‘Thank you. A billion times’: How Torey Lovullo and Mike Hazen’s friendship has withstood tragedy and the test of time
-
Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
PHOENIX — NICOLE HAZEN just wanted it to feel like Christmas. It was the winter of 2020, six months after she had suffered a seizure that uncovered a cancerous brain tumor, and Nicole was seeking reminders of her festive childhood holidays in the Cleveland suburbs. Her husband, Mike, had always refused to climb atop their roof to install lights. But this time he offered a compromise. “We’ll pay somebody,” Mike, the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ general manager, told her. Nicole had a better idea:
Torey Lovullo would do it for free.
Lovullo spends about three-quarters of his year obsessing over his full-time job as the Diamondbacks’ field manager. Much of the rest is dedicated to another passion — meticulously decorating his Scottsdale home with various Christmas-themed accouterments, a fixation that has reached Clark Griswold levels of exorbitance. In 2019, he rented an aerial lift and overcame a slight fear of heights to outfit his palms with fluorescent lights 40 feet above the ground. Near the end of 2020, Lovullo promised he would take care of Nicole’s lights, too.
She wanted something simple, elegant, so he lined the roof of her Arcadia home with white bulbs, then took them down shortly after the start of 2021. As the year progressed, Nicole’s condition rapidly worsened. Treatments did not take; clinical trials were unsuccessful. It was becoming increasingly clear that glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer with a survival rate of less than two years, would soon take her life. And so Lovullo made her a promise: Every year, he’ll be in charge of the Christmas lights at the Hazen house.
He went through the process again in December 2021, upgrading the hooks, replacing faulty bulbs, hiding stray extension cords and setting up a timer to keep them all on schedule. When it was time to take them down again, Mike — Torey’s best friend in baseball over these last 20 years, his boss for the last seven — stopped him. “Leave them up year-round,” he told him.
They turned on every night in 2022, up to and after Nicole’s death that August.
They haven’t shut off since.
“They’re up right now,” Lovullo said the weekend before he led the Diamondbacks into the National League Championship Series. “They’ll stay up for the rest of our lives.”
LOVULLO AND HAZEN have what Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall believes to be “more than a working relationship,” one strengthened by hardship and built on brutal honesty. It now sets the tone for an entire organization.
“When a true partnership exists,” Hall wrote in an email, “it can be magical.”
Before the breakthrough 2023 season that saw their young, scrappy Diamondbacks sneak into the playoffs, race past the Milwaukee Brewers in the wild-card round and sweep the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers in the division series; before the 110-loss 2021 season that tested their relationship like never before; before the tragedy around Nicole that changed the dynamic between the two of them forever — there was an old farmhouse on a massive tobacco field in a North Carolina town called Kinston.
It was the summer of 2004. Lovullo, by then approaching 40, was managing the Cleveland Indians’ Class A affiliate in the area and rented a home that was big enough to house his kids when they came to visit. Hazen, who was in his late 20s, had been promoted as Cleveland’s assistant director of player development and stopped by at least twice a month to watch some of the younger players. The team’s other roving instructors — a group that included current Pittsburgh Pirates manager Derek Shelton — routinely joined him, often sleeping over. The front porch became their haven. They talked late into the night, drinking beers and smoking cigars and sampling whatever infused vodka Lovullo kept in his pantry. They usually stayed hungry.
“The only thing I remember from his house was there was no food in it,” Hazen said. “The refrigerator had candy — the s—iest candy you could ever find. You get hungry at night, and all the guy had in his house was candy. So you had to go to the freezer and eat Kit Kats.”
Lovullo is from Los Angeles, the son of a man who produced the immensely popular, long-running television variety show “Hee Haw.” Lovullo was laid back, calm, low-key, and he found himself drawn to Hazen, who grew up near Boston and was noticeably intense, hard-edged, animated. Their personalities fit the stereotypes of the cities that shaped them. It was obvious early on that, despite an 11-year age gap, they meshed.
“He’s very similar to the people that, as I was growing up, that I would spend most of my time with,” Lovullo said. “I tend to be a little bit boring, I tend to be very vanilla, and I like to be the audience and let somebody else more or less entertain me, and I think that’s how our conversations went. I was intrigued by him, and I liked being around him — because of his wit, because of his intelligence, because of his kindness.”
Lovullo, a major league infielder for more than a decade, continued managing in Cleveland’s minor league system until 2009, then joined the Boston Red Sox‘s Triple-A affiliate in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, for a year. He spent the next two seasons as the Toronto Blue Jays‘ first-base coach, and throughout, he and Hazen remained close. When Lovullo returned to the Red Sox as their major league bench coach in 2013, Hazen was in his eighth year in Boston’s front office, working as an assistant general manager under then-GM Ben Cherington.
