Has the Age of Ayres come to an end?
The details of the NHL and NHLPA’s new memorandum of understanding have finally been released and most of the expected changes/details have been confirmed. One of those small details is how NHL teams will handle Emergency Back Up Goaltenders (eBugs) moving forward. The days of coaches and general managers scrambling to find anyone in the building that might have donned the pads of ignorance in the past appear to be over.
With the new wording on how eBugs are handled the chances of a Zamboni driver like David Ayres getting into a NHL game have been greatly reduced (although not completely eliminated).
Now, according to the new MOU teams must submit to Central Registry the name and detailed playing experience of at least one person they plan on using as their eBug. That has to be done 48 hours prior to the regular season starting. During the season they can submit a name 24 hours prior to a game. There are some stipulations as to who that person can be. In order to be eligible they must not have:
- Played an NHL game under an NHL SPC
- Played more than 80 professional hockey games
- Played professional hockey in the three (3) prior seasons
- Another current contractual obligation that would preclude the ability to serve as the Club’s Emergency Goaltender Replacement
- Be on the Reserve List or Restricted Free Agent List of an NHL Club.
So the dreams of Marc-Andre Fleury serving as the team’s eBug have unfortunately been dashed. Nor can goaltender coach Frederic Chabot enter his name. Nor can the team choose a random fan from a previous game. The new rule does use the word “capable” in the wording, so yeah, any street hockey experience from 20 years ago probably doesn’t count.
The league has also stipulated when an eBug can be used. It basically boils down to a team not being able to dress both rostered goalies in a game due to injury, and there is an unreasonable amount of time to recall another goaltender. The second situation would be if both goaltenders are injured in the same game. The final situation would be if both goaltenders get hurt and the team is unable to recall or sign a goaltender because it would put them over the salary cap.
They also specifically stated that eBugs can’t be used in back-to-back games unless the rostered goalies happen to get hurt in both games, which would make for a wild situation.
One change in the regulations is that the eBug can now be a team employee that has a different role with the organization. Previously, they couldn’t be a paid employee of the team.
In short, the new rules specify that teams have to one person, available for home and away games, that can serve in the role as opposed to a list of local non-professional goaltenders that either team could choose from. It takes some of the randomness away, but not all of it. There is still the possibility that a team’s accountant could end up in net if that’s the best option for the team (and their name had been submitted to the league).
The Wild have never had an eBug actually get into a game, but they have come close. Connor Beaupre (son of former North Star, Don) has come close a couple of times. The first was in 2017 when Devan Dubnyk was injured early in a game against the Calgary Flames. Beaupre the Younger had to suit up and hope that Alex Stalock stayed healthy for the rest of the night (which he did).
They also came close this past January when injuries and ill health ravaged their goaltender depth. Filip Gustavsson was healthy, but after that it was pretty thin. Fleury was extremely ill, Jesper Wellstedt was out injured, a recently-signed Dylan Ferguson was also injured, and Samuel Hlavaj’s contract was too large to get under the salary cap. Gustavsson made it through the game with Fleury as his back-up, but who knows if he could have actually played if something happened?
In a hockey-rich city like Minnesota it shouldn’t be too hard to find someone to qualify to serve as the season-long emergency netminder, but some of the other cities might be scrambling a bit to find an eligible group of players to pull from.