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For Pickard, lost season turned into a learning experience |
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Rick Sadowski
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Calvin Pickard is looking forward to competing for Team Canada in the 2017 IIHF World Championships following a disastrous Avalanche season.
Three other Avalanche teammates have agreed to suit up for Canada: Tyson Barrie, Matt Duchene and Nathan MacKinnon.
Coached by Tampa Bay's Jon Cooper, the team will gather in Geneva, Switzerland, for a pre-tournament camp that includes an exhibition game against the Swiss on May 2. The tournament is scheduled May 5-21 with games in Paris and Cologne, Germany.
“It’ll be nice to have some familiar faces going over,” said Pickard, who along with Duchene helped Canada win the gold medal last year. "It was a lot of fun and a cool experience. I'm really looking forward to it."
Pickard won both of his starts in last year's tournament when he had a shutout, a 0.50 goals-against average and .971 save percentage.
Pickard would just as soon forget the 2016-17 season when the Avalanche went a horrid 22-56-4. He played in a career-high 50 games, 29 of them after Semyon Varlamov was shut down and eventually underwent two hip operations.
Pickard won a career-high 15 games, but he also lost a career-worst 31 and finished with a 2.98 goals-against average and .904 save percentage. He went a combined 13-13-4 his first two seasons in Colorado with a 2.46 goals-against average and .927 save percentage.
"I was on a tough team in junior -- we weren't great -- but that's on a different scale," said Pickard, who played four years with the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League. "This is the NHL and we were dead last by a long shot. It was a learning experience, for sure. It was tough to maintain confidence for almost everyone."
The Avalanche never won more than two consecutive games -- they managed this "feat" four times -- and Pickard had personal losing streaks of five games (twice), four games (three times) and three games (once).
"When you lose this much, it wears on you," he said. "It becomes quite a grind. Winning is the best part of being on a team. It's a lot of fun and everyone's happy around the rink."
That wasn't exactly the case this season.
"I went through a variety of situations, played in a lot of games and I definitely learned a lot," Pickard said. "It was a good season in that regard. Obviously, stats-wise, I'd have liked it to be a lot better. The record wasn't where it needs to be, but I gained a lot of valuable experience and it's going to help me in the future."
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