Should be interesting Saturday night when goalie Calvin Pickard gets to start against Paul Stastny and the St. Louis Blues at the Pepsi Center. Who knows, he might even see future Hall of Famer Martin Brodeur in the opposite crease. Wouldn't that be too cool?
The 22-year-old sure isn't playing like an emergency call-up who will be sent back to Lake Erie once Semyon Varlamov recovers from his groin injury.
"Phenomenal," is how Avalanche coach Patrick Roy described Pickard's play Thursday night after the rookie allowed his team to rally for a 4-3 shootout win against his hometown Winnipeg Jets.
First, the Avalanche wiped out a 3-1 deficit in the final 7:05 of regulation on goals by Jarome Iginla and Ryan O'Reilly. Iginla scored off a pass from Alex Tanguay (two assists) and O'Reilly drove to the net to tip in the rebound of Gabriel Landeskog's shot with 2:42 to play.
The Avalanche outshot the Jets 5-4 in a wide-open overtime, with the highlight coming when Pickard stopped Andrew Ladd on a clean breakaway and smothered Bryan Little's whack at the rebound.
"I just wanted to be patient," Pickard said. "Our backcheck forced (Ladd) to make a quick shot. I was playing pretty aggressive and the rebound kind of just lay there. I made a desperation save."
Said Roy: "On that breakaway he made a great save and on the rebound an even better save. It's fun. I'm happy for him. He's competing hard and he deserves to be where he is and we're certainly proud of him."
Pickard, who finished with 30 saves, stopped Mathieu Perreault and Blake Wheeler in the shootout. Avalanche forwards Nathan MacKinnon and Matt Duchene scored against Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec.
"I know those two guys have a lot of skill," Pickard said of Perreault and Wheeler. "I actually have faced Wheeler in the summers sometimes. I know he's got great moves and I just wanted to be patient and let the play come to me. It was nice that I got the result.
"It was exciting. We came back and it would have been nice to win that and I just wanted to be patient (in the shootout). I know guys like MacKinnon and Duchene have some silky hands and they made a couple of nice goals there. I just wanted to be patient and make those saves.
"It was huge," Pickard added. "We have been losing close games by one goal and the difference between winning and losing is a small margin, but we wanted to just stick with it for 60 minutes and we did right to the end. We tied it up late and we were pressing and it could have gone either way in overtime. We get to the shootout and I thought we deserved that extra point for sure.…
Pickard has gone 4-3-0 in his past seven games with a 1.97goals-against average and .938 save percentage. Overall, he has a 4-5-0 record with a 2.36 goals-against average and .926 save percentage.
"He’s been playing pretty good ever since he’s been here," Tanguay said. "He has been giving us a chance to win every single night and certainly it’s needed. A good goaltender gives you a chance to win and certainly in overtime, you saw the two saves he made on the breakaway and the rebound, huge. Even in the shootout, he didn’t give them anything so we will definitely enjoy this one. We would have not liked to give them a point, but we will take it.…
The win snapped the Avalanche's losing streak at four games (0-3-1).
The Jets sandwiched power-play goals in the second period by Ladd and Paul Postma around an even-strength goal by Duchene, who drove to the net to redirect Jan Hejda's pass from the left circle for his team-leading 10th goal. Mark Scheifelle, who had a career-high three points, gave the Jets their 3-1 lead at 4:32 of the third period after an Avalanche turnover.
The Jets outshot the Avalanche 16-4 in the second period, 11-1 in the final 16:05 after Duchene scored to tie the game.
"We dominated the second period where I'd thought the game was won and at 3-1 I thought we were fine," Jets coach Paul Maurice said. "They had two really good shots that went in to tie it. I didn't think we let up at the end. It was not an easy game to move the puck. Everybody had a hard time getting a handle on the puck so a lot of zone times got extended in our end."
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In a battle of team captains, Landeskog won an easy decision against Ladd when the two fought at 11:16 of the second period. It was Landeskog's third career NHL fight.
"We're very proud of our captain, the fight that he had," Roy said. "I'm not saying we're for fighting, but I thought he showed a lot of character. We cannot lose that game where your captain does that. You have to find a way to win. That's what I told our guys after the second period, let's respond to that. What I like is we never give up."
Said Duchene: He wanted him last game and it didn’t happen. This game, he went and you could tell he wanted him bad and wanted to get some momentum for us and he did a heck of a job stepping up there.…
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The Avalanche continue to struggle on power plays. They were 0-for-4 and are in a 3-for-30 slump in the past 11 games ... Iginla's goal gave him 1,185 NHL points and moved him past Rod Brind'Amour into 47th place on the all-time list. Dino "I can't believe I shook his friggin' hand" Ciccarelli is next with 1,200 points ... The Avalanche have used comebacks in their past six wins, trailing in the third period in five of them ... Erik Johnson played 28:35, had four blocked shots and was plus-2 ... Zach Redmond played 18:42, had an assist and four blocks against his former team and was plus-1. His plus-5 figure is best on the team ... Dennis Everberg was activated from injured reserve after missing eight games with a shoulder injury, with John Mitchell (leg) going on IR. Everberg played 9:05, mostly on the fourth line, and had one shot.