Skinner or Pickard? Oilers have unique goaltending decision for Game 5 ...Middle East

EDMONTON — Calvin Pickard is, as they call him in the trade, a battler.

It’s a compliment, sort of. If you can get past the fact that they never called Martin Brodeur, Grant Fuhr or Patrick Roy “battlers.”

“I’m a journeyman,” Pickard has admitted, an undersized goalie who had his first 20-win NHL season this year at age 33 while standing between the pipes for professional organization No. 6.

Seriously, who doesn’t love a journeyman?

“We love him in here,” said Leon Draisaitl, of an Oilers dressing room that counts Pickard as just one more unique spice in what’s turning out to be perhaps the perfect broth.

With the Stanley Cup within reach, the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers are set to battle once again for hockey’s ultimate prize. Watch every game of the Final on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+.

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As the Edmonton Oilers come home for a Game 5 of this Stanley Cup Final with a connotation not felt in these parts since about 1990 — a chance to grab control of a Final series, to (at worst) guarantee a Game 7 on home ice — a goalie controversy has emerged.

But it’s not the traditional one, where the starter has faltered, and the backup plays roughly as well as the No. 1 did poorly, and now we don’t know who to start. And everyone is worried.

This decision facing head coach Kris Knoblauch — whether to start Stuart Skinner or Pickard in Game 5 versus the Florida Panthers — just doesn’t feel the same as if, say, Panthers head coach Paul Maurice suddenly found himself putting Vitek Vanicek in the starter’s net.

Vanicek is more of an “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass” backup. He has started seven playoff games in his entire career, going 2-4 with an .834 saves percentage, and hasn’t seen a minute of game time this spring.

But that’s OK on a Panthers team whose playoff passport has and (for the foreseeable future) always will be stamped with an “In Bob We Trust” credo.

In Edmonton, Skinner hasn’t earned that same level of trust. And Pickard has been asked to do so much more than a lot of backups, arriving as a veteran insurance policy who was supposed to work out of AHL Bakersfield, but coming to the rescue when big-money free agent signing Jack Campbell could simply no longer hack it as an NHL netminder.

Pickard, once upon a time the No. 1 pick in the Vegas Golden Knights’ expansion draft, bailed out the Oilers on the ice, while becoming just another older, chilled guy in this veteran dressing room who was well past being fazed by, well, anything the hockey world could throw at him at this point.

Like that well-travelled middle reliever whose path has crossed with a good 25 percent of the National League at some level of ball, when an opponent lingers over Pickard’s crease during the regular season, chances are better he’s saying a quick hello and inquiring about the wife, rather than making some intimidation play.

He has followed in the footsteps of Greg Millen, Ron Tugnutt, Bob Essensa, Jamie McLennan and so many others, as the beloved backup that blends into the dressing room like a Baileys and coffee on a ski hill Sunday morning.

“It’s been honestly bothersome over the course my career, kind of getting labelled as a good guy backup,” he said one night this season, after grinding out a 3-2 road win in Vegas behind a short-staffed Oilers lineup. “I’ve always wanted to be a good goaltender first, and then the fun guy part will take care of itself. But I’ve always believed in myself. And, I’ve played a few games in a row here…”

Last spring he played two playoff games in a row, Games 4 and 5 of a second-round series against Vancouver. It wasn’t much, but Pickard earned a split and gave Skinner just the rest and reset he needed to jump back in and carry the Oilers the rest of the way.

This year, that opportunity came in Roud 1 against Los Angeles, with Edmonton down 2-0, their playoff lives in danger before they’d even played a home date. Pickard reeled off six straight wins before Tomas Hertl fell on his leg in a game at Vegas, and Skinner got the net back by default.

Pickard reclaimed the job under similar circumstances on Thursday, when Skinner — likely Edmonton’s best player in a blasphemous first period — was dealt the ol’ sacrifice pull as Knoblauch sought to wake up his sleepy crew.

You know the rest of the story — one goal allowed the rest of the way, the OT save on Sam Bennett — and here we are.

At a moment where the decision to start one or the other seems so monumental, in reality, they’ve both played enough that the skaters don’t really care anymore which of the two is their guardian in Game 5.

“It doesn’t matter who’s in the net or who’s back there,” said Corey Perry. “We have trust in both of them.”

Some say the team plays better in front of Pickard. We’d counter with, “Sure, because Pickard always comes in the game after they’ve played their worst hockey in front of Skinner.”

Pickard seems to get the “rebound” Oilers more often than not, a team that vows to clean up its own zone after hanging Skinner out to dry the game before.

Nobody disputes who the No. 1 is in Edmonton. It’s Skinner.

But if you’re asking me who the Game 5 starter is in Edmonton, that too has become obvious.

It’s Calvin Pickard.

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