"Battle" of the Backups

by Jonathan Willis on Apr 1, 2009 3:17 PM MDT

Outside of Dwayne Roloson, three goaltenders have a) played in the NHL and b) been Oilers property this season. Mathieu Garon was dumped after failing to live up to his performance last season, while Dany Sabourin has been stuck in the minors. The third goaltender is the current backup, 2002 2nd round pick Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers.

Frequent commenter Dennis made this statement over at OilersNation:

Garon’s a proven netminder and he isn’t making big dollars but he’s dealt for a package that doesn’t help us now and doesn’t promise to provide much help in the future.

I'm not convinced that Dennis is right. Here are the NHL numbers for all three goaltenders this season:

Sabourin: 19GP, 6-8-2, 2.85 GAA, .898 SV%
Garon: 18GP, 7-9-0, 3.25 GAA, .890 SV%
Deslauriers: 8GP, 3-2-0, 3.57 GAA, .889 SV%

As with my post on ECHL goaltenders the other day, there's one point that I think is noteworthy: of the three, Dany Sabourin is the only one currently stuck in the minors.

Now, I'm not about to jump on the Dany Sabourin bandwagon, since we all know what he is: a journeyman goaltender who is quite capable as a #2 goaltender if there's a reliable #1 goaltender. What I will say is that he's a) having a better season than Garon and b) not the question mark that Deslauriers is. Both of which make me wonder why he wasn't recalled to give Roloson a night off at some point.

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Northwest Standings

	GP	W	L	OTL	PT
Vancouver Nucks Misconduct	53	33	15	5	71
Minnesota Hockey Wilderness	53	25	20	8	58
Colorado Mile High Hockey	55	27	25	3	57
Calgary Matchsticks and Gasoline	53	24	22	7	55
Edmonton The Copper & Blue	53	21	27	5	47

(updated 2.8.2012 at 7:10 AM MST)

21 - 27 - 5

Streak: Lost 1

Oilers Schedule

Next 5 Games

@ Detroit Winging It In Motown	Wed 02/08	5:30 PM MST
@ Ottawa Silver Seven	Sat 02/11	12:00 PM MST
Toronto Pension Plan Puppets	Wed 02/15	8:00 PM MST
Colorado Mile High Hockey	Fri 02/17	7:30 PM MST
Vancouver Nucks Misconduct	Sun 02/19	7:00 PM MST

Last 5 Games

@ Toronto Pension Plan Puppets	Mon 02/06	L 3 - 6
Detroit Winging It In Motown	Sat 02/04	SO - W 5 - 4
Chicago Second City Hockey	Thu 02/02	W 8 - 4
Colorado Mile High Hockey	Tue 01/31	W 3 - 2
@ Vancouver Nucks Misconduct	Tue 01/24	SO - L 2 - 3