Saturday’s matinee between the Edmonton Oilers and the Anaheim Ducks was a story of two teams going in completely opposite directions. The Oilers were coming off massive wins this week against the Winnipeg Jets and Los Angeles Kings. Meanwhile, the Ducks were on a three-game losing streak, losing twice to the Seattle Kraken and to the Tampa Bay Lightning over the past seven days. Kris Knoblauch gave Stuart Skinner the afternoon off in anticipation of next week’s heavy schedule with Calvin Pickard getting the nod. The Ducks went with John Gibson, while Lukas Dostal was slated for the second of their back to back in Vancouver on Sunday.
Henrique scores against his former team
Adam Henrique makes a good play to get the puck off the boards and into the middle to set of a two-on-one for Leon Draisaitl. Warren Foegele waits back a bit allowing it to turn into a three-on-two, with Draisaitl dropping the puck for Henrique. Henrique pulls the puck into his feet, which gets Gibson to bite to his left and drop his head, giving up a big rebound back into the slot that is tapped into the yawning cage. Biggest factor at play is it looks like Henrique knew how Gibson would react on that specific released based on years of practice against one another.
McDavid scores
Connor McDavid strips William Laggesson of the puck and heads the other way. Bo Groulx, who’s a forward, tries to angle off McDavid to no avail. As McDavid cuts to the net, he gives the look of going far side, which gets Gibson to leave to his glove side early again, leaving the blocker side open for the goal
Edmonton with their third
Mattias Ekholm gets the puck at the point with lots of space. Mattias Janmark is screening Gibson, but the latter has a sightline over top. Jakob Silfverberg steps out to block the shot, which takes away that sightline, but Gibson more or less accepts that he won’t be seeing the shot and guesses where it is, not giving any sort of reaction. The play reeks of apathy from a goalie who was once one of the league’s best on a competitive team that has not had strong personal or team success in a while.
McDavid scores again
McDavid and Draisaitl run a give and go off the half wall, with Draisaitl giving McDavid a perfect pass back into space in the slot. Gibson slides off the pass on an angle that is directly up centre ice. This makes McDavid’s job finishing pretty easy, as he skates past that angle which opens up the stick side for the low shot beyond the pad.
Foegele gets Edmonton’s fifth goal
The Ducks completely lose Foegele in their neutral zone coverage, with Ekholm finding him for the breakaway. Gibson sets up wide and low, which isn’t an issue, but he doesn’t have much backwards momentum. Foegele takes a step to his left, which gives an option of a deke. This gets Gibson to start to push with his glove leg and opens the five hole. Foegele shoots as this happens and Gibson’s tendency to drop into a half butterfly exasperates the issue, leaving the five hole open for the shot as it goes under Gibson’s stick.
Hyman makes it five
The Oilers barely miss on the screened shot to start the sequence, but are able to regroup and break back in before the Ducks can get a full change. McDavid drives the middle on Cam Fowler, which also creates some room for Zach Hyman who is able to back away from the defender to get a release off. Even when McDavid had the puck, Gibson is late moving with the puck leaving him behind the play. When Hyman is releasing the shot, he’s just getting his eyes around with no body rotation and is left helplessly reaching for a save.
Anaheim finally scores
The Ducks spoil Calvin Pickard’s shutout bid with a powerplay marker late in the third period. Frank Vatrano swings the puck back for Fowler. Pickard has a good sightline just peeking around Silfverberg at the top of the crease. Alex Killorn makes a great tip to take the puck from mid net to the top corner on what becomes an incredibly difficult play. Even if played perfectly this is likely a goal, but it seems like Pickard stopped tracking the puck once it got tipped and was guessing where it was going to go.
Summary
Calvin Pickard had another quality start against a lesser opponent in a low leverage game. It’s all the Oilers can really ask of him at this stage of his career, but much like the games that Jack Campbell played against the Ducks late last season, there’s not much that can be taken from these games with the lack of talent, pace, and quality chances coming from the opposition.
Gibson has long held the reputation of an extremely talented goalie that has not had the best technical structure. At this point of the season behind a feeble Ducks team, it’s clear that bad habits and a lack of effort are taking that goalie and making it worse. If he wants him and his contract to get traded out of Anaheim, he’ll likely have to show that he can be a quality netminder again rather than a team giving assets on the hope that he can rediscover his form of year’s past.
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