Myth busting-Goalie Coach Edition

People who spread ignorance over the internet are truly human garbage. Regardless of the topic, it can be incredibly self destructive to society. Hockey is no different. There’s been a narrative off and on for years that Oilers goalie coach Dustin Schwartz is a bad goalie coach, because the Oilers have typically been unable to develop a goalie in their own system.

But there are a lot of red flags that this is misinformation.

First of all, it completely ignores the franchise’s drafting record when it comes to goalies, which is basically next to non-existent and quite horrendous.

Historically, the Oilers scouting department in general has been rather terrible for most of the franchise’s existence. Scouting wasn’t much of a priority for the Oilers until Peter Chiarelli became GM and did a housecleaning of the scouting staff, and then Ken Holland brought some of his own people in when he became GM. The thinking behind that was GM of the day Glen Sather could trade or sign anyone for any holes in the lineup so they weren’t worried about the drafting.

I could probably write a series of blogs profiling the Oilers failed draft picks, especially the first round picks, but for the purposes of this blog let’s concentrate on the goaltenders.

It started out well enough when the franchise came into the NHL from the WHA as the Oilers drafted Andy Moog in the seventh (!) round of the 1980 draft – quite a steal. He would go on to play 713 career NHL games – 235 with the Oilers, being part of winning their first three cups in ’84, ’85, and ’87 before being traded to Boston for Bill Ranford in the 1987 offseason. Fun fact – he was the starter in net for the Bruins when they beat them in the Cup finals in 1990 and was also the starter in net when the Oilers upset the Dallas Stars in 1997 in the first round.

Then the next year the Oilers hit on another one, drafting Grant Fuhr eighth overall in the 1981 draft. He would go on to play 867 games in the NHL, 423 of those with the Oilers, before being dealt away in a blockbuster trade to Toronto with Glenn Anderson in the 1991 offseason after Sather was forced to dismantle the 80s dynasty team. You might know him as one of the core pieces of the 80s teams who was present for all of their Cup wins and the starter for all of them except the 1990 one.

The problem was, that was literally it until Devan Dubnyk was drafted in 2004 in the first round. He would go on to be dealt away to Nashville at the 2014 trade deadline. The 35 year old is technically still active but at his age having spent the entirety of last season in the AHL (for a whopping four games, I may add) he’s bound to retire any day now. His current tally is at 542 NHL games, 171 with the Oilers.

That’s it for goaltenders who were drafted by the Oilers and have covered the bet on their positions (aka played at least 200 NHL games). If Stuart Skinner makes the team for good as expected next training camp he’ll be fourth on the list. After that, it goes to “stalwarts” like Jussi Markanen, whose career only lasted 128 games. The fact that he’s even in the top five of all time goalie draft picks for this team is depressing and embarrassing.

Every other goalie the Oilers drafted in the interim either never made it to the NHL or flamed out quickly. Any goalie worth his salt tending the nets for us during that time were either acquired by trade or signed as free agents from outside the organization.

So this begs the question – how is Schwartz supposed to develop goaltenders when he wasn’t dealt a good hand in the first place? That’s like hiring somebody to be an investment banker, then not giving him any money to build a portfolio and then chiding him for not making money on the investments.

Doesn’t make sense, does it? If Schwartz had quality goalies who all had major success in other franchises then you might have a point about him being a bad goalie coach. But the fact that Skinner looks poised to make the NHL next season, coupled with other factors that I’ll cover soon enough, means that the blame doesn’t rest with the coach, the blame rests with the scouting department. Let’s get into other reasons why the blame doesn’t rest on Schwartz.

As a player, Schwartz spent five seasons with the U of A Golden Bears, winning one CIS University Cup. He also played in the WHL for the Medicine Hat Tigers and Red Deer Rebels.

He was the goaltending coach for Team Canada when they won the gold medal at the under 18 Ivan Hlinka memorial tournament and also drafted the curriculum for young goalies who go to the Vimy Ridge hockey academy here in Edmonton.

If his coaching career had completely tanked during that time, does it seem likely that either the Oilers or the WHL would hire him and give him real authority?

The answer to that should be obvious to anyone with a fraction of common sense.

