Confirmed with Link: Leafs acquire Pickard

[BlueBaron]

mcbackup is a throwback goalie. back to the years of the vernons, cujos and haseks. he uses his reflexes and his flailing body to make saves. they just re-signed him so unless something horrible happens that's our back up. Pickard was brought in for depth. he has a decent track record and pedigree . just remember with out mcbackups heroics last year we wouldn't have gotten in to the playoffs. it blows me away how people forget how horrible our tandems were prior to Andersen and mcbackup. .. enroth was a dumster fire. riemer was bi polar. you never knew what you were getting. raycroft toskala I could keep going on. . and who knows maybe Curtis slumps, pickard could be this years Condon but a lot would have to go wrong for us, for him to get that kind of opportunity

People seem to think his 2.75 .913 were not good enough. They want Vezina numbers from our Backup. It's getting bizarre.

 

[Razz]

Dumb question. Why did the Leafs have to wait for LV to waive him before making a trade?

What if he was claimed by other team(s)?

Confused

They waited so that they could ship him to the Marlies. If they had claimed Pickard from waivers, we'd have to waive McBackup which they are not going to do because he's earned his spot. Now we have a top notch starting goalie on the Marlies with 86 games of NHL experience to come up and split duty with McBackup if Andersen gets injured or can take the backup job if he falters.

We don't want another Enroth situation.

 

[ErnieLeafs]

is connor brown zip zero zilthc? 6th round pick. I dont have a problem with the trade i dont know enough about pickard to say if its an overpay but a 6th isnt nothing. Lindberg being a forward part of this orginization is pretty much nothing

Connor Brown is an extreme outlier. 6th round picks are better used as add-ons in trade than they are axtually drafting a player.

 

[HolyCrap]

This is a move I really like. I wanted to see us get a young tender that can grow within the organization and compete with McBackup. Who knows he could develop into a great tender. Really like this TML organization. Depth at all positions will help us compete, not just now, but in the future too.

 

[White Shadow]

Again I will say it, we arent done I dont think. The way it sits while it looks good on paper to have that depth. I dont think our intent is to keep Pickard down there. I think we wanted him, and talked to VGK about sending him down on the premise it gave us time to move Curtis. Pickard while having only a .904 save percentage, did that playing on a Avs team that was far and away the worst defensive team in the league last year. Pickard is also 25, Curtis is 34. Sparks to me looks like he could be back up in a couple years, but I feel it more likely what happens in long run is Joseph Woll is back up, and we either extend Andersen or go with Pickard-Woll. The other option is, Sparks backing up next season use Pickard as a chip for something. Early to say, especially when I think we have another move coming.

He was more valuable to us after he cleared waivers. If he doesn't clear waivers first we can't send him straight to the AHL.

The price we paid to be able to send him directly to the A was Lindberg and a 6th. We most certainly see him down there for awhile.

 

[PromisedLand]

They waited so that they could ship him to the Marlies. If they had claimed Pickard from waivers, we'd have to waive McBackup which they are not going to do because he's earned his spot. Now we have a top notch starting goalie on the Marlies with 86 games of NHL experience to come up and split duty with McBackup if Andersen gets injured or can take the backup job if he falters.

We don't want another Enroth situation.

As they don't have to put him on waivers any more and he can go down to AHL and Leafs do not have to put him on waivers agaian

If the Leafs had acquired him before he cleared the waivers then Leafs had to put him on the waivers

Thanks! Didn't know about this rule. I thought once the player cleared waivers other teams had dibs in him and cannot. R traded lol

 

[BlueBaron]

No I am not. I think Pickard is going to be backing up Andersen. What benefit does he get from AHL. Sparks needs to develop. So what they split games? Plus Kaukisuo looks decent enough as well. I guess we shall see. But I do not see why you would have Pickard a much better goalie than Sparks down there. I think it buys us time, to do something further.

Sparks is at best a future backup, more likely a career AHL/European goalie. So it does 2 things. It makes the Marlies better and it gives an NHL quality call up if someone gets hurt. Not saying he cannot steal the job, he can, but it will not be that easy until next fall at camp. Playoff teams like depth. Look at the call ups/replacements we have now. We have a spare everything now. Keep in mind Lou has a goaltending fetish.

 

[Cor]

Picks/McBackup is a lot better if Andersen gets hurt that Sparks/McBackup

 

[Suntouchable13]

This tells me that McBackup is on a short leash.

 

[Clark4Ever]

Nothing wrong with McBackup's numbers since he's been here, and he has earned the right to stay for the time being. Nonetheless, this was a necessary move based on our organizational depth between the pipes.

 

[A1LeafNation]

Leafs are the deepest team in the NHL...

