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The Edmonton Oilers broke out of their form slump Sunday night to not only honour newly acquired goaltender Ben Scrivens with his first win in the blue and gold but to also celebrate Wayne Gretzky’s 53rd birthday.
Allowing just one goal through 60 minutes of ice time, Scrivens made 34 saves to give the Oilers a dominant 5-1 result against the Nashville Predators.
Scrivens was making his third start for Edmonton since being traded from the Los Angeles Kings on January 15 for a third round draft pick.
“Scrivens did an unbelievable job. He was barking and talking and he was conducting the orchestra back there,” Edmonton Oilers head coach Dallas Eakins said. “That’s important. Communication in this game is a skill and it’s one that hasn’t been taught very well as these players come up, a lot of them don’t speak on the ice. Ben was excellent directing traffic back there.”
In that span, the 27 year old has recorded one win and two losses allowing seven goals for a 2.33 goals against average and .925 save %.
Congrats to #TheProfessor @scrivens_30 on a 34-save performance and his first win with the #Oilers! pic.twitter.com/sezjJhYZio
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) January 27, 2014
Which is a relative upgrade from the consistently inconsistent Devan Dubnyk whom the Oilers traded to – ironically – the Nashville Predators in a separate trade the same day they acquired Scrivens.
The Oilers’ win snapped a six game losing run with Edmonton spreading the points around with five players registering two points including perennial fan favourite Ryan Smyth.
Smyth edged himself to within one goal of the Oilers franchise record of 126 power-play goals – held by Glenn Anderson – with his wrist shot past Predators net minder Carter Hutton in the second period to sit equal with ‘The Great One’.
Edmonton coach Eakins was especially proud of his veteran forward after the game.
“For Ryan, that was a special thing to do. Hopefully, he can keep moving up the charts. Anything that has Mr. Gretzky’s name on it and you can match it, it’s a great, great accomplishment. I’m really proud of Ryan.”
With Scrivens now tasting the sweet winning feeling, hope is aplenty that he can keep improving and give the Oilers a reliable guy in goal as Ilya Bryzgalov has struggled to impress thus far since signing a one year deal.
Monday night against the Vancouver Canucks Bryzgalov had a superb performance with 25 saves to lead the Oilers to a 4-2 victory and second consecutive win with help from a David Perron hat trick.
Last week Edmonton owner Daryl Katz reached out to the Oilers’ devoted supporters pleading with them to stick by the besieged franchise.
Katz stressed that fans need to be patient and that they are in year four of a complete team transformation since drafting exciting forward Taylor Hall.
Although Katz is trying to stop the fans from complete uprising, no one can forget the dismal results of the last seven and soon to be eight consecutive non-playoff seasons.
The letter might have bought him and the franchise hierarchy some time but it is a quick band aid placed upon some serious problems.
Reading the comments of the most important stakeholders – the fans – shows that they are a truly divided fan-base.
On one side there are the die-hards who understand that change takes time and everyone makes mistakes as long as the players give their all on the ice.
While the other side is sick of the miserable results and want a drastic transformation to happen so tomorrow everything will be back to normal.
The only problem is normal right now for the Oilers is sitting at the lowest point possible in the standings.
But with Scrivens continual improvement and adjustment in Edmonton as well as Bryzgalov battling for the starting role the only way to go for the Oilers is up.