Edmonton Oilers Expected to Part Ways with Nikolai Khabibulin
By Josh Hill
He’s been around the NHL in his day, but it appears if netminder Nikolai Khabibulin wants to keep his pro career going he’s going to have to do it a city other than Edmonton. The Oilers are expected to part ways with the 40-year old netminder this offseason, as general manager Craig MacTavish stated he’s not intersted in a guy who’s over the hill and unable to stay healthy.
“The problem with Nik, from our perspective, is that he’s a 40 year old body who wasn’t able to stay as healthy as what you need,” MacTavish said on Friday.
The move exactly fits the direction the club is heading with young stars like Ryan Nudgent-Hopkins and Nail Yakupov, and while Khabibulin isn’t a terrible goalie, he’s not what the Oilers need right now.
What the Oilers need is a guy that can hold his own juxtaposed against this young roster of skaters Edmonton currently has. He was unable to stay healthy during the season when the Oilers needed him to be and that’s really all there is to it. If you can’t stay healthy, it doesn’t matter how good you used to be because a team needs you to be good now.
And for the Oilers, stopping goals and winning games has proven difficult in recent years.
The best option for Edmonton is to bring up some younger netminders to challenge backup Devan Dubnyk for the starting role. The Oilers are young all over their roster, so it’s only natural that the man keeping the puck out of the net matches the tone and attitude of the rest of the team. If Edmonton can find a good, young netminder to carry the team’s defense into the future, that’ s future that’s going to be awful bright especially after coming out of the recent dark ages for the Oilers.