'An awesome story': Journeyman Calvin Pickard 'rock solid' in first NHL playoff start (2024)

EDMONTON — This time seven years ago, Calvin Pickard thought his hockey career was just taking off.

A starting goaltender in the NHL, he was solid on a godawful Colorado Avalanche team. He was in the process of winning the top job for Canada at the World Championship where he’d eventually almost outduel the great Henrik Lundqvist in the gold medal game.

Never did he see things going the way they did.

“Drafted in Colorado, played there for a couple years, you think you’re going to be on the same team your whole career,” Pickard said. “Then 10 teams later, you’re here.”

It made Tuesday that much sweeter.

Now 32, Pickard went from a goalie no one wanted, to, after so many potentially dispiriting twists and turns, starting his first NHL playoff game — and winning it for good measure.

Pickard stopped 19 of 21 shots he faced in Game 4 to help the Oilers earn a 3-2 victory and even their series with the Vancouver Canucks at two games apiece.

“I was trying to channel my emotions as much as I could,” Pickard said. “It’s tough. It’s a high-stakes game, obviously a huge game for us. But I felt comfortable right from the get-go.”

With his parents, Dan and Cathy, in the stands, Pickard’s first playoff start was like a dream. Aside from the two goals he allowed in the third period, he was steady in the Oilers net.

He had to make a few tough stops. He turned aside Conor Garland in the blue paint on a Vancouver power play in the first period. He thwarted Brock Boeser in the second after the Canucks winger got around Cody Ceci. He blockered away an Elias Pettersson shot in the third.

“You can tell from when I got (to the rink) at 5:30, he was in the zone and the way he carried himself out on the ice, just a killer mindset,” defenceman Mattias Ekholm said. “He just went out and delivered for us.”

Coach Kris Knoblauch wanted more saves. That’s exactly what he got.

The first-time NHL coach made the gutsy call to bench No. 1 goaltender Stuart Skinner in favour of a journeyman goalie; a playoff rookie. It paid off handsomely.

“He looked like a guy that had played 100 playoff games,” Knoblauch said.

But his 100th playoff start, this was not, of course. Pickard’s supposed coming-out party came in 2016-17 when he posted a .904 save percentage in 48 games for a pathetic Avalanche team that recorded just 48 points in the standings.

A few weeks after the season ended, he was playing in Leon Draisaitl’s hometown of Cologne, Germany, and allowed just one goal on 41 shots of the World Championship final — a loss in the shootout to Sweden.

That enticed the Vegas Golden Knights to select him in the expansion draft. Pickard, then 25, thought he had a grand opportunity before him, but that couldn’t have been further from reality.

The Golden Knights acquired Malcolm Subban and waived Pickard just as the season began. He cleared. The Toronto Maple Leafs traded for him but used him in the minors. He was ultimately a backup goalie on the AHL team’s championship run.

From Toronto, Pickard made stops with the Philadelphia Flyers,Arizona Coyotes, Tucson Roadrunners, Grand Rapids Griffins,Detroit Red Wings, Vienna Capitals (in fall 2020 due to COVID-19), then Grand Rapids and Detroit again before his first season with the Oilers’ top affiliate, the Bakersfield Condors, in 2022-23.

Pickard was ticketed for another season in Bakersfield before the Oilers got off to a horrendous start. That resulted in high-priced goalie Jack Campbell being waived and then demoted in November and Pickard getting another chance in the big leagues.

The move was expected to be temporary so that Skinner could grasp the starting role and Campbell could re-establish his game.

However, the combination of Pickard’s competence between the pipes and his $762,500 cap hit kept him around. He would have likely been plucked off waivers were he ever exposed to be returned to the minors to make room for Campbell.

Pickard never left Edmonton. He sported a .909 save percentage in 23 appearances, winning 12 of his 20 starts.

“Since I’ve been here (in) mid-November, I’ve been impressed with how well he’s played,” Knoblauch said. “Continually, his starts have been solid, no matter how long he sat — a week, two weeks. We have a lot of confidence in him.”

