This morning the Oilers made the bold move of placing goaltender Ben Scrivens on waivers for the purpose of assigning him to the AHL.
This comes right on the heels of the Oilers doing the same thing to Nikita Nikitin. As Scrivens was going on waivers, Nikitin was clearing them. Like the Russian before him, nobody is expected to put a claim on Scrivens, unless there’s been an injury to a goalie that I’ve missed.
Ben Scrivens is actually still a popular player in Edmonton, in large part because of his personality. He’s a relatively soft-spoken guy who’s educated and champions causes like mental health awareness and equality. He just seems like the kind of person I would have had 1000 interactions with when I was still in University. That’s Ben Scrivens. Because of that he gets a lot of leeway with a certain portion of the fanbase.
Unfortunately last year he also had one of the most disastrous campaigns for a goaltender in the last decade (something Oiler fans have been far too accustomed to seeing). He was dead last in save percentage among NHL goaltenders who played at least 40 games with his atrocious .890 sv%. His save percentage was 13 points lower than the next worst goaltender, Kari Lehtonen. The Median (the marker that separates the top half and the bottom half) for goaltenders who played 40 or more games was a .918 sv%.
One of the best pet theories that people always relay to me is that the Oilers were just SO BAD defensively that they were responsible for the catastrophic breakdown of their goaltenders last year and the one before. This theory, naturally, is one that people gravitate towards because our minds are hardwired to give meaning to things even when no meaning exists. We have to explain things in a way that makes sense to us. It’s why creation myths exist in every culture around the world. Even if we don’t know the answer we have to explain it anyway. That theory of Oiler defense being SO BAD that the goalies cratered is no different. Edmonton wasn’t historically bad (they weren’t great either) possession wise. They weren’t historically bad in shots. They weren’t historically bad in chances. And yet it’s easier to ignore that and just blame Scrivens’ downturn on the skaters in front of him.
I’m comfortable in saying I have no idea why Ben Scrivens couldn’t stop a beach ball last year. He wasn’t nearly as bad as an Oiler the season before that. They changed the goaltending coach part of the way through the season. I’m comfortable saying that I’d wager the Oilers themselves have no idea why he was so bad last year and I would extend that to Ben Scrivens himself.
I also think he’ll bounce back. I say that because NO modern goalie who has his track record and is generally healthy should have an .890 save percentage. It’s so bad that expecting him to stay there is probably unreasonable. In fact, during preseason Scrivens was generally solid. He ended up with a .929 sv%, albeit in limited action.
What’s clear with the Oiler moves over the last 2 days is that Peter Chiarelli will not suffer through contracts if he thinks he can ice a better lineup without those players. He shows absolutely no loyalty to players who were brought in by MacTavish and Howson even though they remain a part of the management structure.
Given that he didn’t have a bad preseason it is a little bit surprising that the Oilers cut Scrivens, but Chiarelli brought in Nilsson for a reason. We should keep that in mind when we consider other cuts left to be made. This is Chiarelli’s team and he isn’t afraid to put his stamp on it sooner rather than later.
Scrivens will make 2.3 Million no matter which league he is in but as with Nikitin the Oilers will get 950k in relief off of the Cap if nobody takes him on waivers. If Andrew Ference ends up as the 7th defenseman and is in the pressbox to start the season that means the Oilers will be carrying 8.15 Million in dead Cap weight this season with just those three players.
More cuts need to be made. We will wait and see.
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