 

[supermann_98]

I wanted nothing to do with him as our 2nd stringer and primary backup behind Freddie, but getting him for Lindberg and a 6th is a smart roll of the dice as apparently some scouts like him even though everything I’ve seen of him he sucks

This also shows the Leafs have little to no trust in Sparks and Kas

 

[AppsSyl]

I really like this move. Pickard has a little more upside than an average back up and is only 25. Being able to have him start regularly with the Marlies is great, rather than have him barely play with the Leafs. If Andersen gets injured he will likely slot in as the starter. I don't think this past season with COL was indicative of the goalie he really is. He looked decent at the World Championships for Canada. Still having McBackup is good also, because he is comfortable in his role as a back up, and knows that is what he is, which is good for Freddy after all the back and forth between him and Gibson in ANA.

 

[htpwn]

Seems silly to complain about this, but I do wish it would have been a 7th instead of 6th. We got two 7ths this year and it always sucks waiting through an entire round without the Leafs making a pick.

In a way we are in a similar position that Vegas is. After the expansion draft they got a whole bunch of bottom-pairing defenseman and while guys like McNabb might be useful to number of teams, everybody knows they have no space for them and so refuse to offer much value. For us that extreme surplus is in potential bottom 6 wingers (wingers in general really). Lindberg would have a half-decent prospect on a lot of teams (he was in Ottawa), but with our depth, there isn't much room for him. He can't even crack the Marlies lineup on a regular basis, let alone ever have a chance of suiting up for the Leafs again. It is good for his career that he's going to go to more shallow organization, going to get some good AHL minutes, and maybe even crack the Knights one day. For us... obviously this is huge for our goaltending depth, which we were really lacking in. I like Sparks and I like McBackup, but I have more confidence in Pickard if Andersen ever does go down.

Plus, we now have a Borgman AND a Pickard on our team... you could almost say this Leafs team is... out of this world.

 

[thewave]

Good move.

 

[Zybalto]

Can't believe we got Pickard for a song. Does he have some bad injury or disease or something? Was his VGK camp that bad?

This is the same Calvin Pickard who was good for Canada at the worlds right? I'm guessing playing for the tire fire that was Colorado last year hurt his standing? He was rocking a .928 save % in 40 ish NHL games before last year and looked fine with a real roster in front of him at the world's.

At the very least, I feel a helluva lot better about our goaltending depth now.

 

[Warden of the North]

Good stuff. Very happy to add another goalie for a low cost

 

[Daisy Jane]

April: Babcock and Lou - we don't have depth.
October 6th: ALL THE DEPTH

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

People seem to think his 2.75 .913 were not good enough. They want Vezina numbers from our Backup. It's getting bizarre.

Some of us take more than 1 year into account and look at the entire body of work

 

[BlueBaron]

Some of us take more than 1 year into account and look at the entire body of work

So you just ignore a good season assume it was a fluke? Hockey is very much about what have you done lately, Pickard's numbers were crap last year and that was the majority of games in his career. The body of work metric actually favors McBackup. This magical "Some of us" you speak of are not looking at it too deeply. More likely you are looking at their age.

 

[Paneerboy]

is connor brown zip zero zilthc? 6th round pick. I dont have a problem with the trade i dont know enough about pickard to say if its an overpay but a 6th isnt nothing. Lindberg being a forward part of this orginization is pretty much nothing

Referencing Connor Brown as a 6th round pick is misleading. Just because he once was one doesn't mean he's looked at as a 6th round pick now.

Getting a Connor Brown out of the 6th round is also ridiculously hard and frankly very unlikely. A 6th round is about as low a price as a team can pay.

 

[Guy Boucher]

So you just ignore a good season assume it was a fluke? Hockey is very much about what have you done lately, Pickard's numbers were crap last year and that was the majority of games in his career. The body of work metric actually favors McBackup. This magical "Some of us" you speak of are not looking at it too deeply. More likely you are looking at their age.

The kind of thinking that gets you a David Clarkson.

 

[Jozay]

April: Babcock and Lou - we don't have depth.
October 6th: ALL THE DEPTH

its an impressive turn around.

Really nice to see the job they've done.

 

[BlueBaron]

The kind of thinking that gets you a David Clarkson.

Ok, you got me, we should go with the guy with worse carer numbers not the guy with better career numbers who had a good one last year. What was I thinking?

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

So you just ignore a good season assume it was a fluke? Hockey is very much about what have you done lately, Pickard's numbers were crap last year and that was the majority of games in his career. The body of work metric actually favors McBackup. This magical "Some of us" you speak of are not looking at it too deeply. More likely you are looking at their age.

No I look at his entire career and last year he's been garbage by NHL standards, and yes age does factor in and at 34 chances are Mcbackup is not doing it again there is a reason is called a career year.

Picard did have a bad season last year but his 2 previous seasons he was fantastic and yes at 25 there is reason to believe he's closer to the goalie he showed in 14-15 and 15-16 than the one that was on a team that did not try at all last year.