In case you’ve been living under a rock lately, you’ve probably noticed that both Mike Smith and Mikko Koskinen are performing much better than they were at points earlier in the season, and this is a big reason for the Oilers run of success of late.

This success hasn’t been on an island, there are people to have helped them along. Certainly Jay Woodcroft has helped, but the head coach only works one on one with the players so much. During practices, the players typically work a lot more with the assistant coaches in drills after Woodcroft has done some team wide drills with them. After that, they would split off into their different areas and do some area specific practices – in other words, the forwards split off with one assistant coach, the defence splits off with another assistant coach, and the goaltenders split off with the goaltending coach.

I’ve already mentioned the fact that Stuart Skinner is on the cusp of being an NHL regular. Part of that is due to Schwartz working with him. Doesn’t seem to be ruining Skinner from what I can see….

Certainly the players and Woodcroft deserve a lot of the credit, but logically Schwartz should get some of that credit too. Why would he only get blamed when the goalies are struggling and no credit when the goalies are seeing success?

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t make sense to me.

Oiler fans should know more than anybody at this point that whenever a new coach or GM comes in, the typical practice is to bring in their own people that they know and are comfortable with – and usually have had past success with. The current crop of coaches 9 times out of 10 are usually fired.

Since Schwartz joined the team in 2014, how many head coaches have we been through? Assistant coaches? GMs? I know it’s been three GMs (MacT, Chiarelli, Holland). Assistant coaches I know has been at least three. Head coaches have been a carousel – not to mention the interim head coaches as well.

And yet, Schwartz has remained no matter who the head coach or GM is. If he was really as bad as the conspiracy theorists say he is, why would he have survived this housecleaning of superiors?

Obviously the hockey world must think highly of Schwartz or he would’ve been fired long ago. After all, the Oilers didn’t even make the playoffs until 2017, three years after Schwartz was hired. Not a lot of coaches would survive that long, especially when the GM comes in and wants to sweep away the past failure.

But Schwartz has remained. Logically, there’s a reason for that.

Two key prospects recently inked new deals with the Oilers.

One is center Noah Philp, who recently wrapped up a season at the U of A. He had a pretty successful junior career, capped off by scoring 26 goals and 75 points in 56 games for the Seattle Thunderbirds. However, oddly enough for some strange reason he was never drafted into the NHL. He played two games for the Stockton Heat after that season but scored no points.

So, he went the Canadian college route, going to the U of A and in 2019-20 put up 27 points in 28 games. Then last year in what I’m assuming was a covid-shortened season, he put up eight goals and 11 points in eight games for the U of A this season.

After that wrapped up he signed with the Oilers on an ATO for this season and $842,500 for next season on a two way contract. He played two games for the Condors this season producing no points.

We’ll see how he does next season.

The other one is 2020 fourth round pick left wing Carter Savoie. He signed an ATO with Bakersfield for the remainder of this AHL season, and played a whopping one game with no points. There’s been nothing more on any transactions for him but he’s bound to get an ELC from the Oilers sooner or later.

He previously spent two seasons with the Sherwood Park Crusaders of the AJHL, putting up 53 goals and 99 points in 54 games there. Then he went the US College route, spending two seasons at the University of Denver where he put up 23 goals and 45 points in 39 games in his second season.

The Oilers have certainly raided the cupboards of the forward ranks in recent years from Bakersfield (Puljujarvi, Yamamoto, Ryan Mcleod, Tyler Benson) and that’s by and large left them without a lot of firepower up front on the farm team, especially NHL ready firepower (Benson would be the closest of that list, although Dylan Holloway is rumoured to give him a run for his money next season).

This has left them to supplement their forward group with AHL veterans and college signings like Philp. They’ve already got a pipeline going on D and in the nets, but the forward ranks are all either underripe, AHL veterans who don’t fit into the Oilers long term plans, or castoffs from the Oilers.

These additions along with sealing the deal with key prospects like James Hamblin – whose contract was recently upgraded from AHL only to two way starting next season – and our first rounder from 2021 Xavier Bourgault who recently wrapped up his junior career and will join the Condors next season, hopefully will fill the space in that vacuum.