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.