GDT: 2/14/2014 Carolina Hurricanes vs YOUR Minnesota Wild 7 pm CST

[TaLoN]

Hopefully. Kind of looked a bit slower than normally. But maybe I'm being oversensitive, having to watch Bäcks and his shattering body in recent years.

And to be honest, we don't have a reliable backup at the moment.

Basically the Wild have been spoiled in terms of goalie depth going back to the beginning. (Manny/McClennan, Manny/Roloson, Manny/Backstrom, Backstrom/Harding, Backstrom/Theo etc)

We always had a great backup that could jump in as a starter if the starter went down, so we never had a 90%/10% split between starter and backup before like teams with an absolute #1 goaltender have done.

Our backup(s) are so bad this year though, that Duuubie... even though on many teams he'd be more of a 50/50 guy at most, is CLEARLY our best Goalie and thus should get 90% of the starts.

With only 27 games left and the few back to backs remaining having built in rest either before or after them (in terms of 2 day breaks before or after and one 4 day break after)... I'd be surprised if Dubnyk didn't play 24 of those 27 games.

 

[Avder]

The guy is in the prime of his career...28yrs old and well rested before he arrived. IMO there is no scenario possible here that would equal "driving him into the ground".

He isn't a 34yro broken down barely healthy goalie like Backstrom was.

Back to backs are the only point where I wouldn't play him. If we can have a good game in front of Kuemper for the front half, putting Dubs in for the back end gives us a good chance at taking all 4 points.

What are our back to backs for the rest of the season btw?

 

[TaLoN]

Back to backs are the only point where I wouldn't play him. If we can have a good game in front of Kuemper for the front half, putting Dubs in for the back end gives us a good chance at taking all 4 points.

What are our back to backs for the rest of the season btw?

I posted this in the Dubnyk thread the other day...

65 games is still 79% of the season!

Dubs is in no danger of even remotely coming to that... and with so few back to backs remaining, he has his rest between games already.

Dubs won't start EVERY remaining game, but he will start most of them without any worry of being overworked IMO.

Only 28 games left...
Next back to back is March 5th and 6th...
Then March 13th and 14th...
Then March 23rd and 24th...
Then March 27th and 28th...
Then Aprl 6th and 7th...
We have 4 two day breaks between games left (a couple going into back to backs and a couple coming out of them)
We have 1 4 day break (coming out of a back to back)

So even with some of the remaining back to backs... we can play Dubs in both because of the built in rest surrounding them. Obviously he won't start all of them though.

 

[plock]

Back to backs are the only point where I wouldn't play him. If we can have a good game in front of Kuemper for the front half, putting Dubs in for the back end gives us a good chance at taking all 4 points.

What are our back to backs for the rest of the season btw?

4 in March 1 in April.