Comments on: State of undress…

By: Racki

Racki — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:57:27 +0000

Interesting, thanks for the LNOF… if the trade goes through, that would be a pretty good test for him.

By: LateNightOilFan

LateNightOilFan — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 07:21:38 +0000

Well, I’ll put this in here, seeing as it’s a goaltending thread. Saw Olivier Roy tonight, pretty solid, but keep in mind it was against the last placed team in the Q in the Hfx Mooseheads. Anyway, the final score was 4-2 Cape Breton. It was too bad the Moosehead goalie let in the first 2 shots he faced, otherwise it obviously would have been a much closer game – didn’t help that his own D-man scored the 4th goal on him Steve Smith style either.

Anyway, back to Roy, his night started off slowly (7 SOG in the 1st) but by the end the Mooseheads had 24 SOG. He struck me as being very good positionally, not flopping around much and played his angles well. The only 2 goals he gave up were PP goals – one was a screened 5 on 3 and the other was double deflected on a 5 on 4. At first I thought he could have had his pad flush on the ice for that one but my son, who was sitting with friends closer to the ice told me it deflected down and under the pad so difficult to anticipate. As the game wore on the Moose got some good chances in close and he stayed square to the puck well. There was a goal called back where the Moosehead player drove to the net from the left wing, not sure if it was called back due to goalie interference or because the net came off before the puck went in the net. They failed to give the crowd the reason.

Anyway, apparently tonight the Moosehead’s first goal ended a 155 minute long shutout streak for Roy, which is 5th all time in the QMJHL, which is pretty impressive given the league is in it’s 40th year and other guys on the list below him are Luongo and Theodore. He also actually holds the 4th longest shutout streak at 167 minutes from back in 07/08. Finally, Roy also set a Cape Breton franchise record of 10 shutouts last night when the Eagles beat the Moose 6-0. Junior is pretty high-scoring so that’s fairly impressive over 2 1/2 years.

RDS rumour has Roy being traded to Montreal Juniors for Jake Allen + a couple other players from each side + picks – just a rumour for now, if it has legs I assume it will be announced after the World Juniors. Of course that has no impact on the Oilers except maybe to put him on a slightly weaker team and see how he responds.

By: Racki

Racki — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:55:48 +0000

Yah, again, Khabibulin really should be the transitional goalie (but isn’t, by virtue of his horrible contract). But let’s humor it and say it was a good contract. I would be slowly trying to work our young goaltender into the full time starting role. As things started to get a little questionable in net, I’d lay off him a bit and hand things over to Khabi.

That could still happen, but with Khabi @ this price for 4 years, I don’t think Tambellini had any plans on that slow transition starting this year. Either that, or he envisioned his transition to be a HELL of a lot slower than I did (either way, this doesn’t justify the length of that contract).

By: Mr.Majestyk

Mr.Majestyk — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:42:54 +0000

If they decided to bring in Halak, because they are concerned about Khabi’s durability not only this year but beyond, maybe Halak is okay with sharing duties or battling Khabi for the starting role. Atleast in Edmonton he has an opportunity to take that spot. In Montreal, its Price’s job. It doesn’t matter how many games Price stinks it up, he is their man. The next question is, how much does Halak command when its time for a new contract?

By: gr8one

gr8one — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:07:04 +0000

yeah, it’s not the cap hit I don’t like about Khabi’s contract…it’s the term, two years would have been ideal, 3 acceptable, but 4 was just plain stupid, especially considering his retirement would still count against the cap.