Avalanche rookie goalie Calvin Pickard after 47-save, 1-0 overtime loss at Pittsburgh:
PITTSBURGH — The is all about Calvin Pickard, the 22-year-old Avalanche rookie goalie who undoubtedly deserves to continue to play in the NHL. In the latest edition of his standing-on-head performances, Pickard had a 47-save shutout brewing in overtime before Blake Comeau capitalized on a rebound to win it for the Penguins, 1-0 at the Consol Energy Center.
Please click to the gamer for Patrick Roy’s off-camera thoughts about what the Avs will probably do when Semyon Varlamov is cleared to play. Varly is scheduled to practice with the team Friday in Buffalo and, according to Roy, will replace Pickard when he’s deemed ready. And it doesn’t appear the third goalie on the food chain, Reto Berra, will take his $1.45 million salary to the minors. All signs point toward Pickard ($810,000 NHL salary, $67,500 AHL) going back to Lake Erie of the American Hockey League.
Roy said Pickard’s play is a “wakeup call for Berra. He needs to see whatap going on right now and compete better in practice.”
As for that offense, the Avs’ best chances came early in the game. They were outshot 24-7 in the third period and OT. Minutes into the game, Nathan MacKinnon’s shot from inside the left circle caromed off Marc-Andre Fleury and over the goalie. It was destined to go in before Fleury spun around and slapped it mid-air into the corner. MacKinnon had a team-high six shots, and captain Gabe Landeskog and Brad Stuart — who was playing in his 1,000th NHL regular-season game — each had four.
“At times, I feel like there’s glimpses of offense but I don’t feel like we’re sustaining that offense that we need,” Landeskog said. “We didn’t have those long shifts in the O-zone, those shifts where we can kind of role some lines and get some momentum. Saying that, I think we played a solid road game defensively except for the few times we coughed up the puck. They were feeding off momentum from those.”
About Pickard, Landeskog said: “He’s playing really well. What can you say? He’s giving us a chance to win night after night and that’s all you can ask for.”
Landeskog absorbed a vicious elbow from Steve Downie, his former linemate with the Avs, early in the game to produce Colorado’s second power play. Landeskog and Downie got into physical battles/cross checks etc. in training camp to begin last season, and some have thought Downie’s early season trade to Philadelphia for Max Talbot was a result of Downie not getting along with teammates, especially the captain.
But Landeskog said that’s just a myth. “That’s a hit and it’s a physical game we’re playing,” Landeskog said. Asked if it had anything to do with the past, Landy said: “No. Me and Downs, we had nothing against each other when we played together. We were linemates for a long time and that’s just another hockey hit.”
Meanwhile, here’s Pickard’s quote about stoning Sidney Crosby with a glove save on a breakaway: “I just wanted to be patient. I know he’s an unbelievable player, one of the best players in the world, if not the best. Just knees bent, he got a shot off and luckily my glove was there.”
And finally, here’s Matt Duchene, who went without a shot in 20:31 of ice time: “Obviously, you get to overtime you want to come out with the two (points). Give them credit, they put a lot of shots on Pick. Pick played outstanding but I kind of thought it was a coin-flip game, it could have gone either way. I thought we had some decent looks in OT. But, yeah, we’re disappointed we didn’t score, even though we played a pretty good road game.”
Off to Buffalo … Sabres next up on Saturday night.
