The Edmonton Oilers kicked off the second half of their pre-season on Saturday night, squaring up with the Seattle Kraken at home.
The Oilers would mount a comeback 5-4 win, but a harsh reality hit them a little under 12 minutes into the game, when Saturday’s starter Calvin Pickard left the game. It happened when Kraken forward Yanni Gourde drove the net on a two-on-two, pushing Oilers centre Noah Philp into his own netminder.
Collisions between goaltenders and players is never a good sight, and an undeniably PTSD-inducing one for Oilers fans. Pickard stayed down on the ice for a moment, eventually leaving with Olivier Rodrigue, the number three in the organization, coming in to play the remainder of the game.
Rodrigue, who has been shaky so far in the preseason, continued that trend, allowing three goals against on 22 shots.
There are concerns about Rodrigue’s game as a whole. As our own Bruce Curlock has highlighted, the netminder is on the smaller side, and he’s had notable struggles throughout his time in the pro ranks so far. While his 2023-24 season was a step in the right direction, it remains to be seen what his future looks like, and if he’s someone who could hold down a crease in the National Hockey League, even for a short period of time.
As of Saturday night, there’s no indication of how serious Pickard’s injury is or if his removal from the game was just precautionary at a time of year when the games carry no weight. But it sparks a bigger conversation about the overall depth of the goaltending position in the organization.
Heading into last season, the Oilers had hoped Jack Campbell would find his game after a disastrous first year with the team, instead falling apart at the seams. He swapped spots with Pickard, who excelled in the NHL when called upon. This year, it doesn’t feel as though there’s a similar level of depth, even though the team signed journeyman Collin Delia to help tend the Condors crease.
After Saturday’s game, however, Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch talked about how he had confidence in whichever goalie they needed to play.
“We have two goaltenders we feel really confident in, they played really well for us last year and are injuy free,” he said. “I would hope that would be the case again going into this year, but if that happens when one of them is injured, yeah, we have confidence in him, just because he played so well last year.
“We have another goalie we have confident (in) too in Collin Delia, so we have options. We have two good goalies we know we can count on if need be. But, like I said, I’d like to stay with the two we have.”
Backhanders…
- Noah Philp continues to make his case for making the opening night roster, with him making more and more noise. Saturday night saw him score his first pre-season goal, taking a pass from Mattias Ekholm and making a move in tight to roof the puck over a sprawling Philipp Grubauer. While he played the least ice time of any exhibition game last night, his goal was loud.
- Raphael Lavoie continues to do much of the same. Playing in his third pre-season games, he now leads all Oilers in shots (12), shot attempts (15) and scoring chances (11). He would score the game winner on Saturday, taking a Mike Hoffman pass and pushing through bodies down low to find an open five-hole spot. The Oilers need offence in their bottom-six, and he’s continuing to prove he has that.
- Knoblauch said after the game that the next round of cuts aren’t expected until after Monday’s game against the Vancouver Canucks. Tuesday, we’ll likely see another batch of players leaving Edmonton.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