Three years later, in October 2016, Hazen was given his first opportunity to run a baseball operations department when the Diamondbacks hired him as their executive vice president and GM.
Less than a month later, in a move that had been widely anticipated from the outset, Hazen hired Lovullo to be his manager, choosing him over a list of candidates that included Alex Cora and Phil Nevin.
“I knew that a major component of this job was the relationship between the manager and the front office,” Hazen said. “And I worked with him for so long, in so many different capacities, that I felt like I knew almost everything about him on a personal level.”
LAST WEEK, HAZEN sat in a suite at Chase Field in Phoenix and took a moment to appreciate the circumstances. Two years ago, his team finished tied for the worst record in the sport. Now it was the middle of October, a time when Hazen is usually leading meetings steered toward the upcoming offseason, and the Diamondbacks were preparing for another postseason round, a mere four wins away from their first pennant in 22 years.
He has become better at appreciating that sort of thing.
“We’re focused on beating the Phillies right now,” Hazen said, “but I have not lost sight, one iota, of where we’re standing right now.”
The Diamondbacks put together a winning record in Hazen’s and Lovullo’s first three years together from 2017 to 2019, but they flopped during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season and finished a whopping 55 games out of first place in 2021. Hazen spent most of that year juggling the demands of his job while caring for his four sons and accompanying his ailing wife to the hospital. He called them his “darkest days.”
Lovullo’s darkest day arrived on Sept. 19, 2021. It was a Sunday getaway day in Houston, the morning before the Diamondbacks’ 101st loss in 149 games, and Lovullo was screaming at Hazen through his cellphone.
Intense arguments were nothing new for Lovullo and Hazen by then. They quibbled over countless trivial issues and had it out over bigger roster decisions. But the arguments never got personal and the anger they triggered never lingered. Hazen recalled only two instances in which a heated discussion even necessitated a follow-up phone call. They knew how to have a fight.
This time, though, it was different.
The Diamondbacks were terrible, and it wasn’t on purpose.
“We weren’t trying to tank,” D-backs assistant GM Amiel Sawdaye said. “We were trying to put a team together to win.”
They lost 17 in a row in June and allowed 22 runs in one night on July 10. By the start of September, they sat 44 games below .500. With two weeks remaining in their season, Hazen’s mind had already shifted to the following year. But Lovullo’s contract remained unsettled at a time when fans were clamoring for his firing. That day, during a heated phone conversation, “it all came to a head,” Lovullo said.
“I snapped at him. I legitimately snapped at him.”
Lovullo can still recall the details from that morning. He remembers what he wore and where he stood. He remembers chastising Hazen for never having his back. And he remembers retreating to the stands at Minute Maid Park shortly thereafter and sobbing. “It was an ugly moment personally for me,” Lovullo said. He had made it about himself, at a time when Hazen was navigating through unspeakable tragedy, and he made claims he knew to be untrue.
“In reality,” Lovullo said, “he always had my back.”
Four days after the most heated exchange of their time together, Lovullo signed a contract extension. Hazen had consistently placed the shortcomings of that year squarely on his own roster construction. Firing Lovullo never actually crossed his mind.
“I would’ve gone out and tried to replace Torey with Torey,” Hazen said. “That didn’t seem very smart.”
Barely two years later, the Diamondbacks — trailing the Philadelphia Phillies 2-0 with the best-of-seven series shifting back to Arizona for three straight games — are the first team in the 54-year history of the league championship series to reach that round within two years of losing at least 110 games, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
The core of their team was built through successful drafts (of Corbin Carroll, Alek Thomas and Brandon Pfaadt in particular), savvy trades (Ketel Marte from the Seattle Mariners, Zac Gallen from the Miami Marlins, Gabriel Moreno and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. from the Blue Jays) and shrewd acquisitions (Christian Walker was plucked off waivers, Merrill Kelly was signed out of South Korea). But their turnaround, many will say, was sparked by the authenticity of Lovullo’s and Hazen’s relationship and the effective problem-solving it produced under difficult circumstances.
Lovullo apologized days after his blowup, but Hazen deemed it unnecessary. By the end, the 2021 season had seen both men gain a deeper appreciation for one another. Hazen was in awe of the consistency Lovullo showed in the midst of a torturous season. Lovullo will never forget the poise with which Hazen handled the unthinkable.
“I just admired how, in the face of so much adversity and so much unknown, something so personal to him, he posted, showed up, brought the same passion every single day,” Lovullo said. “He cared for people at a time when he shouldn’t be caring for anybody else. I would leave my office sometimes and I’d be like, ‘Am I seeing this right? He just came in and talked about A, B, C and D, and I can’t believe he’s actually paying attention to that when he should be paying attention to nothing but his wife.’ The way he separated it, he was everybody’s hero. He defined the word ‘courage.'”
