Welcome to Ask Dubey! I’m very excited to launch this new show on Oilersnation.

If you’re unfamiliar, I’m Devan Dubnyk. I played 12 years in the NHL with the Edmonton Oilers, Nashville Predators, Arizona Coyotes, Minnesota Wild, San Jose Sharks, and Colorado Avalanche.

That sounds like a lot, but most of my career was spent between Edmonton and Minnesota. I played 500-plus games in the league and I know a little bit about hockey. I’ve seen a few shots come my way and I’ve also watched a lot of hockey. I did some analyst work with the NHL Network and I’m currently analyzing playoff games on Pre-Gaming With Bordzy and Oilersnation After Dark.

This is a perfect time to get this show going and explain what it’s about. This is an exciting show. It’s a chance to interact with fans and it’s an important thing for you not to get cliché answers, the generic post-game answers, the regular media answers.

I want to field questions from you guys. Anything you can think of on the ice, things you see in the league, things you see in youth hockey, off the ice, anything you want to get an answer from an ex-NHL player, I’m game to talk about.

I’m happy to give you candid answers and insight from my perspective on that stuff. The best way to get your questions answered is by tagging Oilersnation on social media with the hashtag AskDuby or dropping your question in the comment section on the YouTube videos.

That’s a great question and an interesting one to think of, because when I think back, obviously, I went through a lot of ups and downs in my career.

I wouldn’t take anything back, though. I was extremely happy. There were a lot of down times, and I’d love to change things. But when I look back on it and where I am now, I really wouldn’t want to change anything. I learned so many things from the ups and downs as a person.

One thing I wouldn’t tell myself is that it’s very difficult to make the NHL as a goalie. When I say that, it’s because it’s important for kids and anybody who dreams of playing professional or playing in the NHL to hold on to that dream. Almost for lack of a better word, you need to naively hold on to that dream. Because if you look back at all the pieces that need to fall exactly into place, skill level or not, for everything to happen the way that it did, if you knew that at 18 years old, it might seem extremely overwhelming.

I know it would have been difficult for me to think ahead. Take it from draft day. I just got picked in the first round by Edmonton. Everything is amazing. I’m going to play for the Edmonton Oilers. And that’s how you should be thinking. But Nikolai Khabibulin had to hurt his back for me to get an opportunity to play. And then we had to be bad for me to really get an opportunity to play.

It took me a while to get there. And all of these things that happened, like getting traded, ending up in the American League, I needed to get a chance. It had to be in Arizona to get this opportunity, and then getting traded in Minnesota at the right time. I mean, all of these things, the way they need to fall in place, it would be extremely overwhelming as an 18-year-old to know this.

I would just tell myself the same thing. Just keep dreaming and focus on what you have to do to get there.

There aren’t a lot of good things when it comes to remembering the trade to Nashville. It was just crazy. I found out from text messages before I actually talked to the team.

Things were obviously not going well that year. It was an extremely difficult year. We were on the road in the hotel room in Minnesota, and I got a call from our assistant general manager, and he said, ‘Can you come up to my room to talk to me?

And I instantly got extremely nervous. I knew something was up, but you also don’t know for sure. Before I even got to the elevator, my phone just started ringing. My brother was calling me, my friends were calling me. It all got out in the media that the trade had happened before I even got an opportunity to talk and be told.

It was really a crazy experience for me, considering it was the first time I was traded. I just dreamed that I was going to play in Edmonton my whole career. And obviously that’s not realistic for most people. A lot of guys do.

The first few days after the trade, I would go to sleep and have these weird dreams. I would wake up, and I would have to ask myself if it really happened. Did that really happen? I’m no longer an Edmonton Oiler. I’m now a Nashville Predator. It didn’t feel real for days and days. I’d fall asleep and forget and wake up and then remember, I’m now a Nashville predator.