Dubnyk motivates himself by feeling sting of mistakes
He has been referred to as the Big Easy, because Devan Dubnyk has the ability to let go of a bad goal.
Even his new head coach expects that the Edmonton Oilers goaltender won’t worry about his last bad game.
But the goalie in question admitted on Thursday, when the Oilers returned to the rink, that he didn’t completely forget about everything.
“It is one game and you do have to move on,” he said about the Oilers’ 5-4 season-opening loss, which was punctuated by turnovers and long-range goals on Tuesday.
“But, at the same time, you have to let it hurt a bit and allow yourself to be disappointed because you need to understand that those things can’t happen often, and I’ll make sure they don’t.
“Obviously, I need to be better than I was.
“It doesn’t get much simpler than that. I know what I have to do,” Dubnyk continued after he put in extra work with goaltending coach Frederic Chabot and had an on-ice chat with head coach Dallas Eakins.
“I’ve been in this situation before.
“It’s disappointing. I certainly feel like I let a lot of guys in the room down, but I know they know I’ll be there for them in the next game.”
With three days between the first game against the Winnipeg Jets and Saturday’s contest against the Canucks in Vancouver, the Oilers were pushed through the paces on Thursday. After a practice laced with competition drills and heavy on instruction about limiting turnovers, the players huffed and puffed their way through a conditioning skate.
“The magic formula is to walk away from a win or a loss. You have that night to think about it and you have your video and your lessons, but honestly, walking away from a game is the thing to do,” said captain Andrew Ference.
“It’s easier when things are very identifiable. You say here’s the good, here’s the bad. It’s a whole other thing when you walk in after a game and ask, ‘What happened.’ It’s very clear what happened and it goes back to what we talked about before the season started and during camp, how we need to strive for that black-andwhite world where there’s not a whole lot of unknowns.”
The Oilers had Wednesday off, so there was no need for a tame leg-stretching session. It was a productive practice so the team will be ready for the test against the Canucks.
“In the NHL, where there’s so many games, when you get these breaks, you have to get the practices in somewhere. It’s best to do it now,” said Jesse Joensuu, who skated with Boyd Gordon and Jordan Eberle.
With Eberle moving to that line, Nail Yakupov skated with David Perron and Mark Arcobello. It was the one tweak Eakins made to his lineup.
Eakins expects a better game from his goalie on Saturday, as well as from several skaters.
“We went through the video this morning and the good outweighed the bad,” Eakins said.
“There were so many good things that we did,” Dubnyk said. “It’s what we gave them that cost us the game, from turnovers to long shots going in. It all imploded on us, but if you look at the game as a whole, there were a lot of good things that we did. There’s just a few things we need to eliminate to have a real good game.”