Word tonight the Edmonton Oilers have signed goalie Jeff Deslauriers. No terms, we wait that capgeek magic.
The Oilers have three goalies on one way contracts. Many of us felt someone was heading out of town this summer, but with the NK trial it might mean all three come to camp for insurance.
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ReplyDeleteI hope this three headed monster resolves itself soon. Deslauriers can't be shown the door fast enough.
ReplyDeleteIf Khabby shows up for TC and is healthy I firmly believe that DD or JDD starts for OKC.
ReplyDeleteMagic 8 ball says DD stays with the Oilers.
I don't know why everyone thinks Deslauriers is a bad goalie. Here's my case:
ReplyDelete(1) The Oilers' defence was AWFUL last year - Grebs and Staios were pitiful, Souray, when playing, was bad, Gilbert was a bit lost till Whitney came on board, and Visnovsky and Smid, though quite good when they were the 2nd or 3rd pairing, didn't play as well when they were forced up the depth chart. A group like this would make a lot of goalies look bad.
(2) It was his first year as a starter. Not many goalies get it right right out of the gate. Anyone remember how bad Jimmy Howard was at the beginning of last season? Then he got some experience, the Wings got healthy, and he took off. I'm not suggesting it will be the same with Deslauriers, only that we can't point at the low as establishing a level of performance.
(3) We forget that he had some good games. Yes, he was inconsistent, but when he was good, he was very good. He has some talent and can steal a game when he's on.
All this is not to say that although he's not the answer, he's also not the problem. Mathieu Garon is a fair comparison. He will be a pretty good #2 one day somewhere, maybe even a 1B option.
In a year where we're not supposed to compete anyway, I wouldn't mind running with Deslauriers and Dubnyk. I'm not suggesting that they'll be atrocious and we'll intentionally tank, I'm just saying that if a healthy Khabibulin gets us between 8th and 11th, would it be so bad if we ran with the kids and got between 10th and 13th. Maybe one of the goalies even establishes themselves, who knows. Khabibulin has at most 2 years left in him anyway, and probably a lot less.
Peter,
ReplyDeleteI think it's useful to have a solid goaltender behind skaters who're learning to play defense. It reduces the stakes on every play they make which will hopefully allow calm to prevail. I think players will learn better when they are calm than when obsessing about causing a goal if they make a mistake.
However, I totally agree that everyone is being way too negative on JDD (and too positive on DD). Both are young and unproven. Both have had short stretches of good play but lacked consistency. Just because DD had a good 10 games to close out the season doesn't mean it's sustainable.
I'm all for shipping one guy out (either to Oklahoma or to another team) since we probably don't have enough back-up starts to develop both. But any preference for DD to be the guy to stay should be slight.
i'm glad they signed him. he stepped up when asked last year. i know people tend to quote stats, and his weren't great, but i swear i've never seen fans give up so quickly on a young goalie as they have on him! i know they say he is the odd man out, numbers wise, but i'd at least like to get a few years out of him and see what he can really do.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping some strange deal would have come through that moved Khabi to chicago and gave us Huet.
ReplyDeleteAll the Hawk's major secondary bodies have been moved out and we look to be planning on quasi tanking this year again oh well.
Three headed goalie monster here we come!! Khabi isn't going anywhere so hopefully they push one of the other guys through the waiver. I was just hoping we finally had made a decision one way or the other on this one.
Chartleys
Has NK even put on a pair of skates since surgery?
ReplyDeleteI bet he skips camp and comes to pre-season dehydrated and slow.
DD and JD had better come ready.
I didn't like the Khabby signing then, and I certainly don't like it now.
ReplyDeleteSigning both JDD and DD for this season was always on the cards once back surgery + DUI = oh dear. Now we're either going to have three in net come TC - never an ideal situation for young, developing goaltenders (both are at risk from waivers if sent down, correct?)- or our starter will begin the season in some Arizona jail as JDD & DD struggle behind a weak blue.
