Up and Down

By now, we’ve all heard the news (broken by Robin Brownlee here at OilersNation) that Rob Schremp has been recalled from the Springfield Falcons. The logical place for Schremp to enter the line-up is where Robert Nilsson exited it – on the left wing of a line featuring Andrew Cogliano and Sam Gagner, although I would imagine that there’s also a possibility of Marc Pouliot taking that spot.

I’m reasonably optimistic about this move. I’ve never been a backer of Schremp –- in my first post, I compared him to Jason Dawe. Outside of one season in junior, Schremp isn’t the elite offensive player that so many have imagined. That said, he’s been a consistent point producer in the AHL, and there isn’t any reason to believe that he can’t carry that over to the NHL with him.

Here are Rob Schremp’s stats over the past two seasons in the AHL:

2007-08: 78GP 23G 53A 76PTS 64PIM

2008-09: 18GP 1G 17A 18PTS 10PIM

While it may look like he’s just maintaining his pace from last year, Lowetide made a nice point in his blog last night. Borrowing from him, here are Rob Schremp’s even-strength scoring statistics:

2007-08: 71GP 8G 21A 29 PTS (.408 PTS/game)

2008-09: 18GP 1G 12A 13 PTS (.722 PTS/game)

It’s quite a jump. The other thing to bear in mind here is that Schremp is still shooting -– Chris in that same thread over at Lowetide’s pointed out that Schremp has 36 shots. That 2.7 SH% is not going to continue; Schremp is far too good an offensive player to be converting at that rate.

This off-season, I advocated trading Schremp because I felt he was NHL-ready, and I didn’t see an NHL spot that he had a realistic chance of getting. Now, I hope that he’ll force the Oilers’ hand -– play well enough at the NHL level that sending him back to Springfield isn’t realistic.

Well, he hasn’t been demoted or reassigned anywhere, but Devan Dubnyk has come crashing back to Earth after an incredible start. On November 17, the AHL named Dubnyk their Player of the Week after he went 2-1 with a 1.30 GAA and a .968 SV% in three games. At that point, Dubnyk was 7-6-1 with a 2.44 GAA and a .924 SV% on the season. In the five games since, he’s gone 2-3 with a 3.66 GAA and .875 SV%. His record on the season is now 9-9-1, 2.76 GAA and .912 SV%, which, while putting him on pace with Jeff Deslauriers’ performance last season, is only 19th overall in the AHL.

Dubnyk needs to be more than an average AHL starter if he’s going to earn an NHL job.