Kris Knoblauch’s gutsy bet on Calvin Pickard has turned tide for Oilers vs. Canucks

EDMONTON — Kris Knoblauch speaks softly but the Edmonton Oilers’ coach carries balls the size of an Athabasca oil sands dump truck.

To anyone who counts the decision as an obvious one to send out Cal Pickard for his first career Stanley Cup playoff start after the Oilers’ heart-stopping, 3-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday night, well, should we count the ways that could’ve blown up?

Knoblauch would have been second-guessed until the cows came home. Bet another spring of Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid magic on a 32-year-old journeyman who hasn’t been good enough or important enough to even start AHL playoff games over the last decade? What, are you nuts? The safe play was Stuart Skinner.

But Game 4 was Knoblauch’s one and only shot to start Pickard. Knoblauch could always go back to Skinner, but if Skinner faltered in Game 4, he couldn’t toss Pickard into the pressure cooker in an elimination game. 

Knoblauch pulled the trigger. And it’s changed the trajectory of this second-round series, now down to a best-of-three.

“He looked like a guy that had played 100 playoff games,” Knoblauch said.

When Knoblauch was weighing his options between games, it was part heart, part head. The Oilers didn’t love Skinner’s body language in Game 3, the way he digested the second period hook and the loss. They also dove into the numbers. One public metric suggested if Edmonton only received an .870 save percentage from Skinner, they’d be up 3-0 in the series.

But it was one internal metric that aligned gut and brain for Knoblauch.

“You look at our expected goals, the chances we’ve given up, I believe we’re No. 1 in the NHL right now,” Knoblauch said postgame.

The Oilers have allowed both the fewest scoring chances and the fewest high-danger scoring chances of any team still standing in the Stanley Cup playoffs, according to NaturalStatTrick.com. So as much as Knoblauch displayed a measure of confidence in Pickard’s ability to be dropped into the playoffs for his first start since April 18, he actually bet the quarter section of land on his team’s ability to defend.

“I don’t think we gave up very many chances,” Knoblauch said.

Pickard didn’t need to be lights out. He just needed to be passable. He carried a shutout into the third period and stopped 19 of 21 shots, surviving a late flurry. 

You can chide the Oilers for nearly blowing another multi-goal third period lead in this series, but even the two the Canucks scored on – Conor Garland from distance through a Dakota Joshua screen and then Joshua off a shin pad – most teams would generally be comfortable with that process. The Oilers generally looked more calm defending.

The trickle down effect was immense. Because the Oilers finally got stops, they played with a lead for the first time since Game 1. Because the Oilers had a lead, Knoblauch didn’t have to lean on McDavid and Draisaitl, dialing back their ice time by six and a half minutes from Games 3 and 4. Because McDavid and Draisaitl weren’t pressed into action, the third and fourth lines got into the flow. Because everything was in rhythm, Edmonton could experiment and break up Darnell Nurse and Cody Ceci for the first time in months and try different defensive pairs.

“It’s a lot easier when you have the lead,” Knoblauch said. “And also, a lot of credit to our fourth line. [Mattias] Janmark, [Derek] Ryan, [Connor] Brown — they gave us a lot of quality minutes, and they gave us a lot of quality minutes against some of their good players. It’s not like we were putting them out against fourth line, I think they had just as many shifts against the fourth line as they did against their first and second lines.”

That also left McDavid and Draisaitl with plenty in the tank to go for the throat after the Canucks tied it with 1:41 to play.

“When things like that happen, it’s a bit of a shock and sometimes you can get on your heels a little bit and ‘let’s just get this into overtime,’” Draisaitl explained, but the Oilers went to work and Evander Kane came up big on the forecheck.

Pickard bailed out the Oilers early, they picked him up late. Mattias Ekholm said Pickard had a “killer mindset.” It was an incredible scene watching Pickard salute the crowd as the Three Stars selection. 

“Unbelievable,” Draisaitl said. “What an awesome guy, what an awesome story. All year, he’s given us a chance to win and every time he’s in there, it seems like he’s standing on his head. I’m super proud of him. Not an easy thing to do. Very, very happy for him.”

The Maritimer from Moncton had all of his friends and family inside Rogers Place for his crowning career moment after more than a decade toiling in pro hockey. The NHL, let alone last night, can feel so far away when you’re in Tucson, Grand Rapids or Bakersfield.

“It’s been a long time, obviously,” Pickard said. “Drafted in Colorado, played there for a couple years, you think you’re going to be on the same team your whole career, then 10 teams later you’re here. It’s been a great journey, there have been a lot of learning experiences for me. I’m just grateful for this opportunity.”

Knoblauch wouldn’t yet commit to starting Pickard in a pivotal Game 5 on Friday night, but he appeared to have a tell: “His body of work tonight allows us to have a lot of confidence in him if we did do that.”

Knoblauch shouldn’t have to wrack his brain for this one. He can exhale. Pickard is the play. And maybe that’s the rub for the Oilers. The belief is almost universal that they’ll need Skinner again if they’re going to slay the Stars next round, as he has an unquestioned higher ceiling than Pickard.

But that’s why playing Pickard was the bet of Knoblauch’s life. You can’t win a Stanley Cup in the second round, but you can definitely lose one.