Oilers backup goalie Calvin Pickard struggles behind slack early-season team defence

What’s happened to Calvin Pickard, who wrote that stuff-of-dreams story in the NHL playoffs last spring?

Stu Skinner’s safety net is digging pucks out of the cage right now, a few months after the loyal soldier won six straight early playoff games last spring and finished 7-1. He was the all-heart battler bailing out the Edmonton Oilers when Skinner lost two in Los Angeles. Then he carried it into Round 2 against Vegas, winning the first two there, gutting it out to win on a damaged left leg in Game 2 after Tomas Hertl fell on him.

Now, Pickard has given up 10 goals on his last 46 shots, coming in as relief against Colorado, then starting against Columbus. He has an .830 save percentage and a 4.17 goals-against average. Of the 54 NHL goalies who have played in at least five games, he has the worst save percentage.

Here’s what we know about Pickard. He’s not a great goalie. He’s only played 195 games. He’s a highly capable NHL backup and he needs to make way more saves. But you also have to assess the environment in front of him.

Last season he had the second-easiest environment, in terms of shot quality, and he performed well although the underlying stats say he wasn’t quite as good as his win-loss record, 22-10-1, would suggest. You wouldn’t be wrong if you suggested the players in front of him battled their butts off defensively because he’s such a good teammate.

There’s not as much battle this season. He’s not insulated. It’s chaos, baby.

“One of Cal’s greatest strengths is he reads the game at a really high level,” said InGoal magazine’s Kevin Woodley, who tracks one and all NHL goalies.

“When you have a defensive environment like he did last year, it’s more predictable. His reads are right and more effective. Right now, he has the lowest expected-save performance in the entire National Hockey League. The worst defensive environment of any goalie belongs to Calvin Pickard,” he said.

“They haven’t defended well at all. Now has he underperformed? Yes. But his skillset … if you think the game at a really high level and your environment is that uncontrolled, they’re not giving Cal a chance to play to his strength,” said Woodley.

“On the high-danger stuff, boy is he seeing a lot of it. The Oilers are 29th in the NHL in high-danger shots in the defensive zone and their PK is 25th. That requires goaltending to bail you out but with all due respect, are the Oilers built, needing their goaltending to be their saving grace?”

“It’s one thing to say a goalie can’t cost us games when you’re dominating play. But they’re not doing that anymore,” he said.

Pickard is likely scheduled to play in Tampa in the second of a back-to-back against the Capitals and the Lightning on the road next week. There won’t be much practice time, maybe Sunday in Buffalo and Tuesday in Washington, to work on his technique.

Connor Ingram is far from being ready to ride in on a white horse to maybe replace Pickard. He has an .848 save percentage and 4.05 goal average in Bakersfield in four starts.

“It’s a challenge for Ingram. He plays deep and reads the game well, too, but the American League is more of a mistakes league,” said Woodley.

Let’s revisit Ingram at Christmas, shall we?

Yes, there may be a better 1b for 1a Skinner in a trade — yeah, the strong-willed Elvis Merzlikins might be available because coach Dean Evason might like Jet Greaves better, but Columbus would have to eat half of his $5.4-million AAV cap hit for this year and next. Pickard’s $1-million AAV is perfectly placed in a tight cap squeeze here.

What they need is for him to find his old game.

Last season he had a .900 save percentage and a 2.71 goal average.

In 2023-24, he was 12-7-1, and .909/2.45.

Now goaltending is voodoo. Career backups suddenly go red hot like Dan Vladar in Philadelphia, and Jordan Binnington, who outplayed Connor Hellebuyck to win the 4 Nations for Canada and is the starter for the Olympic team until told otherwise, has an .873 save percentage in St. Louis right now. Stats of older goalies do regress but Pickard is only 33, not 37.

For sure, the Oilers need Pickard to take the pressure off Skinner but right now Pickard looks lost in the net. In Columbus Thursday, he stopped 20 of 25 and six other Blue Jackets shots rang the iron, post or crossbar. He seems more active than normal in the net. He’s always been more acrobatic than Skinner because he’s shorter, but right now all those pucks are finding holes.

It doesn’t help that the Oilers don’t clear players away from the net with the alacrity — one of play-by-play man Jack Michaels’ favourite words — or the firmness necessary.

There aren’t many opposing players paying a price to stand around the blue paint — Derian Hatcher where are you? — but that’s the way it is in most NHL precincts, not just the Oilers. That’s the way the game’s played now. Not sure how many players are wearing flak jackets to stand in front of goalies like, say, Ryan Smyth or Craig Simpson back in the day.

Clearly the overall Oilers netminding hasn’t been good enough. They have the worst save percentage in the NHL at even strength, just .874. Skinner’s issues have been well-documented in Oilers nation. He is the fans’ piñata, for sure.

But, Pickard, beloved by his teammates, seemed above all of that. He was the darling of the fans last spring. Now, the bottom’s fallen out. His expected save percentage is .860, unsustainably low, worst in the league. That’s the lowest since, maybe, Eric Comrie when he was in Buffalo and people said he’s not an NHL goalie but two years later behind a much sounder defence in Winnipeg he is a safe, effective backup.

The Oilers do have a new goalie coach Peter Aubry. Has he tinkered with Pickard’s technique? Or is this just a player struggling mightily with his confidence behind a team defence that has taken to not registering very high on the give-a-spit meter?

Some awfully good starters are also having trouble, and not just Binnington. Sergei Bobrovsky has an .893 save percentage in Florida, Linus Ullmark is .870 in Ottawa, Sam Montembeault is .857 in Montreal, Andrei Vasilevskiy is .896 in Tampa and Juuse Saros, the most mentioned trade target here, is .892 in Nashville.

But, let’s get back to Pickard. Since his .933 save percentage in his first start against Vancouver on Oct. 11 with 15 shots, one goal against, on the best game the Oilers have played, he’s given up 26 goals on 144 shots.

His confidence is hanging by a thread, but …

“Hard to look confident as a goalie when you’re in the toughest environment in the league,” said Woodley.