How good is Devan Dubnyk?

This is a good question, because not only is he not really a known goalie around the league playing for a young team that has not really been known for any success as of late, but he also has only been a starter for 128 games over the last 4 seasons. In comparison best goalies around the league have played double that. He also has the size going for him. Listed at 6’5″ this Regina, Saskatchewan goaltender is one of the biggest tenders in the league.

Lots of pucks hit this kid.

Well, no longer a kid at 27 years old, Devan is poised to have one of the best seasons of his career. Edmonton Oilers have collected themselves a fairly good team this year. They got three number one picks up front, this does not include Jordan Eberle, and they picked up one of the better stay at home defenseman in Andrew Ference. This coupled with Sam Gagner, finally, emerging as a true number one center the team desperately needed, we have a quite a squad.

The myth, around the water coolers, is that Edmonton Oilers have a potent dynamic young offense but a terrible defense with questionable goaltending. This simply is no longer true.

The defensive part may lack the same reputation as Nashville or Phoenix, but if you payed attention last season, you would notice that Edmonton gave up less goals than Nashville. Even Nikolai Khabibulin, the 40 year old, posted .923 save percentage! In the mean time the offense was lackluster and finished ranked 18th in the league with only 2.6 goals for.

Now, l do not want to paint a picture of a top tier defense here, they did finish 19th in goals against, but they still gave up less goals than NY islanders and it was not only due to an improved defense. It has all to do with the play of Devan Dubnyk. So, let us shine some light on this goalies last year good performance.

How good? Well, who do you think has better stats this season Jonathon Quick or Devan Dubnyk? Quick had 2.45 GAA .902 SAV% and Devan Dubnyk finished the season with 2.57 GAA .920 SAV%. This should tell you all about what Dubnyk was able to accomplish for the Edmonton Oilers. In fact, he finished every single month with save percentage of .920 or over. This rules out a fluky or inconsistent play, it shows that when Edmonton Oilers paid this man 3.5 million dollars for a two year deal, they got a good goalie to backstop a young team.

What is also impressive is that he continues to play well even when under great pressure. His SAV% while shorthanded is .907 and while that may seem low, only one other goalie got over .900 SAV% and played over 30 games. Pekke Rinne and Niklas Backstrom both finished with .818 and .863 SAV% respectively and Only Ryan Miller faced more shots against while being short handed and he posted .862%. Those are considered very good goalies too. But the stat that most experts consider a good tell of goalies true talent is the 5 on 5 SAV% and here we see Dubnyk continues his consistency of keeping a .922%.

These numbers are very impressive in my opinion, specially that Khabibulins numbers while shorthanded dip to .843 SAV%.

Not all is that peachy for the Oilers and Dubnyk though. Edmonton still gives up tons of shots and there is that slightly high goals against average that is a sore eye. He has yet to play over 60 games during a season and that is what you are looking for in a true number one starter. There is a also some games where either lack of concentration or lack of help from his team, where he lets in goals in bunches. In the last 37 games started he has let in 4 or more goals 6 times. This and long stretches where this team had trouble scoring, caused another disappointing season for the Oilers faithful.

So, we finally get to see Dubnyk play an 82 game season and come into the off-season with the starting job as his to lose. Oilers as a whole are improved and it will be exciting to see if Taylor Hall can grow into a point per game player over an 82 game season. Will the defense come together this year? Will the offense see an improved production from Gagner, Yakupov, Eberle, Hopkins, and Hemsky? While, those questions might be debatable, I think another solid year from Devan Dubnyk, in his contract year no less, is nothing to doubt, but to expect.

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