We’re down to the last few players left to grade and there’s sweet Freedom on the horizon! The task of marking this pathetic group of miscreants was as torturous for me as it has been for them, and they’re the ones that have to live with the grade. Marking is cruel and unusual torture for any educator because so much effort has been put into the student just to get them ready for this moment that when they inevitably come up short a little piece of you dies inside. That’s why so many elementary school teachers want to abolish grades; it makes them feel like they failed to teach their students when they fail to teach their students. And that would be just too depressing. It has been my goal during this marking process to be fair but also realistic. The Oilers are a 28th placed team and were outplayed in at least 60 games this season. They had an occasional bright-spot but no wealth of exceptional seasons. That isn’t to be confused with a lack of exceptional players. The Oilers have quality players in RNH, Eberle, Schultz, and Yakupov that had a range of good to poor seasons. The team just wont climb out of the basement until those players have excellent seasons together. So if you’ve reviewed the marks and they seem too low for you because you love Andrew Ference, just remember that he Captained a stinker of a team to worse position than they were in the season before and you’ll have my response ready for you. The marking has been done in 4 stages: Forwards (Fringes), Forwards (Regulars), Defensemen, and now Goalies. The Oilers used 6 goalies this season, which is again an NHL high (tied with Buffalo). Goaltending wasn’t supposed to be Edmonton’s biggest weakness this year, but it quickly became nightmare fuel for Craig MacTavish. The team had a youngish up and comer who graduated up the ranks from the ECHL all the way to NHL Starter and an experienced backup who had posted quality numbers in the past. Then the season started. By January the franchise had made a complete turnover of their netminders, all the way down to the minor leagues. Madness. THE GOALIES F- Devan Dubnyk. 32GP, 11W-17L-2OT, .894sv%. If this mark actually existed, Dubnyk would deserve it. This was a contract year and his first full season as a starter. He had won the position and there was nobody in the organization who could take it from him. To say that his year was disastrous would be underselling it. Dubnyk singlehandedly cost the Oilers even the hope of making the playoffs before the clock struck midnight on Halloween. If that wasn’t bad enough, when he was eventually traded he was so bad that he was demoted to the AHL and even there he posted a sub-.900 save percentage in 8 AHL contests. Now, we’re left to wonder if he will ever play another professional game in North America, or for that matter, anywhere. F Jason LaBarbera. 7GP, 1W-3L-0OT, .870sv%. LaBackup needed to be at least average when Dubnyk failed the Oilers, what they got was actually worse. His save percentage in Phoenix for the last 3 years was .909, .912, and .923 in that order so needless to say neither he nor the team expected a .053 point drop off. His failures this year followed him to the AHL as well, where he posted a .901 in 32 games with Rockford. Much like Dubnyk, one has to wonder if an NHL team will ever trust him to be the backup again. Brutal. C Richard Bachman. 3GP, 0W-2L-1OT, .916sv%. He had an incredible debut facing 48 shots against the Kings and allowing just the 1 goal against in OT. Unfortunately he followed that up with 2 very poor outings, the last of which he was replaced in. He's a small goalie trying to make it in an era where goalies are considered undersized when they're 2 inches taller than he is.
C+ Ilya Bryzgalov. 20GP, 5W-8L-5OT, .908sv%. Overall I was content with Bryzgalov’s body of work with the Oilers. He was prone to a bad game or two but wasn’t the reason the team lost on most nights. However, a .908sv% wasn’t good enough to be a starter and I’m not sure either party was committed to the other. It just made for a better fit to see him off with another NHL club while the Oilers filled his spot with someone who could potentially start more games. The Wacky goalie has an eccentric personality but he still has enough skills to play in the NHL, but I wouldn’t want to count on him every game.
B Viktor Fasth. 7G, 3W-3L-1OT, .914sv%. When the Oilers acquired him they were trying to get someone who could push Scrivens and potentially overtake him as the starter. He never did get enough starts to really show what he's still capable of doing, but he provided more stability from the 2G spot than the Oil had previously. One of the areas of his game that appears (based on a very small sample size) to be slightly ahead of Scrivens is his rebound control. Overall, he wasnt spectacular, but he was getting the job done. That's all this franchise ever asked from its goaltenders.
B+ Ben Scrivens. 21GP, 9W-11L-0OT, .916sv%. The Professor started out of the gate like gangbusters sporting a .940sv% for a good while, but he really slowed down in March and April dragging his numbers back down to human levels. He didnt make it to the A range because of the way he finished the season and because I'm hoping we havent seen the best of this player. Sometimes you challenge students with a mark because you know they have more to give. The highlight of Scrivens' season was his record setting shutout performance against the Sharks at Rexall in which he faced 59 shots (and over 100 shot attempts).
THOUGHTS
The Oilers finally have a tandem in net they can believe in, unfortunately the catalyst for change was abject failure. As tempting as it would have been to jump on the excitement that Ben Scrivens brought to the position and give him an A-, even he didnt really warrant a mark that high. The good news is that moving forward Edmonton's greatest weakness isnt at its most vital position.
The marking is now complete and looking back there's plenty of room for optimism. The season was, in part, so terrible because the Oil have many players who were playing below their potential. RNH, Yak, Schultz, and several others are capable of incredible growth as players.
Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy