ARMCHAIR GM XV: DOWN A CHIP

Granted, the market was at best minute and any return wasn’t going to be much more than a box of tape or a bucket of pucks, but Edmonton Oilers GM Steve Tambellini has one less bargaining chip to play between now and the NHL trade deadline, thanks to Nikolai Khabibulin’s tender groin.

With the deadline arriving next Monday, the Oilers announced Khabibulin will be on the shelf for seven to 10 days because of a strained groin, which he suffered while digging pucks out of the net in the first period of a 5-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks Sunday.

That timetable, even at seven days, takes Khabibulin to the deadline and effectively puts an end to the possibility, however remote, of moving the 39-year-old along to a team looking for help in the crease. With Khabibulin having one more year remaining on his contract, the market for him was, what, Chicago and . . ?

If there’s a silver lining, the injury will give Tom Renney little choice but to take a longer look at Devan Dubnyk, who has yet to prove he’s the answer in goal down the road. Given the Oilers have a day off before each of their next six games, it’s possible he could start every one of them. No need to spell Dubnyk off with Yann Danis, who has been recalled from Oklahoma City.

For the most part, Dubnyk has struggled mightily of late. In his last five games, Dubnyk’s saves percentages have been .786, .870, .833, .897 and .915. Overall, he’s sitting at .905 with a 3.05 GAA. These are not the numbers, even allowing for the flawed team in front of him, of a goaltender who can carry the mail moving forward.

If you take Tambellini at his word, Khabibulin isn’t the only chip off the table because he’s already gone on record as saying he’s not going to move Ryan Smyth, who has drawn more interest from contending teams than pending unrestricted free agent Ales Hemsky.

This, from Jim Matheson’s Hockey World at the Edmonton Journal:

Smyth, who can’t be moved without giving his consent, is also on the record as saying Edmonton is where he wants to be and that he has no interest in taking a run at a Stanley Cup elsewhere, even if he retains the option to come back with a new contract next season. Smyth reiterated that with me in a conversation in the last couple of days.

— Everybody paying attention knows the Los Angeles Kings are in desperate need of scoring help up front. They’ve got no shot, none, to do anything in the playoffs without that component. That fact, and it’s no news bulletin, makes Hemsky a possibility.

That said, I shudder every time I read somebody suggesting that taking Dustin Penner back in a do-over as part of a trade might make it work with Dean Lombardi. When I said last week that Tambellini should get what he can for Hemsky, I didn’t mean accepting less than nothing.

Some people are of the mind that Tambellini should do everything he can to re-sign Hemsky unless he’s got a better Plan B for a top-six forward in mind, and that’s certainly fair comment.

Others, including those supposedly in the know, have suggested that Tambellini might address fears about Hemsky’s durability by offering him a contract with less term than the four or five years he and agent Jiri Crha are seeking or by putting a pact laden with performance bonuses on the table.

I’ve had a reader ask about this possibility in recent days and yesterday, the person who calls themselves TreenasOil on Twitter indicated the Oilers are doing exactly that by tweeting the following: "Oilers working on a bonus laced contract for Hemsky with term."

While that makes perfect sense, it’s not allowed under the CBA. Here’s the language on bonuses:

Have a terrific Family Day.