The buck and the puck stops with Cam Talbot
ST. LOUIS Glenn Hall, who finished his Hall of Fame career in this hockey town, always used to say “nobody sticks a gun to your head and forces you to play goal, so the shots come with the territory.”
This is where Cam Talbot comes in.
The buck and the puck stops with the Edmonton Oilers goalie.
Talbot’s not ducking his role in the National Hockey League team’s troublesome start with just four regulation wins and seven overall through their first 20 games.
He has to rebuff more pucks than reflected by his current 3.10 goals-against average and .903 save percentage.
With the host Blues next on the Oilers’ playbill, Talbot has to rediscover his sterling example from last season, when he might have had only four or five poor games all season long.
While there are some anomalies across the NHL this season — such as Carey Price’s .877 save percentage before he got hurt, Tuukka Rask’s .897 in Boston and Craig Anderson’s .899 in Ottawa — No. 1 goalies such as Sergei Bobrovsky and Corey Crawford are .933, while Martin Jones (San Jose) and Jimmy Howard (Detroit) are .926 and .928 on middleof-the-road teams.
“My target is .920 to .925. I set my target at .923 this season,” said Talbot.
Five-on-five, Talbot’s save percentage is .916, but it’s .829 on the penalty-kill, mostly because the players in front of him had been dreadful, especially at home, for weeks and weeks before turning it around.
“We’re about 90 per cent the last little while, but my play usually dictates the power play (success),” he said.
Talbot is his own worst critic, so you won’t find him tap-dancing around his play.
“Maybe I don’t have to steal games, but I have to give us a chance to win,” he said.
“The difference this year and last is my consistency. I’ve had some good games but others I want back and I have to eliminate those ones.”
Oilers head coach Todd McLellan appreciates Talbot accepting responsibility but spreads the blame around.
“He’s part of the team. The goalies have to be better, the defence, the forwards, the coaches have to be better,” said McLellan.
“None of us have lived up to where we need to be and that’s why we’re where we are in the standings.
“I’m not going to single out the goaltender. It’s team-wide.”
Talbot knows he can’t be giving up goals on non-scoring chances, such as Vladimir Sobotka’s opennetter last week in the Blues’ win on an errant clearing attempt or Antoine Roussel banking one off Talbot’s skate on the game’s first shot in a loss to Dallas.
Both mistakes gave the opposition 1-0 leads. Both were obviously preventable.
The Sobotka goal was a glaring error.
“The puck (shoot-in) was along the wall all the way, but it was at the end of the period (snow buildup and choppy ice),” said Talbot.
“When I did my shoulder check, the puck came off the boards about two feet and it wasn’t where I thought it would be. It (clear) went off the heel of my stick right out front.”
Last year’s busiest goalie (4,254 minutes) has started 18 of the Oilers’ 20 games and has played 1,026 minutes, second only to the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Frederik Andersen (1,085).
After Talbot played 73 games last season, which led the league, the Oilers didn’t want him playing every night again, but when they dug their early hole this fall, he’s gotten the call every game but one home tilt against Carolina and recently in Washington when Laurent Brossoit started.
Talbot knows he’s like a starting pitcher.
The games are usually determined by the guy in net and the guy on the mound.
“You have to do your job night in and night out, and sometimes, you’re going to come out on the losing end,” said Talbot.
“But you have to find consistency in your own game and the team game will follow.”