Bryzgalov is up in Edmonton and wearing number 80, LaBarbera has been placed on waivers and will likely find himself in OKC barring someone taking a chance on him. It has taken some time since the signing was made official but the Oilers finally have the Goalie/Cosmonaut tandem they envisioned for themselves. So what now?
Do the Oilers let Bryzgalov jump right into action or make him wait to get that start in? Certainly they didn’t sign Bryz to his deal so he could ride some pine but in reality he hasn’t had a lot practice time or game action. He played just 2 games for the Barons. In the first one he was rusty and allowed a good number of goals, albeit close observers suggested that he was not to blame for many of them. In his second game he reportedly looked much better, visibly having knocked some rust off in the match prior. Is that really enough though?
The game tomorrow night will be against a very average looking Sergei Bobrovsky and a Blue Jackets squad that is 7th in the Metropolitan division. It’s a winnable game for the Oilers but so is the Thursday game against the Panthers. Either game would be a solid entry point for Bryzgalov, but there’s a bit of an issue. Dubnyk has suddenly started to play relatively well. He has made 92 stops on 96 shots in his last 3 games. Should Edmonton really stop going to Dubnyk with the roll that he’s on?
YES. Just not until the Thursday game. Dubnyk has had three good games in a row, congratulations the season is already effectively over. The Oil decided they needed Bryzgalov because they spent a quarter of the season waiting for Devan to show up but it never happened. They signed him, so they might as well go with their new Russian Ursuphobe, except today will be his first practice with real NHL players so it would be wise to let him take a couple days to get used to big time shots. He should draw in to action on Thursday unless the club has complete faith in him after today.
As for Dubnyk, I’m glad he’s playing well. If he was a capable number 1 starter then he wouldn’t have needed this long to find his form. There has been a persistent belief that Dubnyk has always needed someone there to push him. Someone to challenge him for starts to get the most out of him. His play since the Oilers acquired Bryzgalov has done nothing to dissuade people from thinking that. He only started to pull out of his funk when the club decided they wanted to go another direction. If that’s what you want from someone you have to count on then we will have to agree to disagree.
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