A groin strain has warranted the Edmonton Oilers to place their number one goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin on the injured reserve, which means he will have to miss at least the next week with the injury, but there seems to be a general fear that he will miss more time than that.In Khabibulin's stead, it appears that Devan Dubnyk will get the nod as the number one goalie, while the team has called up Martin Gerber to take on the back-up job for the time being.
On the rocky upswing of the rebuilding season for the Oilers, Khabibulin has played some decent hockey, despite what his record shows. In 15 games played, Khabibulin has amassed a 4-10-1 record with 1 shutout, which works out to be 10 points in the hockey pool. It might not translate well into pool numbers, but as long as he was healthy, he was going to take the bulk of the minutes, which is really all you can ask for for starting goalies.
Yes, he hasn't been a steady source of points for Stacey in the pool thus far in the season, but at least he was racking up the minutes and taking the playing time away from a non-pool goaltender. The real impact of the injury can't be gauged until a timetable for a return is announced, but at this point, it doesn't look very promising.Link to the Injury/News Page
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