Or "I think I pulled my Khabbi"?*

Sorry, couldn't resist.

*Slinks back into cubicle as realizes this wasn't very funny.

Who knew running an aging injury prone goalie ragged game after game, with a tremendous work load each game, would re-injure himself? I thought the fired trainers would be the end of not properly rehabilitating injured players after they injure themselves. Guess not.

That groin might get quite a workout down there - maybe he's better off waiting until it's healed to report to jail.

Answer to this is simple really.. JDD is not in the long term plans of this team... his contract is up end of this year... makes more sense to give DD the time and Gerber is much better goalie that JDD by a landslide... we might start winning some games after all... Hopefully Khabby is out for the year...

Ok, seriously, every freaking year they say, "we have to limit Khabbi's starts, he's only going to play 50 games or so, and EVERY FREAKING YEAR they've run him out there for way too many games off the hop and he gets injured.

FIGURE IT OUT, OILERS! PLAY YOUR BACK-UP GOALIE!

Does nobody know about MATH at Oil HQ?!!

Yeah the Khabibulin signing was junk, but so what? I'll take 4 years of him as a better signing than 15 years of Kovalchuk, 12 years of Luongo, and 10 years of Lecavalier.

And yes his summer was stellar, he got rid of 3/4 of the problemed vets all the while taking back nothing. Vandermeer on a 1-year deal, ooooohhhh. Yeah he's crap, but he's gone next year and it's not like the fans are signing his pay cheque.

If a team is focused on rebuilding, at some point they have to play the players within the organization. That's what the Oilers are doing, and it's evident that they're not good enough. Rushing out to make a deal because they're playing ridiculous isn't going to do much. Who wants anything the Oilers are willing to part with anyway? You people act like being a GM is a cake walk.

@ baggedmilk:

So buying out one guy, trading another (who he acquired to begin with) for an overpaid plug and losing one guy on the waiver wire is a "stellar" summer? C'mon.

All Tambellini did was clear out some forwards so the rookies could step in. That's all. We can discuss leaving obvious holes as being part of the rebuilding plan, but Tambellini didn't do anything especially brilliant, and despite no expectation that he ice a winning team he couldn't keep himself from retaining Strudwick, starting the year with three goaltenders, and sticking Paajarvi in the league a year too early.

He didn't have a bad summer, by the unexacting standards of a rebuilding team. But it sure wasn't stellar, and his previous work is a big part of the reason this team is where it is today.

Beat me to it, LT.

Tyler put it this way:

Khabibulin's last game in 2009-10: November 16. This year, we made it to November 17 before new goalie called up. PROGRESS.

For those of us who had November 18... what do we win?

traktor = that Nate Hate guy?

Sheesh man, DD definately won't match them, he'll IMPROVE on them. Book it.

Agreed. Too bad I put in my 2 cents on mini packs when things were still slightly rosey. Man, I'm a sucker! Every year!

RE: Backup goalies are currently $0.25/lb.

That's a good price. I may buy one just to shovel my snow for the winter and play on my floor hockey team.

I think what he meant was $0.25/lb/minute.

A 220 lb goalie, then, would be 220 x $0.25 x (180 minutes/game x 82 games per year) = $0.81M.

Sounds about right. Nice calculating, KSC10032.

Back in the old days when we were Sure that Lowe was running this club I liked to say that he had a motto "excuses in lieu of success" so today's news is right up his alley given that the Oilers were off to such a great start with Khabby leading the way and we know they would have been right in the hunt for a playoff spot had he not went down.

There's no point in sending any of the kids down now. None whatsoever.

I think you could argue this point, for Paajarvi in particular. He's not getting a lot of special teams minutes, so if you have future aspirations for him to play a bunch on the PP and PK I think there's some kind of argument for sending him down to the AHL, provided you're going to give him #1 PP and #1 PK time down there, and provided he's not going to get much of an opportunity up here.

It would also have the additional benefit of a chance to look at Omark (or whoever else) in the meantime, should you so desire.

smiliegirl15 wrote:

although playing the heavy with Souray by sending him down to Hershey definitely sends a message, it's starting to look more and more like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Edmonton could certainly use a good veteran defenseman of Souray's calibre right about now.

I'm not picking on SG15 in particular, but why are so many people advocating for Souray to be back on this team? Philosophical differences aside, having Souray play here right now makes no sense. What's the argument? That he could help the Oilers win games? Really? Are you kidding? Have you seen the rest of the team? Ovechkin couldn't help this year's Oilers win games.

If Souray was the difference between finishing 30th and finishing 25th (and I don't believe that for a second), that still leaves me baffled as to how people think having him here would be a good thing.

True - but the Malholtra signing is the only one that we know of... Granted, this argument is a 'he said/she said', but we can't say Tambo hasn't done anything... Darren Dreger @ TSN has said Tambo is looking for a defenseman a couple of days ago... Tambo is at least trying to fill some blatant holes; unfortunately I don't believe he has any assets to do this with...

I think I know exactly what was going through his mind...

"Ok, first I fake groin injury - then I retire due to injury - then I take insurance money and go back to Russia where I can drink vodka and drive whenever i want because Russian Police happy to take bottle of vodka instead of make me charges. Also get lots of Russian women. Stupid Oilers"

Unbelievable timing. Perhaps this is a silver lining, and Dubnyk can get some time as the FIST stringer. We were begging for more starts for DD, and now we get it. Curious why Gerberbaby call the call before JD?

The professional version of "I think pulled my hammy"?

