Devan Dubnyk

When Devan Dubnyk's agent — retired NHL goalie Mike Liut — pulled him aside early in his career after a difficult game in the American Hockey League, the message was blunt: the position he played was unlike any other in sport. "Mike told me this is the only position in sports where you can't go out and make things happen. You can't fire yourself up. You can't just try harder because it's one of the only positions in sports that is purely reactive," Dubnyk said ^[1]. It was a lesson that would shape the rest of a career that ran 12 NHL seasons and 542 games.

Born May 4, 1986, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Dubnyk was selected by the Edmonton Oilers in the first round, 14th overall, of the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. The path from that draft day to a regular NHL starter took several years. He made his first NHL appearances with the Oilers in the 2009–10 season, playing 19 games and going 4–10. The next three seasons established him as Edmonton's primary goaltender: 35 games in 2010–11, then 47 games in 2011–12, and 38 games during the lockout-shortened 2012–13 campaign, in which he posted a .920 save percentage. Despite those numbers, his time with the Oilers ended after 2012–13, and he appeared in only two games for the Nashville Predators in 2013–14 before finishing that season in the AHL.

What followed was one of the more dramatic turnarounds in recent NHL goaltending history. In Arizona, Coyotes goaltending coach Sean Burke introduced Dubnyk to a depth-management principle that became a rule of thumb for the rest of his career. As Dubnyk later explained on Episode 142 of the InGoal Radio Podcast ^[2], Burke's instruction was simple: "I want you to beat the pass on your feet and be set. Wherever you're comfortable doing that, I want you to be able to beat the pass on your feet, push, stop and set." InGoal examined how that principle became embedded in Dubnyk's game and how it applies to goalies at every level ^[3].

The 2014–15 season — split between Arizona and Minnesota after the Wild acquired him — produced a 1.78 GAA and a .936 save percentage across 39 games, with 27 wins and five shutouts. He finished third in Vezina Trophy voting, fourth in Hart Trophy balloting, and won the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for dedication to hockey that season. Minnesota became his home for the six seasons that followed. In 2016–17, he went 40–19 with a 2.25 GAA, a .923 save percentage, and five shutouts across 65 games — the high-water marks of his career in wins and both major rate statistics. The four seasons from 2015–16 through 2018–19 each saw him appear in 60 or more games for the Wild, with his save percentage holding at .913 or better in three of those four years.

InGoal Magazine has covered Devan Dubnyk in four podcast appearances, three Pro Reads, and three InGoal articles.

A series of InGoal Pro Reads, available to InGoal subscribers, put Dubnyk's analytical voice on display. His first two sessions focused on the poke check — a skill so associated with his game that an internet search of his name and those two words surfaces a lengthy highlight reel ^[4]. The sessions went deep enough that they were split across two parts, with Dubnyk describing the scenarios he looks for, the keys to committing fully, and even the situations where he acknowledged he might have kept the stick in the holster ^[5]. A third Pro Read expanded the scope to a full delayed-penalty and power-kill sequence against the Anaheim Ducks — a video session running more than 15 minutes covering lane management, stick use on sharp-angle attacks, lateral decisions, one-timers, and rebound control ^[6].

Dubnyk appeared on Episode 104 of the InGoal Radio Podcast ^[7] and returned for Episode 142 ^[2], where the depth-management conversation with Sean Burke was explored at length. He appeared again on Episode 305 ^[8], by which point he had retired and was contributing video breakdown work for the Edmonton Oilers and Oilers Nation during the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. In that episode, Dubnyk discussed Stuart Skinner's return to the Oilers lineup and analyzed the team's defensive structure in detail. A Colin Hodd article drawing on that episode examined Dubnyk's breakdown of what made Calvin Pickard valuable to Edmonton, with Dubnyk offering specific advice on how goalies can become players their teammates will go to war for ^[9]. "You're going to enjoy your time, you're going to play better, you're going to be on better teams," Dubnyk said. "All of these things are going to come together if you learn how to become a great teammate."

His final two NHL seasons saw him with the Wild through 2019–20 and then five games with the Colorado Avalanche in 2020–21. He retired in 2022 with a career record of 253 wins, 206 losses, and 54 overtime losses across 542 games, with a 2.61 GAA, a .914 save percentage, and 33 shutouts.

The reactive nature of the position — and the trap of pressing too hard — remained a subject Dubnyk returned to in retirement. A 2026 InGoal article on playoff goaltending featured Dubnyk's words alongside several current NHL goaltenders, exploring why ramping up effort level runs counter to how the position actually works ^[1]. "It's a difficult mental battle to be a part of," he said. "We're all competitive and we all want to win and when things don't go well, the first thing we want to do is go out there and make a difference. A forward can hop the boards and go run somebody, get in a fight and score a goal. We don't get to do that as goalies. We have to do the opposite and rein it in, pull it back and let the game come to us."

Episode 369 of the InGoal Radio Podcast referenced Dubnyk in the context of goaltending analysis and the ongoing conversation around how the position is broken down and evaluated ^[10].