‘Bulin Wall down for maintenance – what is Plan B?

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Renney shuffles lines as Oilers prepare for road trip

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Yesterday when word came down that Nikolai Khabibulin had missed practice, I nodded my head sagely and said, makes perfect sense. Oil don’t play again until Thursday, he’s turning 39 next month, give him a day off.

But now one “maintenance day” has stretched to two – or four, if you count back to the last time Khabi faced a puck fired in anger - as the netminder once again didn’t take the ice as the Oilers practiced in Millennium Place. It’s still two days from the next game, so maybe the Oilers are giving their oldest player a pre-Christmas break. He does, after all, maintain a home in Phoenix, so one guess is that he’s simply gone ahead of the team, who fly tomorrow. I’m not an insider so don’t know if he’s hanging around the training room or has just gone right off the radar. Given the nature of his most recent summer in Phoenix, I wouldn’t blame the team for being low-key about it. Whatever personal business Khabibulin might have in Phoenix is exactly that, his business. I’ll start panicking about the netminding at such time as he doesn’t dress, or for that matter, start against the Coyotes day after tomorrow.  

(EDIT: Tom Renney explicitly referred to Khabibulin still being with the team and working with trainer T.D. Forss on some “soreness” issues in this post-practice interview at the Oilers website.)

That said, Khabibulin has battled health issues in the past, going down in November in each of his first two years as an Oiler. So perhaps it’s timely to review what other options the Oilers might have at their disposal in the eventuality that happens again.

The news at the minor league level is all good – veteran pros Yann Danis and David LeNeveu are both having outstanding seasons with the Oklahoma City Barons of the AHL, while rookie Olivier Roy is performing well with ECHL’s Stockton Thunder. 

Danis is the Barons starter and the de facto #3 man in the organization, “a heartbeat away from the Oilers” so to speak. The 30-year-old veteran of 49 games and a very decent .912 career save percentage at the NHL level, recently surpassed the 200-GP plateau in the AHL. He’s jumped out to a 12-4-0 start with the Barons, with a 2.31 goals-against average and excellent .924 save percentage, ranking among the league leaders in all categories.

He faces some heavy internal competition from LeNeveu, 28, himself an AHL veteran (284 GP) who has played 22 games in the bigs. The putative backup has played his way into the rotation, posting sensational numbers of 7-2-1, 1.79, .935. The pair of former Ivy Leaguers have formed an outstanding partnership that has led the Barons to first place in the AHL overall standings, as well as the best defensive record in the league.

Down in Stockton, Roy has posted less gaudy W-L numbers (4-6-3) but his other stats are solid at 2.50, .920. He was named ECHL Goalie of the Week a while back, and seems to be settling in nicely.

Should the organization need to play musical chairs with their goalie group for a period of time, with all three netiminders showing well I don’t think enough has happened to change the depth chart that we postulated in August. Danis is surely first in line for the call to Edmonton, LeNeveu would step into the #1 role with the Barons, and Roy would be recalled to back up in OKC and perhaps get the odd game at the next level.

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While Khabibulin’s status is a bit of a mystery, there is better news up front where Taylor Hall has gotten rid of the “no contact” sweater and joined Shawn Horcoff and Ales Hemsky. The line of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins between Sam Gagner and Jordan Eberle remains intact, with Ryan Smyth having bumped down to the third line with Eric Belanger and Ryan Jones. The remaining five players – Anton Lander, Magnus Paajarvi, Lennart Petrell, Ben Eager and Darcy Hordichuk shared time on the fourth/fifth lines.

This is a somewhat different role for Smyth, who has been a constant in the top six until now, but as he has proven time and again with Team Canada his is the type of game that fits well on any line. There’s always room for a two-way player. Mr. Smyth and Mr. Jones played together quite a bit on the shutdown line with Horcoff while Hemsky was out earlier this season, and with Belanger would form a solid-looking “secondary toughs” line.

The problem is that Oilers are currently on the road so Renney doesn’t get to choose the match-ups. So far this season the youngsters have excelled at home and had much more trouble away, where opposing coaches have been hard-matching Oilers’ high-scoring but nonetheless vulnerable kids. Should that continue to be the case, the 3H Line will have to take advantage and make opposing coaches pay for their choices. The veteran third line has sufficient scoring depth and defensive chops to at least hold their own, with all three also key to the penalty kill which has been Oilers’ Achilles heel of late. The fourth line contains lots of choices, none of which seems likely to have too great an effect on the outcomes of games.

One formula for winning is to have two of the top three lines outscoring, with at least a break-even proposition on special teams. With their forwards corps healthy, the Oilers depth is sufficient to cause a few headaches on the other side of the ice.

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