@ Dave Manson:

According to Dan Tencer, because the Oilers want to let Dubnyk run with the minutes.

I'm thinking Deslauriers' rough start in OKC might have something to do with it too.

@ JW

I thought it was because JD had to go through recall waivers.

I hope the players are not going to drop like flies like the last 4 yrs.

Wow .... all I can say is Wow.

This feels like Groundhog day.

So is officially the DFF V2.0 ? or were we already there?

@ TigerUnderGlass:

I could be wrong, but I believe they could have done an emergency recall without exposing JDD to waivers.

Well, we might as well start the debate: Right now I'm on "Team Larsson"

Losing for Larsson?

The MVP is out?

Well that's it, the season's done now.

I knew there were going to be some tough times for the Mighty Drop while Khabby served his own hard time in tent city during the soul-crushing Arizona winter, but an injury too? That's like piling parrot guano ontoppa cowpie. Or as we like to call it around here...

Icing on the cake.

If Khabby hadn't pulled his own groin, someone in Oilers coaching/management was going to do it for him.

Hands up anyone who didn't see this marching down Jasper Ave, beatin' on a big bass drum. In a couple of days, we'll hear that "its worse than we thought", and he'll be back on IR -- (even though cap considerations are less than at this time last year).

Essentially, there is no reason to believe that Gerber -- at this point in time -- is not an equivalent goaltender to Khabibulin.

As for the JDD "recall waivers" issue, that is no more plausible than the entire "we're afraid of losing hi on waivers" argument has been over the past two-plus seasons. If we do lose JDD on waivers, we can pick up another goalie just as good -- via the same route -- virtually at any time. Backup goalies are currently $0.25/lb.

That's right, JDD could have been called up on emergency. They simply just want Dubnyk to play...and no point in having a guy like JDD sit on the bench when he could be getting action in OKC instead, thus Gerber.

Can DD match JDD's numbers from last year?

Don't bet on it.

DD fans about to get a rude awakening.

Maybe Nik should head down to Arizona and report for his jail time.

Countdown until the word 'surgery' makes an appearance starts.....

NOW!

Why do you say that? So far in relief for Khabibulin his .923 save% looks pretty good. If he can keep it above .900 he will be at least equal to JDD's numbers and that isn't an outrageously hard thing for DD to do imo.

~I don't get it~

Basically they want to give JDD more playing time to see if hes even a option for a contract next year. How he does OKL will determine that. I dont think DD will do better than JDD did last year, not the way the rest of the team is playing right now. Lets look at the real picture the team didn't help Bulin out much and the score of recent games shows that and after 5 goals Bulin just figures, hell I might as well half a$$ it like everyone else. We need Smid back and then we need Vandemeer and Strudwick to get injuried. As sorry as I am to say this Brule as well, he has really been a sour spot on the team this year. Free up his spot and give it to reddox and cogs out omark in. Wishful thinking but you never know. Maybe this is Karma for Bulin's extreme DUI that hes trying to get out of yet again making the Oilers look like sh!t off the ice as well.

Groundhog day was at least a somewhat amusing movie. This season is starting to look worse than last year, thus turning into a horror film.

Also team Larsson, they are calling this guy a franchise player and lets face it a star defenseman is part of what the team needs. We also need a start Center.

If Gerber is going to stay with the Oilers for any length of time I DEMAND he bring back the Darth Gerber mask.

@ Traktor:

You could be right. It's going to be difficult for him to keep those shiny numbers when he starts playing every night.

But at least it will give the Oilers a chance to see what they have in Dubnyk.

Last week I was spouting off about the need to bring up a player that would allow you to rotate rookies In and out of the line-up. It's becoming clear that strategy isn't going to help this team out.

The rookies are going to need a taste of success at some point this year and if that means sending them down to OKC for a stint to play on a first place team then so be it. Send all three down and bring up Reddox, Giroux, Omark or O'Marra. Ride it out for 10 games and see who in that group makes a case to stick on the big club. Personally, I don’t give a rat’s ass about watching rookies “develop” in the NHL on a team that sucks this bad. I’d rather watch a team of grinders gut it out and lose by goal than the pathetic display of hockey the Oilers are providing this year.

I like the season ticket holders quote in TJ’s article today in the Sun: “I agree with the rebuild, I’m just not sure I want to finance it”.

Fans deserve a better effort than what they are getting.

Lowetide wrote:

The veteran goalie has suffered a groin pull

Dave Manson wrote:

Unbelievable timing.

Literally.

Hall cannot go to the AHL this year he would have to be sent to Windsor for the remainder of the season.

Can't send Hall down. If you send him down it has to be the OHL and since it's past the magic 9 game mark he's an Oiler for the rest of the season.

And don't blame the losses on the '3.' It's a team effort to play this poorly, this often. Swapping Hall, Eberle and Paajarvi for Liam Reddox, Jody Shelly and Chris Neil won't exactly change things.

Yes, would be perfect time to do so.

Now thats funny.

Reminds me of these great Nike Hockey commercials:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4ghL3yWD-I

Does make you wonder a little, doesn't it?

Agreed that the fans do deserve better, but don't punish the kids for the veteran's mistakes... Hall, Eberle and MPS have done okay so far; they're also 1st round draft picks who have the personal grooming to understand what they were getting themselves into... They'll be fine...

The players that deserve your wrath along with most fans would be Penner and Gilbert... This is rebuild-hockey; the fact that some veterans have checked out is somewhat unfortunate...

See you in three years when we're back in the fight for a playoff spot, and again in four when we're getting past the first round..