Colorado Avalanche, The Right Goaltender Is Crucial
By Will Radke
Calvin Pickard
Lastly, is Calvin Pickard. Whether he becomes the goalie of the Colorado Avalanche future or is caught in the wide net Calgary is planning on for recruiting goalies this offseason is still up for debate. However, in the last two years he has shown himself just as capable as stealing games as Varlamov and Berra.
However, the main reason I personally like Pickard is his low danger save percentage. From far away shots, where Varlamov has been struggling both to the naked eye and statistically, Pickard makes 98.63% of the saves. That’s huge in gaining a team’s confidence. Nothing kills a team’s momentum like having shots from the blue line or corners go in.
In addition, Pickard is the second goaltender in both medium danger and high danger shots doing his job, if not being as spectacular as Berra. Statistically, if the Colorado Avalanche purely want consistency out of their goaltending there’s no question that Calvin Pickard is the way to go.
There’s a reason why Pickard does so well against low danger shots: he never cheats. Whereas Varlamov has been caught cheating for a pass numerous times this season, if it’s a backdoor pass sometimes Pickard won’t even move because that’s not his job. The goalie’s job is to take away the shot and let the defenseman prevent the backdoor passes and rebounds, and Pickard excels at doing his job.
Skip to the 35 second mark of the video, and watch Pickard’s play. There’s no gaps for the bad angle shot to go in, because the Colorado Avalanche have 4 guys back. That’s just awful defense, and Pickard is doing his job, but compare that to say Varlamov at the outdoor game who was caught cheating off his post 2 or 3 times and the difference in mentality is apparent.
However, Pickard has barely any NHL experience, let alone in the heat of a playoff race. It means a lot that the Avs were willing to risk losing Berra to waivers to keep Pickard up the NHL, but that still doesn’t mean that Roy is ready to hand the season over to Pickard yet. At the same time, I don’t want to see the Colorado Avalanche’s season defined purely by how Semyon Varlamov feels that day.
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