Neither scenario is going to be positive.
Incidentally, I'm in Scotland, and not up to speed on US/Canada border crossing issues; would Khabby have any problems travelling between the US and Canada if convicted? And if so, does this mean there's an contractual opt-out?
JDD is a good goalie. Good season playing #1 when he clearly was slated to be Nikolai's backup.
ReplyDeleteGive him the benefit of the doubt.
You can't teach glove hand, and JDD's is awful.
ReplyDeleteNobody is turning on JDD for anything he doesn't deserve. He is good for at least one atrocious goal per game played. As Schitzo mentionned his glove hand is awful and his numbers are not good in either the AHL or the NHL.
ReplyDeleteThis guy is not going to get any better and is not the guy they need to have playing behind their developing players in the NHL.
As per Ryan Rishaug - JDD received 1 yr @ 1.05
ReplyDeleteJDD had a better season than about 90% of his teammates.
ReplyDeleteThe big tell from the Oilers was DD getting the call for the WC. V3.0 and Lowe fingerprints all over that one.
ReplyDeleteTraitor is right that he had a better season than a lot of Oilers last year, but that still doesn't make him a good goalie.
Apparently the deal for JDD is 1 year 1.05MM. Very little chance at a value contract there.
In addition to his glove, JDD is a big man who plays like a little man. How many times did posters on this blog comment when yet another shooter went high on him because he was going down too soon.
ReplyDeleteJDD is what he is. An inconsisent, young goalie. This is what you get. His acrobatics will result in him making some highlight real saves. His technical issues will keep him from being a #1.
But in a season where we're not going to be in the playoffs, another lottery pick to help with the rebuild is the reward for him being in the lineup.
JDD was wasted by the Great Minor League Debacle of 05-07. Those were his prime years to develop, and he spent most of them eating hot dogs on the bench.
ReplyDeleteNot that he was the next Roy or Brodeur in any case, but he'll likely never live up to his potential because he spent so much time behind other teams' goalies.
I think that when you are trying to re-build a team a good goalie is one place where spending money for quality (Khabibulin is not what I have in mind) would be a good idea. You play way different if you don't trust your goalie to make the save, and its not a good different. I don't think the Oilers D trust Deslauriers to make the stops that they need, causing them to play tense. The Khabby signing really screwed this all up, ideally you would have one of the young guys as backup and a good goalie starting.
ReplyDeleteI like the signing.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else think that the dollar figure being a bit high is to keep other teams from picking JDD off waivers should the Oilers decide to send him down? The extra couple of hundred thousand may be wise spent if it works. At the very least it should ensure he doesn't end up in Calgary.
Love your blog, LT.
$1.05m, and UFA next season?
ReplyDeleteThe list of starting goalies in the NHL: Luongo, Kipprusoff, Brodeur, Thomas, Huet, Leighton, Leclaire, Lundqvist, Giguere, Fleury, Backstrom, Nittymaki, Osgood, Price, Varlamov, Garon, Miller, Vokoun, Khabibulin, Ward, Lehtonen, Quick, Smith, Bryzgalov, Hiller, Rinne, Halak, DiPietro, Mason, and Anderson. I can't see him beating out any of the above - and even if he does, is he in the list of the best backups?
For 2nd highest paid goalies (possibly backups, although there are some really good goalies in this list) Roloson, Hedberg, Ellis, Gustavsson, Pickard, Conklin, Rask, Budaj, Harding, Clemmensen, Pavelec all make more than JDD (and deservedly so.)
The list of goalies that have a lower cap hit includes: Auld, Labarbera, Boucher, Mason, Schnider, Biron, Elliott, Neuvirth, Dubnyk, Ersberg, Howard,
Lalime, Raycroft, Johnson, Greiss, McElhinney, Peters, and Karlsson. Cap sensitive teams, and those teams who have clear starting goalies, will be looking at cost competitve goalies, and the above list has a few bargains that could be acquired.