Tuesday was more of the same.

“What an awesome guy, what an awesome story,” Draisaitl said. “All year, he’s given us a chance to win. Every time he’s in there, it seems like he’s standing on his head.

“I’m super proud of him. Not an easy thing to do. Very, very happy for him.”

Don’t let the two goals against in the third sully your view of Pickard’s night.

The first came after a blocked shot by Vincent Desharnais went right to Garland in the slot. The second was a Dakota Joshua attempt toward a net with more traffic than you’d see on the Whitemud in rush hour.

Otherwise, the Oilers displayed sound defensive structure around their goalie.

Sure, they were hemmed in their zone for more than they would have liked over the final 20 minutes. But they limited the Canucks’ high-danger chances,as they did for most of the rest of the game.

Even with the extended zone time, the Canucks finished with 1.04 expected goals for at five-on-five. That represented the Oilers’ best defensive work of their nine postseason contests this spring.

“It was great,” Bouchard said. “When you can limit a team like Vancouver to two goals, you’re doing a pretty good job.

“We had the help of Picks back there being rock solid for us.”

Part of the credit belongs to Pickard, who did what was asked of him in the net, but perhaps a larger amount belongs to the six blueliners in front of him.

Knoblauch’s other big decision ahead of Game 4 was toflip his second and third defence pairs. He moved Desharnais up alongside Nurse and dropped Ceci down next to Brett Kulak.

Those duos were used in March with limited success, but there were no issues in Game 4. All of them played wonderfully.

Arguably the most noticeable improvement among the four defencemen came from Nurse. He was caved in alongside Ceci in the first three games. On Tuesday, he played fast but also with a sense of calmness and poise. Don’t be too worked up by those two goals against.

“Everyone played good on D,” Ekholm said. “We limited their chances. I don’t think they had many Grade-A’s.”

Of course, Ekholm and Bouchard were up to their usual tricks, too, and both factored into the offence.

Ekholm took a hit in the neutral zone to spring Ryan Nugent-Hopkins for Edmonton’s second goal. Bouchard had a secondary assist on Draisaitl’s power-play marker before scoring his second game-winning goal of the series — this time with 39 seconds left in regulation.

Bouchard leads all NHL defencemen in scoring with 15 points.

“No moment is too big for him,” Ekholm said. “He’s playing his way, and that’s what I love about him. That’s what’s going to make him have an unbelievable career in this league.”

Knoblauch’s other lineup decisions panned out, too.

Having Draisaitl and Connor McDavid centre their own lines allowed for a more balanced attack and spread out the ice time more than in the previous two games. Elevating Dylan Holloway to a line with Draisaitl and Evander Kane paid dividends when the sophom*ore winger kept the play alive in the offensive zone before Bouchard’s winner.

But this game was all about Knoblauch’s key move: Pickard. How could it not be?

Ask anyone around the Oilers about Pickard and they gush about him. About how he’s a remarkable partner and teammate to Skinner. How hard he works at practice. How his dry humour and quick wit make him one of the funniest players on the team. How he’s professional with a cool temperament.

“Everyone wants to be around him,” Bouchard said. “And when he can go in the net and play like that, it’s hard to not want a teammate like Cal on your team.”

Hearing all that puts a smile on Pickard’s face. He can’t help but want to be known for a little bit more, though.

“Being a good teammate is one thing,” the veteran goalie said. “When you get that opportunity, you want to be a good goalie.

“At points in my career, I’ve just been labelled as a good teammate, good team guy. … It’s nice to get in the net and have some success.”

That happened in a big way on the biggest stage on Tuesday.

Finally.

“It’s been a great journey,” Pickard said. “There’s been a lot of learning experiences for me. I’m just grateful for this opportunity and (I’ll) just ride it out.”

(Top photo: Codie McLachlan / Getty Images)

Daniel Nugent-Bowman is a staff writer who covers the Edmonton Oilers for The Athletic. Daniel has written about hockey for Sportsnet, The Hockey News, Yahoo Canada Sports and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix. Follow Daniel on Twitter @DNBsports