It may have started off a little bit rough, but the Edmonton Oilers were able to defeat the Los Angeles Kings in six games. Now that they have moved on from the first round, they now will be facing the Vegas Golden Knights in the second round. For the Oilers this will be a tougher challenge for sure as the Golden Knights were the better team in the regular season, but as we know when it comes to the Playoffs, the regular season means nothing.
In this article I am going to be breaking down the goaltending between these two teams. For the Edmonton Oilers they are now running their regular season backup in Calvin Pickard. The good look for Pickard is he is currently 4-0 in the playoffs, being the only goalie to not have a loss this post-season. For Aidin Hill, while he has played good enough to get to the second round, his numbers are not that good.
Oilers Goaltending
Calvin Pickard has stepped up as the starter for the Edmonton Oilers, going 4-0 in his four starts. Although his save percentage was only a 0.893 and his goals against average was 2.93, he was able to find ways to win and in the playoffs that is really all that matters. I do think that if the Oilers want to beat the Golden Knights Pickard will need to be better than he was in the first round.
One more question that will be out there is, will Stuart Skinner get back in this series? If Pickard keeps winning, there is no chance, but if Pickard gets a loss and plays poorly I think there is a chacne that we see Skinner in the net again. Skinner is the starter for this team so Pickard will have a short leash. Skinner has proven in the past that when he has the ability to bounce back, just like he did in the playoffs last season.
Golden Knights Goaltending
For the Golden Knights their goaltending has actually been slightly worse than the Oilers. Hill in his 4 games played put up a save percentage of 0.880 and a GAA of 2.83. While his goals against is slightly better than Pickard's I would say the quality of competition Hill faced was lower than skill Pickard faced and it only gets tougher facing the Oilers.
For Hill though, he does have the advantage of history. He was able to defeat the Edmonton Oilers once before and also win the Stanley Cup that same year. That experience could come in helpful this series if the Oilers are able to grab some momentum at some point.
This series is going to be a hard fought battle, I expect it to go at least 6 games. The goaltending is going to be one area that has the ability to swing this series, if a goalie gets hot or cold they can either win or lose the series for their team. Hopefully, it is the Edmonton Oilers goalie that gets hot.