Pickard’s shutout starts climb out of cellar
PHILADELPHIA >> When you’re bringing up the rear in a division that has gone from championship runs to run of the mill, you should take what you are given. So the Flyers will continue to play behind their starting goalie of the moment Calvin Pickard and hope the magic tricks can somehow continue.
Pickard was in net at Wells Fargo Center Friday for a post-Thanksgiving matinee in which the predictably unpredictable Flyers carved up the Rangers, 4-0. He likely will be in net Saturday night, when the team he couldn’t make last season, the Toronto Maple Leafs, hungrily host a Flyers team that will be looking to continue its streaky ways.
Except with Pickard, who was a part-time goalie with Toronto’s AHL club last season before being “next man up” for desperate Flyers general manager Ron Hextall, it’s going to be difficult to even pretend to do that against one of the Eastern Conference’s real contenders.
Ah, but why worry about tomorrow before it gets here?
“It was great for everybody,” Pickard said after solidifying his shaky status as a starting goalie. “After the last few games, we really keyed in on this one and we wanted to have a good effort start to finish. I thought we did that. It was awesome.”
Pickard, who did OK after relieving besieged young goalie Alex Lyon in Buffalo Wednesday night, still entered this game dragging a 4.13 goals-against and .858 saves percentage. But he turned away 31 shots to earn a shutout, which enabled the Flyers to snap a four-game losing streak and did wonders for Pickard’s personal stats.
Then there’s the reality of roster numbers. Hextall was so thrilled about this shutout victory that he called down to the Phantoms again for yet another goalie. And no, don’t get all excited, it’s not Carter Hart.
By the time the Flyers get to Toronto, Anthony Stolarz should have joined them. Maybe because Lyon — playing behind a Flyers team as dead on its collective feet as the Rangers were on this Black Friday — had allowed four goals on 12 shots Wednesday night. His Saturday excursion might be to Allentown rather than Toronto.
As for Pickard, though, everything’s just awesome. Or as awesome as it could be with both Brian Elliott and Michal Neuvirth out of the lineup tending to their latest injuries.
“Tonight we wanted to get off to a good start,” Pickard said. “We did that and got an early goal and played with a lead the whole game. It was nice.”
It produced the Flyers’ most shots on goal of the season (46), and it was the first Flyers shutout registered with that many Flyers shots on goal since April 6, 1978.
Consider that Archives Department fact to be the only reason this game will be remembered.
“You’re going to have stinkers,” philosophical Rangers coach David Quinn said. “I’ll put this one in the stinker category. We were a little bit slow in everything we did. We were slow skating, we were slow thinking, we were slow shooting.
“We were just doing things we normally haven’t done with the puck and that really caused problems.”
Considering the Rangers are still well into an organizational rebuild that began during last season, it’s somewhat admirable that they haven’t had more days like this in the early part of the season. They came to Philly tied for the Metropolitan Division lead with Columbus, which kind of tells you what a weird first quarter it’s been for a division that has produced the last three Stanley Cup champions.
But rookie coach Quinn has managed to find a spark here and there on most given nights for the Rangers (12-9-2), and on other nights one of the few holdover Rangers, legend in the making Henrik Lundqvist, has recaptured some old magic.
This Friday feast in which he faced 46 shots could have been one of those days if Henrik the Magnificent had at least one willing assistant to help him pull a road game out of thin air.
Instead, he kept making save after save as the Rangers kept making turnover after turnover while down a goal throughout the game.
“The only thing I don’t really like is that we kept taking chances when it was a one-goal game,” said Lundqvist, who had given up a first-period goal to Travis Konecny when he deflected the puck into nearby Rangers defender Brady Skjei and it bounced off him into the net. “You’re going to have nights where you don’t have the legs, you don’t have the energy. But you can still use your smartness . ... But when you keep taking chances and give up oddman rushes, you’re going to pay for it in the end.”
Konecny really made the Rangers pay. He recorded a rare Gordie Howe Hat Trick, scoring a goal, assisting on another (actually two) and winning a fight. Yes, a fight.
It was the Flyers’ second fighting major of the season ... coming in their 22nd game.
Yes, it’s fair to say this Flyers team hasn’t found itself as yet. In more ways than one.