This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Calvin Pickard
Edmonton Oilers Goaltender
A ninth season across six organisations, and the best save percentage of his career at 32.
| Season | Team | GP | W | L | OTL | GA | GAA | SO | SA | SV% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-15 | COL | 16 | 6 | 7 | 3 | 35 | 2.35 | 0 | 511 | .931 |
| 2015-16 | COL | 20 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 42 | 2.56 | 1 | 539 | .922 |
| 2016-17 | COL | 50 | 15 | 31 | 2 | 140 | 2.98 | 2 | 1461 | .904 |
| 2017-18 | TOR | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3.83 | 0 | 28 | .857 |
| 2018-19 | PHI/ARI | 17 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 48 | 3.86 | 1 | 384 | .875 |
| 2019-20 | DET | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 15 | 5.46 | 0 | 74 | .797 |
| 2020-21 | DET | 6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 16 | 3.16 | 0 | 127 | .874 |
| 2021-22 | DET | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 4.30 | 0 | 72 | .875 |
| 2023-24 | EDM | 23 | 12 | 7 | 1 | 53 | 2.45 | 1 | 581 | .909 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 139 | 47 | 61 | 11 | 362 | 2.93 | 5 | 3777 | .904 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
23 games, 12-7-1 with a .9088 and a 2.45, facing 581 shots, with a shutout.
That is the best work of his career over a meaningful sample and it is 46 points of save percentage above his career .9042 across 139 games. Behind the club that had the puck more than anybody else in the league, a backup should look good, and he did.
The Physical Game
He is 6-1 and 206, which is small for a modern goaltender, and he plays a reactive game because he has to.
He comes out to the top of the crease and challenges rather than sitting back on the goal line. The glove is his best hand and always has been. He tracks the puck through traffic well, which is what has kept him employed through nine seasons and six organisations.
The Mental Game
He has been waived, traded and sent down more times than he has been given a job, and has never once been the reason a club looked elsewhere.
A backup goaltender’s whole value is being unremarkable on three days’ rest, and he is very good at that. Twenty-three starts behind a Cup contender is the most comfortable situation of his career.
The Intangibles
A second-round pick in 2010 out of Moncton, ninth season, six organisations, and 139 games. His career .9042 is what a backup looks like and last season was better than that.
There is no obvious reason to expect a .9088 again at 32. There is also no reason the club needs one: twenty-odd starts at his career rate is entirely adequate behind this roster.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
“He comes out to the top of the crease and challenges rather than sitting back on the goal line.”
“He tracks the puck through traffic well, which is what has kept him employed through nine seasons and six organisations.”