Are the Edmonton Oilers prioritizing Calvin Pickard’s popularity over goaltending?

On yesterday’s edition of the “32 Thoughts” podcast, Elliotte Friedman stated that people were surprised that Edmonton didn’t pick up Connor Ingram of the Utah Mammoth off waivers.

He then went on to say that the Edmonton Oilers players, to a man, spoke very highly of Calvin Pickard and he questioned if the Oilers were unwilling to move Pickard out of the locker room in favour of another goalie as he is so popular in the locker room.

The competition for Pickard

Now that Connor Ingram has cleared waivers, Friedman, mentioned that Michael Dipietro and Clay Stevenson may be put on waivers in the near future. Their respective teams, Boston and Washington, already have a pair of goalies who seem likely to make the team, making Dipietro and Stevenson the odd men out.

Dipietro is 26-years old and last played in the NHL in 2021–22 in one game for the Vancouver Canucks. He has had very little exposure to the NHL, but has put up some impressive seasons in the minors. A 2.05 GAA, .927 Sv% last year and a 2.51 GAA, .918 Sv% the year before.

Clay Stevenson is also 26-years -ld and has played only one NHL game, last year for Washington. Stevenson’s numbers aren’t quite as impressive, he posted only a .294 GAA, .888 Sv% last year, but a 2.06 GAA, .922 Sv% the year before in the AHL.

At this point, the main advantage of picking up these goalies, if they do get put on waivers, is to save some money. Dipietro is in the first year of a two-year $813K AAV contract and Stevenson is in the second year of a three-year, $775K AAV contract. Calvin Pickard is in the last year of a two-year, $1M AAV contract.

Should Pickard be replaced?

This creates an interesting situation. Are any of the possible replacements going to be significantly better than Pickard? Will they be good enough to outweigh the risk of disrupting the rooms chemistry and of angering the other Oiler’s players? On a team like the Oilers, who have made it to the Stanley Final two years in a row, a team who, even though they have undergone some changes, has a core with the same potential, the last thing you want to see is them fall apart due to a locker room issue.

While this may be blowing things out of proportion, locker room chemistry is extremely important, and rumours of locker room strife, whether factual or not, often accompany poor play. One example that springs to mind is Elias Pettersson and J.T. Miller of the Vancouver Canucks last year. The year before last, they finished sixth overall in the league, but with Miller and Petteresson reportedly feuding last year they finished 18th. The feud led to Miller, a great player and obvious asset, being traded to the Rangers.

At this point, there doesn’t seem to be any purpose in bringing in AHL goalies with very little NHL experience in the hopes that they can be better than Pickard, only to upset the team for your trouble. However, Connor Ingram was a more realistic possibility and if he wasn’t given proper consideration because Pickard is popular, if the Oilers are unwilling to upgrade the goaltending for that reason, that could be more concerning.

I personally think they made the right move in sticking with Pickard in this situation; however, I also believe the Oilers will need more consistent goaltending than they are used to in order to finally win the Cup. At some point they need to pull the trigger on something different.