Oilers Notebook: Coach Kris Knoblauch coy on who’s in net for Game 5, but they’re riding Calvin Pickard

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So, the Edmonton Oiler net is Calvin Pickard’s going forward now, right?

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Two straight wins after the Oilers fell behind 2-0 in Los Angeles, 38 stops in Game 4 in the goalie battle with Kings’ Darcy Kuemper. Is it time to ride the Oilers backup until the series ends with Stu Skinner staying on the bench?

“We’ll evaluate it and make that decision tomorrow,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch, as usual playing coy with his goalies while it’s Kuemper, the Vezina trophy finalist, every game for the Kings, even if he’s given up 11 of his 16 goals in the third periods of games when the Oilers are into rally-cap mode.

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Knoblauch could have said “whaddya think, I’m an idiot? Of course we’re sticking with the guy who’s winning us games. I’m not stupid” but he wasn’t that bold.

Yet, Pickard’s faced 69 shots in the last two games as the starter and has stopped the bleeding. He’ll be starting Game 5 in Los Angeles. He got two starts in the second round against Vancouver last spring when Skinner faltered before regaining his footing and helping to get the Oilers to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, but this would be a playoff first here — three-in-a-row for Pickard.

The goaltending as a whole in this series is far from spectacular, but Skinner, Pickard and Kuemper aren’t alone in that scenario. Connor Hellebuyck, a slam-dunk to win his third Vezina in Winnipeg, has an .817 save percentage in their tied series with St. Louis . In Vegas, Cup champion Adin Hill is .854 in his four games against Minnesota, Linus Ullmark is .848 in Ottawa in the match-up with Toronto.

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Pickard is .889 in the series (eight goals on 72 shots; he relieved Skinner in Game 2). Skinner is .810 (11 goals on 58 shots in his two starts in Los Angeles) and Kuemper is .881 (16 goals allowed on 134 shots in the four games).

Pickard was beaten by Trevor Moore’s quick shot (five-hole) from the slot after Phil Danault dug the puck out, Warren Foegele, in behind the Oilers defence, and Kevin Fiala scored on a breakaway in Game 4.

How about a do-over?

In a perfect world, Kings forward Quinton Byfield gets the puck out along the boards with 35 seconds left in the third period, and the Kings hold on to their 3-2 lead, and he flips the puck into the neutral zone to kill time or he bangs one off the boards rather than trying to make a play past Evan Bouchard. But, Oilers president of hockey ops Jeff Jackson’s former agent/client is 22, the heat was turned up high, and Bouchard kept the puck in and shortly thereafter, it’s tied.

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“He tried to chip it out, and their guy somehow got a stick on it,” said  Foegele. Their guy isn’t just any guy. Bouchard could be in Foegele’s wedding party this summer. “ It happens, it’s part of the game and he was trying to do the right thing.”

“I’m not worried about that play one bit for Quinton. I’m proud of the 28 minutes he gave us tonight, how hard he played. You shake those things off. It doesn’t go your way every single time,” said Kings head coach Jim Hiller.

Bouchard’s goal (59:31) was the second latest game-tying goal in Oilers.

Bouchard’s back-to-back two-goal defenceman games ties him with current Kings’ GM Rob Blake, Al Iafrate and Denis Potvin in NHL history.

Leaving well enough alone

There were some howls when Knoblauch didn’t go for a coach’s challenge for possible goalie (Pickard) interference to wipe out Foegele’s 2-0 goal in the second period in Game 4. Pickard was complaining but it fell on deaf ears with his boss.

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“We were looking at it but we didn’t consider it for very long. It would be different if there was some separation between the puck and the pad or he had pushed the pad then that would be goalie interference. But, the puck was lodged right on the pad. The player has free will to make a play on that puck. And he did. I thought it would have been a failed challenge,” said Knoblauch. And while they had stopped the first two Kings’ PP tries, they were still 7-for-14 at the time.

Lots of spectator time

Oiler defenceman Ty Emberson played 8:59 in Game 3 and 8:34 in Game 4, with no shifts after the midway point of the second period Sunday, just 6:32 ES. Did he just get lost in the shuffle or was it a case of the Oilers falling behind, and not many penalty-kills either night where Emberson is a constant?

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“Ty has done an outstanding on the penalty-kill and we need for that. He’s a good defensive player but when you look at our other defencemen there’s others who provide more offensively (John) Klingberg, Bouchard, (Darnell) Nurse, (Jake) Walman, (Brett) Kulak,” said Knoblauch.

“He didn’t play badly but we were chasing the game and needed a goal and the other guys could handle the minutes. Then into overtime, we had a player who hadn’t played for such a long time, now it’s more difficult. But no issues with Ty going forward.”

Knoblauch has defenceman Troy Stecher healthy and ready now but may stick with same group for Game 5.

This ‘n that: The Kings were plus 16 in goal differential in regular-season in the third period and they’re minus 6 in four playoff games.

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The Oilers managed to kill off all three of the Kings power plays and they only had three shots.

“It was assistant coach) Mark Stuart’s birthday. Pretty nice present for him,” said Knoblauch, of his coach who looks after the PK.

Face-offs are funny business.

In Game 3, Oilers won 59 per cent of the draws, in Game 4, just 46 per cent. Connor McDavid was 10-2 in Game 3, 6-4 in Game 4. Anze Kopitar was 6-8 in Game 3, 17-7 in Game 4.

Leon Draisaitl’s four-point night in Game 4 was his eighth in the playoffs, tying him with Mario Lemieux for fifth most in NHL history. Wayne Gretzky had, um, 26. Jari Kurri and Mark Messier (11 each) and current Oilers assistant coach Paul Coffey had nine.

Oilers winger Zach Hyman had 12 hits in Game 4 — career high. Hits are subjective but nobody was safe with Hyman leaving the visiting team in white and silver, black and blue.

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Walman, still not 100 percent and playing through an undisclosed injury, had one of those “I’m firing everything at the net” nights in Game 4. He had three shots that Kuemper stopped, five that were blocked and six that went wide.

The stats crew wasn’t very kind to Oilers centre Mattias Janmark. They had him losing all eight of his face-offs.

In game 3, the Kings dressed Jordan Spence as their No. 6 D, and he played 2:55, clearly a lack of trust even in a veteran who played 79 of the 82 league games In Game 4, they switched it up and inserted Jacob Moverare, who got into 47 regular-season contests, and he got even less time, 2:26 in what was a 78-minute game.

Clearly assistant coach DJ Smith, who used to be head coach in Ottawa, but looks after the Kings’ D now, is leery of both players or management hasn’t done a good enough job of filling out the bottom end of the blueline roster.

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On top of the defence, the Kings’ fourth line is an after-thought. In Game 3, Sami Helenius played 2:31, Trevor Lewis 3:01 and Jeff Malott 4:39. In Game 4, Helenius was 1:44, Lewis 5:19 and Malott 2:27. Are they that bad?

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