The Chicago Blackhawks couldn't score on the Edmonton Oilers Calvin Pickard last night.
The Chicago Blackhawks couldn't score on the Edmonton Oilers Calvin Pickard last night.
EDMONTON -- The Edmonton Oilers are now holding a 15-game win streak heading into their Saturday afternoon game against the Nashville Predators. For the past two games, their goaltending has done extraordinarily well.
Allowing two goals or less for the last 12 games is an astonishing accomplishment. Hockey is a team game, and the Oilers are proving that right now by how they are winning game in and game out.
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Obviously, Stuart Skinner has been fantastic. He has found himself on a historic run, taking over the Oilers record for the most consecutive wins in a row. Not to be outdone by his counterpart, Calvin Pickard earned a 27-save shutout on Thursday night in front of the crowd at Rogers Place.
Being a backup goaltender is never easy, and Pickard let us in on what that is like.
"Practice time is big for me," when a goalie doesn't play for two weeks any time you spend on the ice is more valuable. Especially working with the team's goaltending coach, "I got a lot of time with Schwarty [Dustin Schwartz] and a lot of team practices."
The mentality of a goaltender and their play on the ice often go hand-in-hand. Pickard has a simple trick for staying calm.
"[I'm] not putting too much pressure on myself."
In eight appearances in the NHL so far this season Pickard is 5-2-0, with a 2.34 goals against average (GAA) and a .915 save percentage (SV%). This is the most games that he has played since the 2018-19 season - one that he split between the Philadelphia Flyers and Arizona Coyotes.
That was also the last year he got a shutout. Pickard downplayed the accomplishment by saying, "shutouts are definitely a team stat."
"I thought we defended well tonight. I thought we took over towards the latter part of the game. I made some saves but I thought we cleared out a lot of rebounds and blocked a lot of shots."
"So it's definitely a team shutout for sure."
I don't know if this journalist has ever heard a goaltender call a shutout a "team stat" before.
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