The fact of the matter is he is the Oilers “albatross” right now because he’s on a 35+ contract and hard to trade so we are stuck with him for a while longer. I think/hope Renney will go with the guy who deserves the starts based on his play, so at least it does seem to be a situation where Khabi is in a battle to prove his worth and not the assumed starter. I think Dubnyk will end up with the bulk of the starts, and if Khabi can be a good little mentor and somewhat decent in a backup role, then so be it.

What will rot my socks will be continued references to Khabi as ‘MVP’ and if he is trotted out there automatically when Dubnyk is outplaying him. So far I haven’t seen Tambi admitting any mistakes but if this year continues with Khabi playing sub-par then at some point I want Tambi to man up.

But we’ve seen others have great bounce-back years (Penner being a good example, same with Souray until the recent events). It can happen for Khabi. I just think he’s on a short leash this year. It shouldn’t be him getting the job until he’s proved endlessly that he can’t be a starter here. For me, he has to earn the starter role. Dubnyk outplayed him last season… I’d give him the starter role by default. If he can’t handle it, then Khabi gets more games.

I like Khabi and think he’s a good team-guy, but I don’t see why he should be still considered our starter. At best for him, I think he has to battle it out with Doobie, 50/50.

All that said though, I try to avoid certain terms when critiquing a player and try not to get too harsh about it. Especially when they’re obviously players who care a lot about the team, but just are struggling bad.

Seriously though, very true. I’m not very optimistic that Khabi will be much of a goaltender this year, but I am giving him a chance… more than just one pre-season game. As for Gagner, I’m way ahead of you on preaching patience.

To Racki’s point of the numbers don’t matter as much as how he actually plays. His SV% was abysmal last night but which of the goals that he allowed were so soft that he’s done?

I’m probably going to take heat for defending Khabibulin but i’m trying not to be Bi-Poiler. I mean we haven’t even seen Gagner yet and people have him way down the depth chart because Lander has been so impressive.

Racki:
I think you can get by with a mediocre goaltender.. teams have done it… however to do so you absolutely need a strong defense, which we don’t have by any stretch of imagination.

Yes indeedy, would that we had some defense and the shitty goaltending might be mitigated somewhat.

I think Bunz has the potential to be that high end goaltender despite the number of goaltenders who went ahead of him in the 2010 draft (quite a few). He is the goaltender of our future, imho…. too bad the future for him is really quite far away.

Almost wish I could push the fast-forward button to see him in developed form.

And really, despite that I said we can get away with a mediocre goaltender, I don’t see why we didn’t really push for someone younger with potential. Like I said, we don’t have anywhere near the caliber of defense of teams like Nashville or Detroit even to play with average goaltenders and still have big success.

I want CuJo from 1997 back. Or Roli from 2006. Or if we’re really wishing for stuff, Timmy T from 2011.