Pickard will play his 30th game of the season and sixth in the last seven on Thursday night as the Avs take on the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center, and he looks to help the club out of its current funk. Colorado is winless in its last four outings, and Pickard knows that record is not good enough for either him or the team.
"Definitely need to be better. We had a good run for a couple home games. We were winning at home and Pittsburgh was tough," Pickard said. "Rangers, Islanders back-to-back, we were close at the Garden, close to winning at the end, but the wheels kind of fell off at the Barclays Center. It's another chance tonight to get back on the wagon and get a win for us."
The goaltender has already had moments during his young career where he had to be "the guy" to help his club to victories, and this situation with the Avs is another one of those instances.
Pickard played 50 games with the Lake Erie Monsters of the American Hockey League in 2014-15 as fellow goalie Sami Aittokallio was dealing with an injury, and he appeared in 247 contests during his four-year junior career with the Seattle Thunderbirds from 2008 to 2012.