EDMONTON — Goaltender Calvin Pickard received a pointed question from the persistent reporter, as routinely as an ordinary person grabs their 900th bacon sandwich combo from the drive-thru on the way to work.
“You asked me the same question last year,” he said with a grin, before giving us — what else could we expect? — the exact same answer he gave last year.
Five games into the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the sense of deja vu is already overwhelming.
Connor Hellebuyck is letting in pucks in April that didn`t go in from October through March. The Leafs can`t close out games and act nonchalant about their fatal flaw, as if it`s just a glitch and not part of their DNA.
The aggressive Oilers are pulling away from the passive Los Angeles Kings, and naturally, the refereeing is terrible across the league.
If the Rocky film series became unwatchable after Ivan Drago arrived in Rocky IV, then why is the opening round of the playoffs so damn entertaining every single year — even though it`s turning into an exercise in “been there, done that”?
Oh, wait… Was that another late hit by Matthew Tkachuk on an unsuspecting player?
Game 5 of the Kings-Oilers series was not only the most one-sided playoff game we`ve seen in years, but according to advanced stats, it was the most lopsided game (in terms of goal probability) since 2017.
