Ghosts Of Oilers Past: Ben Scrivens

With goaltending becoming a more humongous topic among Oilers fans than it already was prior to this season, why not have some fun and reminisce about one of the very few good highlights during the Decade of Darkness? The most historic performance by a goalie in the regular season happened on a team that, at the time, was in Draft Lottery contention every year. Let’s rewind all the way back to the 2013/2014 NHL season.

Devan Dubnyk was traded to the Nashville Predators on January 15th in exchange for Matt Hendricks, a bottom-six center who was actually a good leader for as long as we had him. Dubnyk was the Stuart Skinner of his time, except he didn’t play behind anything near a Stanley Cup contender. Some fans loved him, some fans weren’t big on him; the difference was that he actually left. He put up good stats before 2013/2014, so how did he suddenly do a 180? If you have to ask the question, then you know the answer. A couple of weeks after that trade, Ben Scrivens was acquired from the Los Angeles Kings, with a third round pick going the other way. He had a 7-5-4 record for the Kings with a 1.96 GGA and .931 SV% playing as Jonathan Quick’s backup. His stats going down was inevitable, due to his change in standings positions, but still not the worst. 9-11, a 3.01 GAA and a .916 SV% to be exact. Ilya Bryzgalov was brought in a couple of months prior, in hopes of at least bringing humour to another wasted season.

On January 29th, Edmonton played the San Jose Sharks at home. Antti Niemi, who’d won a Stanley Cup with the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010, started this game for San Jose. Scrivens posted a 59 save shutout, the most shots ever faced in a regular season shutout. It was also the most saves by an Oilers goalie in a single game, surpassing the previous record of 56 set by Bill Ranford in 1993. My favourite of those saves was where he took a wrist shot from the point off his mask, then shook it off quickly and made a glove save point-blank on center Bracken Kearns. Not even five seconds later, after a face-off win by the Sharks, Scrivens dove down to rob former Oilers defenseman Jason Demers with another glove save. Ben came just a shot against away from facing one on literally every minute of regulation time. A career backup, a solid one, had this type of night against a roster that had Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski, Logan Couture, Brent Burns, and a sophomore Tomas Hertl, while playing behind a roster that finished 3rd last in the whole league. Edmonton’s inability to play remotely decent defense was already a leaguewide joke, this game just increased the quality of the punchline. It should never be any team’s game plan to be outshot 59-27, no matter whose is in net.

Scrivens had another interesting moment as an Oiler, but not a positive one. A Battle of Alberta aired on Hockey Night In Canada on March 22nd, the Calgary Flames embarrassed the Oilers at the then-Edmonton rink Rexall Place by the score of 8-1. As per tradition back then, a fan would throw their jersey on the ice during or after an ugly Oilers loss. Scrivens saw the jersey, tossed it back into the crowd with his stick, and then called out the action in a post-game interview. He signed a two-year contract extension before this season had officially finished, but in 2014/2015, neither he nor his tandem partner Viktor Fasth, picked up from the Anaheim Ducks, could stop anything. It was a combination of them being bad, as well as former Oilers head coach Dallas Eakins instilling his swarm defense tactic of having every player on the ice cover the puck carrier, but never the intended receiver in the slot. Ben would get traded to the Montreal Canadiens in December of 2015 in exchange for Zach Kassian, a former Oilers villain who fans would eventually warm up to.

Scrivens ended his hockey career playing in the KHL, and even won a Bronze medal representing Team Canada at the 2018 Winter Olympics. I feel bad for him being traded to the Oilers in hindsight. Never mind this team being terrible, it was also the same year the team that traded him won their second Cup in three years after making a first round 3-0 series comeback look effortless. One game might be the only happy memory from his Edmonton tenure, but it’s better to be a one-hit wonder than to have no hits at all.