We know that pro sports is a cruel business, where a guy can be saving his team’s butt one year and the next, he becomes a third wheel in a relationship because management and fan bases deal in the here and now.
Loyalty in the real world is admired.
In hockey, football, baseball, loyalty is a fine thing but not the only thing.
So while the Edmonton Oilers now have a tag team of Tristan Jarry and Connor Ingram in net, two new goalies pushing each other, Calvin Pickard, who won seven playoff games last spring, now can’t even dress as the backup.
There’s likely coming a time when he’s either going on waivers because they’re forced to use their cap room on a forward or a defenceman from the farm, not a goalie who doesn’t suit up. Or, another desperate NHL team — read Ottawa or Philadelphia — needs a better backup in a trade. Pickard is affordable at $1 million, with his contract expiring July 1, and a guy who has proven that in the furnace-like playoffs, he can win.
But for now, the eminently likable Pickard, who has the big guns Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl solidly in his corner as a great friend and teammate, is uncomfortably sitting in limbo.
He comes to the rink every day, stops pucks, doesn’t mope, don’t gripe.
But he doesn’t play and for a guy who came into the Los Angeles playoff series last spring and won the last four games, then two more to start the Vegas series before Tomas Hertl fell on him in the crease and he tore something in his left leg, this is a gut-punch.
“I don’t love how it got to this point but I get it. I can’t be boiling mad coming to the rink every day because that will be counterproductive for what I need to do,” said the always stand-up guy Pickard, who has played the good soldier throughout his 191-game NHL career with stops in Colorado, Toronto, Detroit, Arizona, Philadelphia and here, going 39-23-4 over parts of three seasons.
“I don’t like it. I’m not having fun with it but I’m still coming in every day, working hard because you never know what’s going to happen. I have to be ready for my next opportunity. That’s my mindset,” he said.
At the best of times a backup doesn’t play a lot if there’s an acknowledged starter. He’s used to how that goes unless he’s in a 1 and 1a situation, two guys jostling for playing time, like 80 per cent of NHL teams, But it wasn’t that way when Stuart Skinner was here before he was traded to Thursday’s opponent, Pittsburgh, six weeks ago. Skinner was the acknowledged starter. He thought he’d be paired with Jarry, who came here in the Skinner deal, but then Jarry got hurt in Boston Dec. 18, was out a month, and Ingram came up from Bakersfield, where he was struggling, and he’s been lights out.
So, now Pickard sits beside Jarry, doing a media scrum Wednesday. He takes questions from two reporters, asking if they want to sit down, take a load off, and when the interview is winding down he asks about another scribe Daniel Nugent-Bowman, who is no longer with The Athletic, wondering what’s up with that.
Again, showing his human side.
The last thing Pickard wants to do is rock any boats.
“That’s not who I am, even though everybody realizes the situation. Right now, I’m the third goalie and it’s painful for me,” he said.
“I’m still here joking with the guys. Doesn’t mean I’m happy with what’s going on, but when I’m here it’s my job to be a pro, good teammate. I have conversations with the coaching staff and such, maybe a little more stern, but with my teammates, nothing changes. These guys (Jarry and Ingram) have played well,” he said.
Since the Penguins trade, the Oiler goaltending is better, but the team has also played much better in front of the tenders, more focused defensively, than they were early in the season with Skinner and Pickard, who came up from Bakersfield three years ago to replace Jack Campbell and took off with the chance.
He knows his start this season wasn’t good (in seven starts over the first month, he gave up five goals three times and four twice), in concert with a team in defensive denial. He did steal a win in Winnipeg just after Christmas and beat the Lightning in Tampa in late November with an outstanding performance. His play had rebounded while Jarry was out but his last game was Jan. 8 in Winnipeg, again beating the Jets.
But while the goalie fraternity is a tight one, where there’s always pulling for one another on a team, now he’s a spectator.
“Me and Skins struggled (beginning) but our team was trying to find their footing. I needed to make some more saves, here and there,” he said.
Pickard deserves better, but deserving often isn’t a word that hockey adheres to.
“I’ve learned that over the years. You’ve always got to be playing well, especially a guy in my position, lower contract, not a very long time (left),” he said.
“As a general manager, you’re probably always looking to the future. I’ve played a lot of good hockey here. You never know what the future holds. I could be right back in there and playing soon. But, yeah, it does suck,” said Pickard about spending time in the press box.
That said, Pickard is always a guy who brings the temperature down.
“Don’t feel bad for me,” he said.
“I’ve been through this before. I’m 34 soon. I’ve seen all kinds of situations.”
But we do feel bad, on a human scale. Think of what you love to do becoming not fun. Whatever happens with Pickard, McDavid, Draisaitl and the others in the team leadership group, will have their voices heard on how the goalie is treated in all of this, how it turns out if Jarry and Ingram are the changing of the guard.
The Oilers are carrying all three on their cap because they want to make sure Jarry, coming off a leg problem, stays in one piece. They can also afford it with $271,000 in space and they have room on their 23-man roster, barring injuries elsewhere. It’s been a little tricky on that front with Draisaitl still in Germany attending to a family matter and Kasperi Kapanen hurting his leg Sunday against St. Louis. As it is, they played with 11 forwards Tuesday against New Jersey.
Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch may have erred in not dressing Pickard as the backup to Ingram this past Sunday on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 1,000th game. Instead, he was in the press box. Pickard has a lot more history with RNH than Jarry, who was the game’s backup.
But Knoblauch the man, not the coach, does feel for Pickard’s lot in life today.
“It’s hard for me. I can’t imagine what it’s like for Picks,” he said. “On a personal side, here’s a fantastic teammate who means a lot to the guys in the room.”
“We wouldn’t have been in the Stanley Cup Final two years in a row without him.
Against Vancouver (in 2024) he was able to give our starter (Skinner) a reset in that series. And last year the way he played in the L.A. series, then into Vegas before getting hurt disrupted that. Without his strong play I’m not sure we get through that series. He’s won a lot of important games for us,” said Knoblauch, who knows his start this season was rocky but so was his team’s.
From mid-December on, he’s been much better, but Jarry returned from hurting his leg in a win in Boston with Pickard coming in to make every save in relief. Then Ingram comes up on emergency injury recall, and he doesn’t go back.
“Unfortunately, he’s odd man out but when I look back at his contributions and being a quality person, it’s difficult for me to see him in this position,” said Knoblauch.
So the when Cup final ends last year, did Knoblauch see this coming?
This pairing of Jarry and Ingram?
“Definitely not,” he said.
But there were lots of conversations with GM Stan Bowman about Skinner, mostly. They talked about other options, but there weren’t a lot. “Then, as the season went, we had to find something and we ended up with the goalies we have now,” he said.
Knoblauch is a firm believer in goaltending being voodoo.
“Goalie is a funny position. Now, there’s a handful of guys you know will be solid year after year. And with other goalies, they have a good season, then one that’s not. It’s probably the most important position in the game but also the most unpredictable,” he said.
Nobody knows the vagaries of that more than Pickard.
But that doesn’t mean he has to like it, today.
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