{"id":450204,"date":"2026-02-03T01:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/450204\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T01:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:30:08","slug":"love-the-guy-why-pickards-demotion-is-hitting-oilers-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/450204\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Love the guy’: Why Pickard’s demotion is hitting Oilers hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDMONTON \u2014\u00a0The people who reside inside these dressing rooms \u2014\u00a0the players, specifically \u2014\u00a0build monuments for teammates like Calvin Pickard<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the people who never set foot inside \u2014\u00a0namely, fans \u2014\u00a0can at times eschew the value of a beloved teammate. Someone who always knew just the right moment when a subtle one-liner was required to cut through the tension of a Stanley Cup Final intermission, or when someone needed a shot of \u201cwe kid because we love\u201d when their game had run into some bad luck.<\/p>\n

So at time like this, when the Edmonton Oilers<\/a> are breaking eggs to re-make their Stanley Cup omelette \u2014 one that has lacked just the slightest dash of spice, the most tangential ingredient to get them over the top \u2014\u00a0it falls to those of us who live among the fans, yet walk in and out of these dressing rooms after all the blood has been cleaned up and the team bonding has ceased, to try to explain it all.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we\u2019ve learned about good guys and backup goalies over the years:<\/p>\n

\u2022 One, if you can\u2019t play \u2014\u00a0if you can’t help the team win \u2014\u00a0no joke you crack or cheer you lead will help you last. The players know who can help and who can\u2019t, and they don\u2019t have any time for the latter.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Two, if you CAN play, a backup doesn\u2019t get enough ice time that he can just turn off his responsibilities when he\u2019s not standing between the pipes in a game. You take extra shots before and after practice; you support your starter through thick and thin (See: Skinner, Stuart); you figure out what role, which emotion, or what intangible gap needs filling among the other 19 guys inside that dressing room, and you provide it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, I think he helped a lot of guys in here, just taking some pressure off in big moments,\u201d Matias Ekholm said, about 10 minutes before we learned that Pickard was not claimed on waivers Monday. \u201cIt’s not like he’s saying something every night. It’s just him being him:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s a nice, loose guy, who isn\u2019t afraid,\u201d Ekholm said. \u201cWhether it’s a Stanley Cup Final or Game 47 (of the season) \u2014\u00a0he’ll be joking around the room. He’ll just be making you less tense.<\/p>\n

\u201cLove the guy. He\u2019s been nothing but awesome for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know the following to be true, but we sense it is: In a hockey room, the bottom-of-the-roster guys are more important than they are in a baseball clubhouse, an NBA locker room, or on an NFL team where the backup corner only gets snaps in garbage time, barring injury.<\/p>\n

Pickard started 31 games last season and appeared in 36. He bailed out a struggling Skinner, helping the Oilers to advance through Rounds 1 and 2 with a starter that likely would not have, posting a 7-1 playoff record.<\/p>\n

So, for general manager Stan Bowman, removing a Pickard \u2014\u00a0or a Troy Stecher, the D-man equivalent \u2014\u00a0is a move made at his own peril.<\/p>\n

Alas, it\u2019s a move he makes because the greater good demanded a change in the goaltending landscape here.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t win with Pickard as our backup,\u201d said nobody, ever.<\/p>\n

But when you shake up the jujube jar, sometimes you pull out different colours than you thought you would. The Oilers\u2019 nets belong to Tristan Jarry<\/a> and Connor Ingram<\/a> now, and the rest of the guys just have to suck it up and deal with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t shut off the emotions. He’s one of my best friends \u2014\u00a0I’m going to miss him no matter what,\u201d Leon Draisaitl<\/a> said of Pickard. \u201cBut at the end of the day, like, I\u2019ve got to continue to do what I do \u2026 whether Picks is here or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a guy who has played enough NHL games this season, Pickard qualifies to get the Olympic break off. After that, he may go to AHL Bakersfield, where the Condors went 10-2-2 in January, and Connor Ungar posted five wins and a .956 save percentage.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps, with too many \u2018tendies in the system, Bowman can find another AHL team that needs a netminder on loan.<\/p>\n

Either way, there will be a period of mourning in this Oilers\u2019 room, and a flurry of texts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I speak for everyone in here,\u201d Draisaitl said. \u201cHe’s one of the greatest teammates all of us have had. He played a lot of big games, had a lot of big wins.\u201d<\/p>\n

We asked Draisaitl about the whole brotherhood thing, and why it matters so much inside the walls of a hockey room.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go through stretches like the last two years, you build friendships,\u201d said an assistant captain of a team that\u2019s gone to the final NHL game played for two seasons now, then collapsed in a room that housed no champagne, no shiny Cup, and no celebrating family members. \u201cIt\u2019s probably easier to get really tight when you go that far. You really have to dig in, and you really find out who you can go to war with. We’ve been close; we’ve been really deep and far.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou find out a lot about human beings and the way they are in stressful situations,\u201d he said, before adding, \u201cbut building friendships in this world, at some point, comes to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot the friendship, but the being together.\u201d<\/p>\n

As it turned out, Pickard remains Oilers property. Which means, well, you never know, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe’s gonna be OK,\u201d Draisaitl said. \u201cHe’s a great goalie, a great human being \u2014\u00a0we love him in here.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd who knows? Maybe, down the stretch, he’s going to be back and playing big games for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014\u00a0The people who reside inside these dressing rooms \u2014\u00a0the players, specifically \u2014\u00a0build monuments for teammates like Calvin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-450204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}