Oilers’ Calvin Pickard’s numbers might not be pretty, but he’s getting wins

The Edmonton Oilers defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 in Game 1 of their second-round series Tuesday night. A big reason for the win was Calvin Pickard, who allowed just two goals and stopped 15 shots in the contest.

The 32-year-old Pickard, who has an .891 save percentage (SV%) in six appearances, is 5-0 in his five starts after taking over for Stuart Skinner. In his 10 NHL seasons, he’s rarely held the starting role, but as the Oilers fight to reach the Stanley Cup Final for a second straight season, the Moncton, N.B., native has been given the crease and a chance to run with it.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk are joined by former NHL goalie Carter Hutton for another edition of “The Blue Paint” to discuss Pickard’s playoff performance and what he brings to the Oilers’ lineup.

Frank Seravalli: For me, I’m not taking Calvin Pickard out of the net unless you give me reason to. You go back to the beginning of the playoffs, when Kris Knoblauch put him in, he said “Look at his win-loss record in the regular season, there has to be something there.”

Now Pickard is 5-0 in the playoffs, and that’s all that matters.

Carter Hutton: The only stat you care about is that he’s 5-0. If he had an .800 SV%, it doesn’t matter: he’s winning games. That’s where it goes to show you where just the mental psyche of the team, and how sometimes it’s not how many saves you make, it’s how you make them.

If you ran a skills session with the majority of goalies in the NHL and put him through the paces, he’d probably be one of the weaker goalies. But what I can tell you is that he’s a gamer.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…