Looking at the teams and cap hits, only the Islanders are in the position with cap space and a potential need for JDD. They'd likely be better served with a free agent goalie under 750k, such as Valiquette, Dubielewicz, Legace
Caron, or Danis.
Looking at the list - I'd bet that JDD would clear.
Welcome to OKC, JDD.
Not that he was the next Roy or Brodeur in any case
ReplyDeleteHe might be the next Olivier Roy or Mike Brodeur. Or the previous one, come to think of it.
JDD has terrible mechanics, terrible positioning, a terrible track record, and gets beaten bar down more than any goalie I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteHe's a mediocre backup at best.
That said, the Oilers had to sign him (or someone similar to him) until hey know what's going on with Boozy Bulin.
wow. lots of hate for a rookie.
ReplyDeleteJDD had his faults but he played in front of a decimated team, put together poorly and horribly coached. as traitor (love that WG)said, he outplayed a lot of other young players.
i agree with whoever said that the big number will scare people off of waivers.
and if this guy plays 50 again this year, this is a value contract.
our team is going to suck (to some degree) next year and that seems to be "part of the plan" for the rebuild. we spent some high drafts on these two goalies and then didn't bring them along properly...
at what point does this signing "mess up the plan"? maybe we get a surprise, or maybe we're right on track.
as traitor (love that WG)said
ReplyDeleteHa!
Didn't know what you were referring to until I went back and re-read my post.
My crackberry must have auto-spell checked Traktor to Traitor.
LOL!
JDD is like an underdeveloped Fleury in some way.
ReplyDeleteHe will steal some games with amazing saves that'd make you think he's inhuman. Than he's going to allow goals that make you wondering wtf he's doing in a pro league.
In all and all I think he hasn't made such a strong case for him, but luckily for him, neither did DD. Just the fact JDD was in front of one of the worst defensive teams arguably in the history makes me wonder what he could do with normal defense. I think he could be okay.
I think it's a classic case of choosing low risk low reward (JDD) or high risk high reward (DD).
WG: The Freudian spell checker strikes again!
ReplyDeletethe red hot 3 worked last year¡ great learning curve tamzy¡
ReplyDeleteIn the debacle years of 05-07 I think some people are forgetting how utterly terrible he was in 04-05. When his draft brethren were out dominating the AHL (i.e. Cam Ward & Josh Harding), JDD was having the worst statistical season in the AHL. That by the way was the year the Oilers had the Roadrunners in Edmonton.
ReplyDeleteThe only real year you can claim that he was screwed over by the development system was 05-06 when the Oilers split with Hamilton (where he wasn't playing well again). He got 40 starts in 06-07 which is a decent amount.
JDD's problem is that he just isn't very good positionally. He has fantastic reflexes and flexibility, but he completely relies on them to play in net. That's why he can make saves that he shouldn't make, but it's also why he gives up goals he shouldn't give up.
The issue is, how does he get better? Does he learn to be better positionally? He hasn't gotten better at it yet, what makes you think he'll get it starting now?
Hawks sign Turco for 1 year and walk away from Neimi's arbitration.
ReplyDeleteSO JDD and Dubnyk both have one-way deals. I think on that note, it's pretty unlikely that either will be sent to OKC. They still could be, obviously, but even with Moneybags McGee fronting the cash, I don't think they'd do it. OKC definitely needs some goaltending help though, so Tambi better get his ass in gear.
ReplyDeletewe could sign Neimi and have a 4 headed monster! :)
ReplyDeleteTurco is a definite upgrade over Neimi, IMO. don't know if it will be enough to win them another cup this coming year with all the moves they were forced to make, but still a good move for the Hawks.
ReplyDeletePDO: I've yet to meet a goalie that gets beat from the bar up! lol...
ReplyDeleteI'm still undecided with JDD. On the one hand he reminds of Fleury in his first few years. Relying too much on ability and getting caught out of position.
The physical tools are obvious. The question is can he learn to become the goalie his god given ability can allow him to be?