July 1 marked the beginning of Free Agency signings where NHL players who are unrestricted free agents (UFA’s) could sign with any team they desire. This is one of the biggest days of the season for NHL teams and fans alike as many teams add some key pieces to their respective teams while fans watch the goings on like presents being opened on Christmas Day. Many of the teams around the league made big name signings, like the Oilers signing veteran Goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin to a killer deal, the Coyotes signed a couple of key players to the roster.
Center Verne Fiddler (played with the Nashville Predators last season) and Goaltender Jason LaBarbera (who split time between the Los Angeles Kings and the Vancouver Canucks last season) were both signed to two year contracts. The terms of the deal were not disclosed by the Coyotes.
Now I’ll be honest, I don’t know anything about Verne Fiddler. However, according to the Phoenix Coyotes Twitter Page, Darren Pang called Fiddler “…a terrific player that plays hard. He can play wing or center and is reliable at both ends.” Pang is a pretty good analyst when it comes to NHL players so there’s no need to question or expand on this at all.
When it comes to Jason LaBarbera, I’ve been watching him from his early days with the Los Angeles Kings through the end of last season after he was acquired by the Vancouver Canucks in December 2008.
LaBarbera has been getting a bad rap during his time with the Kings partially because of the team in front of him and partially from being in a perpetually losing situation with the Kings year in and year out. As a result, LaBarbera became the whipping boy for Kings fans when it should have been the Kings front office on the proverbial whipping pole. Show me a player who can stick with a losing tradition like the Kings for so long and not have it effect his game in some way. The trade to the Canucks couldn’t have come at a more perfect time for Jason LaBarbera.
Up to the point to where LaBarbera was acquired by Vancouver on December 30th 2008, here’s what was going on with the Canucks last season:
- This was pretty much a brand new team with tons of player personnel turnover and new faces on the roster. Even by December of 2008, the Canucks never all ‘clicked’ together on the ice and in the win column on a consistent basis. Add some really long road trips into the mix, lots of trips to the IR with various players, and you can pretty much see some of the challenges that the Canucks were facing in this part of last season.
- Vancouver Canucks All-Star goaltender Roberto Luongo was out of the lineup with a groin injury on November 23, 2008. Goaltending duties were then split between then backup Curtis Sanford and top Canucks goaltending prospect Cory Schneider (who was brought up from the Manitoba Moose, the Canucks farm club).
- Schneider showed some great goaltending skills the time he was up with the Canucks. However, he was nowhere near ready to shoulder the load of being an NHL starting goaltender as he showed lots of areas of his game that needed improvement (like puck handling behind his net).
- Sanford was out of the lineup with a groin injury the day LaBarbera was acquired.
- When Sanford was in the lineup there was a huge gaping hole in his goaltending in game situations. He couldn’t stop a glove side puck to save his life. Sanford, for whatever reason, could not accurately track a puck coming to his glove side at all. When you look at video of the games he played after Luongo went down, he was guessing at glove side shot locations. He would put up his glove and hope the puck would land. He was eventually waived by the Canucks on January 14, 2009.
LaBarbera was pretty solid for the Canucks as he showed signs of brilliance in his first games in a Canucks uniform (he played the very evening of the trade). However, there was always a mental mistake of some sort from the team in front of him that led to losses or the team going to the shootout (see the reasons above). His record with the Canucks is a direct reflection of the Canucks not being a solid, confident, cohesive unit in front of him.
Now that he will be wearing a Coyotes uniform, LaBarbera has the opportunity to show people that the Kings were in the wrong when it comes to him being a bonified goaltender. He’s still got the skills but he has some parts of his game that can be improved on (like rebound control). He’s an excellent pickup for the Coyotes heading into next season.
Now it’s unsure if this will be yet another three way battle for spots in Training camp (with Al Montoya, LaBarbera, and Bryzgalov) like when David Aebischer, Alex Auld, and Mikael Tellqvist were battling for roster spots not too long ago. It’s also unclear what LaBarbera’s role with the team will be come training camp time. Will he be challenging for Bryzgalov’s starting spot or will he be the Coyotes backup right out of the gate? Time will tell.
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