With all the talk of the Islander-talk at the concentrating on Mike Comrie, Miro Satan, Ruslan Fedotenko, and Josef Vasicek, another impending free agent's name got ignored - Wade Dubielewicz (that name is hard to type, so from here on out, we will refer to him as "Dubie" - which shouldn't be confused with "DP," unless you are reading this aloud to yourself).
Dubie makes a non-threatening $500,000 this year. For a backup goalie with little experience, that is a nice number; it fits under the cap well. It also doesn't pain a team to have a $500,000 player ride the bench like it does to have, say, $3.2M being benched every game (no offense, Ottawa or Ray Emery).
However, at one point in time, Garth Snow will have to make a decision on the man who encompasses the same warm spot on the bench he once had while Rick DiPietro played. I'm guessing that since the position of GM has already been filled, Dubie will play in the NHL again next season.
Will that be in Orange & Blue?
Last year, as we all know, the Islanders needed to win 4 straight games to even have a chance at sniffing the playoffs. With Rick DiPietro out for the rest of the regular season with concussion problems due to his own foolish play, Steve Begin, and Sean Avery, Dubie stepped up. A shootout win against the Rangers where he stopped Jaromir Jagr to win, a win against Toronto, then in Philly, then in a shootout against the Devils (where he gave up a goal with a second left to send it to overtime). His reward? The Mike Dunham Memorial Bench Spot during a first round loss to the Sabres.
This year, DP is out again, this time with the dreaded "tweaked hip." Who is there for the Islanders? Dubie. He had an impressive shootout win against the Rangers (again, this time at MSG though), then lost in the home half of that home-and-home, although he held his ground well and even DiPietro would not have saved the shots Dubie let in.
Since the beginning of March when he started playing a lot, Dubie has let in 3 goals twice, 2 goals twice, and 1 goal three times. Yet he is only 3-4, meaning the ineptitude of the Islanders has nothing to do with him. For reference, in his first game since January, he gave up 1 goal against the Panthers while the players in front of him fired 53 low-angle, direct-to-chest shots against backup Craig Anderson. He is not the reason this team is looking ahead to the Bethpage Black while it's still March. As a matter of fact, when he beat the Rangers on March 4, the Islanders were 3 points out of 8th in the East. Now, they are 11 points out and unable to make up those points with 5 games left.
Once again, Dubie has had nothing to do with the current state of the team. Injuries have piled up and some players seem to have packed it in. Yet he plays to the top of his game, day in and day out.
Since the lockout, we have seen backup goaltenders usurp the starters. Henrik Lundqvist took over from Kevin Weekes in October 2005 (although Tom Renney was reluctant to announce the change until January). Cristobal Huet overtook Jose Theodore and David Aebischer until Jaroslav Halak usurped the usurper last spring. No Manny Fernandez OR Dwayne Roloson in Minnesota - wait, who is this Niklas Backstrom? Hell, Ilya Bryzgalov played so well behind J.S. Giguere that GM Brian Burke felt bad for sitting him and let him go elsewhere.
Will Dubie ever usurp DP? Probably not, because Garth Snow and Charles Wang wouldn't let it happen. DP has a long way left to go on his contract, and another team might not pick that up for another decade. Besides, a $4.5M backup is expensive to keep around (no offense, Olaf Kolzig or Marc Denis).
Teams will come knocking on Dubie's door (or ringing on his agent's phone) come July 1. Carolina will have an open spot and would love to have a solid backstop waiting for his chance to play behind wildly inconsistent Cam Ward. Calgary can replace Curtis Joseph with the 29-year-old Wade. And Tampa Bay has Mike Smith and Kari Ramo, both unproven goalies who might play better with some competition. What about Detroit? Chris Osgood will be the main guy in net there if Dom Hasek doesn't return, but can he handle it? Think Dubie wouldn't jump at a chance to play in Hockeytown?
That really was a nice use of a semi-colon!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think Dubie will stay, unless someone throws big money at him. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if someone did. But he's gone on record as saying he wants to stay on the Island. If he stays, they had better play him more than they currently do. The fact that he's been in this organization for five years and they still don't know his potential at the NHL level is kind of sad.