular seasons for St. Louis, even if he hasn’t done well in the playoffs (That doesn’t matter for the Oilers yet anyway). He’s a year younger than Niemi and Ward and like the rest of the names would improve the position greatly. He also be available because of the stellar play of young Jake Allen. It’s an interesting thought.

Craig Anderson, like his teammate Lehner is probably the most talked about veteran goalie moving. He’s got good number
s and could come into Edmonton and, barring injury, give the team 60 games a year. His age is an issue for me though and like I mentioned above I think that the Sens keep him to groom Hammond. Our writer Trin Potratz has a good article looking at Anderson as an option here.

There are plenty of choices to be made here, and this could just be a decision that makes of break Craig MacTavish’s career. It won’t be an easy one, but for my sake and yours I sure hope that what ever it is that it works and we don’t have to go through this again next offseason.

Thanks for Reading

Other Things

One thing we’ve prided ourselves on doing here at the Oilers Rig is fundraising for great causes. These efforts are continuing, as I’m riding in the MS Johnson bike tour this year with the Battered Piles team. It’s going to be quite the challenge as I’ll be riding my bike 180km over two days, something I’ve not even come close to doing in my training so far. Anyhow I’ve set a goal to be one of the top 10 individual fundraisers for this years event and right now I’m sitting in 6th spot. I originally set a goal of $3000 but because of all of you awesome people who have donated I was able to surpass that, so I raised my goal to $5000. Which I believe is something we can achieve. I can’t reach these goals without your help, if you would like to donate please do so by clicking the banner image below.