Skip to main content

Goalie Devan Dubnyk has had his share of woes, but joining the Minnesota Wild has afforded him another chance at postseason action.DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press

We were standing around Devan Dubnyk's locker stall, pondering the low point of a 2013-14 season that had more than its share. Was it the start, when Dubnyk was still the No. 1 man in Edmonton, a goaltender in whom the Oilers had invested nine years of development time, but was struggling to find his game amidst another coaching change? The exile to Nashville, where an injury to Pekka Rinne created an opening that Dubnyk wasn't able to fill? Or the third move in a vagabond year – to Montreal, where he was seen strictly as an insurance policy, No. 4 on the organizational depth chart, assigned to the team's AHL affiliate in Hamilton?

Yup, definitely the last one.

Every day Dubnyk would wake up in the Staybridge Suites in Hamilton and look out at the bikers drinking coffee across the street at Tim Hortons.

"It felt like it was never going to end," Dubnyk said. "There were days when you'd sit down and think to yourself, 'How did I get here?' You feel like you don't deserve it, but at the same time, I always told myself, 'If I played better, I wouldn't be here, period.' If I could look at it that way, there was no one to blame, or look at, than myself, then … If I can put myself in it, I can bring myself out of it." Dubnyk can smile about it now, and why not? He returns to Edmonton Friday as the No. 1 reason why the Minnesota Wild are back in the playoff hunt in the ultracompetitive Western Conference. For two years now, Minnesota has been trying to sort out its own goaltending situation and last year even took a chance on Ilya Bryzgalov, whose arrival in Edmonton set Dubnyk's departure in motion.

Minnesota made the playoffs last season, won a round and, by adding Thomas Vanek in Dany Heatley's spot on the payroll, figured to be even better this season.

But they were eight points out of a playoff spot when general manager Chuck Fletcher pulled off a deal with the Arizona Coyotes, which was where Dubnyk had gone to resuscitate his career. Dubnyk came over for a third-round pick and was merely 10-2-1, with a 1.71 goals-against average and a .935 save percentage in his first 13 appearances for the Wild. Included in there were four shutouts.

Dubnyk did not absolve himself from his own contributions to last year's woes, noting that he wouldn't have been passed around from team to team if he stopped more pucks. The Arizona Coyotes had an opening last summer, after backup Thomas Greiss left to sign as a free agent with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Dubnyk picked Arizona primarily because they were providing an opportunity to play on a team with good coaching and structure that was also willing to forget about the recent past.

"And a smaller part of it – you get away from a hockey market," Dubnyk said. "After a year like last year, you can go to a place like that and just focus on hockey and the game and not worry about what's going on. If you let in a goal, 10 people aren't going to say, 'He's going to Portland.'"

Sean Burke, Arizona's highly regarded goalie coach, is developing a reputation as something of a "goalie whisperer," but Dubnyk said it was really just one small adjustment in technique that helped him get his game back on the rails.

"From the get-go … all he wanted from me was to beat plays on my feet – to be set, and be patient on my feet, and not go down early," Dubnyk said. "That was the base. From there, it was, 'Where do I need to be in my net to do that?' On some plays, it's deeper. On some plays, you're further out. When you start to get a feel for that, and you're set on your feet, you feel you can be patient, and you can wait, and you feel comfortable, everything falls into place for you. It seems like such a basic thing, but it really helped me a lot."

With the Wild, Dubnyk has a chance to get into playoff action for the first time since 2007, when he made six appearances on behalf of the ECHL's Stockton Thunder. Years ago, former Minnesota goaltender Dwayne Roloson saved Edmonton's season (in 2006, as a trading-deadline acquisition) and now a former Edmonton goaltender may be able to return to the favour to the Wild this time around.

As for last year, Dubnyk says it is a learning experience he won't soon forget.

"I wouldn't wish that upon anyone and I certainly don't plan on doing it again," he said. "It's one of those things, at any point in my life going forward, hockey or not, I can look back at that and say, 'You were there, you went through that, and you got out of it.' If you can get through that, you can get through anything.

"And if you don't draw on that experience, then it was a waste to go through it in the first place."

Interact with The Globe