Fasth vs. Scrivens, the Brodie/Brodin extensions, what to do about Hedman and more…

Welcome to another week of An Axe to Grind. It was an interesting week with the Oilers finally winning a game, a couple young defencemen sign extensions, Hedmans injury, Drouin's first NHL game.

****

The Oilers finally win one!

Axeman's Grind

So on Friday night's game between the Oilers and the Vancouver Canucks, Ben Scrivens came out and guaranteed a win. Well, he guaranteed a win to Dallas Eakins.  Eakins told reporters of Scrivens:

"In my conversation with him, he was like, 'I'm going to win that game,'" Dallas Eakins said today. "The kid's a battler. He's one of those guys, undrafted, who's fought his way to this level. He's earned his spot. And that's what you want out of your players. He's not cowering from where we're at right now (0-3-1), nor is any one of our players. That's the kind of intestinal fortitude that you need."

Sounds like a guarantee to me. Either way, Scrivens is far from Mark Messier and the Oilers ended up losing the game 2-0 and saw their record fall to 0-3-1 on the season; their worst start in franchise history. It's hard to blame Scrivens for that one though (first time we can say that about the Oilers goalies so far this year). He gave up one goal and the offense couldn't figure out a way to beat Ryan Miller. Scrivens has been battling the puck all season long so far and the Oilers are paying for it. You have to love his confidence but in the end, it didn't work out for him.