KRISTEN LOVULLO AND Nicole Hazen met through their husbands, but they bonded over raising boys and navigating the tumultuous schedules of their significant others. When Torey and Mike were off running a baseball team, Kristen, Nicole and their children were often together.
“We were unintentionally put together, and then we just made it happen ourselves,” Kristen said in a phone conversation. “Our friendship flourished on its own.”
Nicole first suffered a seizure in May 2020 and received a definitive diagnosis of glioblastoma about two months later, after multiple MRIs. In August, doctors surgically removed as much of her cancerous tumor as they could, triggering six weeks of chemotherapy and radiation. Over the better part of the next two years, Nicole underwent three craniotomies and three different drug therapies in an effort to slow the advancement of her tumor. Her resolve hardly wavered, even as her condition worsened.
Over the last few months of her life, Kristen barely left her side.
“It wasn’t necessarily a responsibility that I saw it as; I saw it as just time with my friend,” Kristen said. “It was extra time that I got with her, that I wouldn’t ever be able to get back. I needed that.”
Nicole died on Aug. 4, 2022, at the age of 45, shortly after she and Mike celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary. She was remembered in the days after as a dedicated mother, a supportive wife and a passionate educator, teaching middle school English more than a year after her initial diagnosis. Her personality, according to those who knew her, was magnetic.
When Hazen thinks about Nicole’s illness, he also thinks about the people who formed a community around her. It replaces some of the sorrow with gratitude. He thinks about his bosses, Hall and principal owner Ken Kendrick, who gave him the freedom of unlimited time off, even though he didn’t necessarily take it. He thinks about his front-office executives, namely Sawdaye and Mike Fitzgerald, who picked up so much of the slack while he worked from home. And he thinks about Torey and Kristen, who basically dedicated their lives to his family.
“I don’t know how to express that gratitude to them ever,” Hazen said. “I don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know. I’ll never be able to say anything other than ‘thank you.’ A billion times.”
Hazen’s goal in 2021 was to maintain normalcy. Baseball had been a central part of his entire relationship with Nicole, and she wanted to keep it that way. Later, after Nicole lost her ability to speak and eventually began hospice care, Hazen’s focus shifted to his boys, all between the ages of 13 and 17. Hazen was ready to give up his job to raise them full-time. He left it up to them.
“If they had wanted me to stop,” Hazen said, “I would’ve stopped.”
But they all wanted him to keep going, and they found it weird that he would even ask.
“They’ve grown up in baseball, through the Red Sox, through here,” Sawdaye said. “I think if he left and, whatever, took a job in the private sector, his boys would be really disappointed.”
Hazen has spent the 2023 season carving out the type of schedule that would allow him to be everything to everyone. On most weekdays, he’ll pick his sons up from school and cook them dinner and help with their homework and watch the Diamondbacks’ games from his living room. He’ll still come into the office when needed, and he weighs in on every baseball decision, but he’ll leave most of the logistics for Sawdaye and Fitzgerald and the rest of his staff to sort out in person. He’s learning how to separate.
“I’m not going to have my 13-year-old put himself to bed,” Hazen said.
On Sunday afternoons during homestands and throughout the offseason, Hazen’s house is a gathering place. Sawdaye, Fitzgerald and any other front-office members in the neighborhood stop in at 5 p.m. and bring their kids. Often, Lovullo and his wife will make the short drive over, too. Nicole loved to cook. Now Mike is the one trying out different recipes.
Hazen often finds himself second-guessing whether he did right by his kids in returning to work. He’s comforted by the knowledge that he made the decision with their interest, not his, in mind.
But it helps him, too.
“These people that I work with are my best friends,” Hazen said. “They’re my entire life.”
AS THE YEARS have gone on and their lives have become increasingly intertwined, Lovullo, 58, and Hazen, 47, have found themselves reversing roles. Lovullo has taken a harder edge on team performance, and Hazen is the one trying to talk him down.
Somehow, they always seem to balance each other out.
“They are supportive of one another,” Hall wrote, “yet brutally honest and critical at the same time.”
Lovullo admires Hazen’s ability to see the bigger picture.
“One of my limitations is I just see the pile of mud right in front of me; I wish I saw the dirt field a little bit more clearly,” Lovullo said. “His perspective is eye-opening.”
Hazen admires Lovullo’s authenticity.
“He dives into conversations to a level that I sometimes really want to have but have a hard time doing,” Hazen said. “He gets into the nuance of the players that he manages — into their lives — in a way that is so genuine.”
On the fourth day of October, Hazen signed an extension that will keep him with the Diamondbacks at least through the 2028 season. At some point this offseason, Lovullo, whose contract runs through 2024, might sign one, too.
At this point, they’ve become inseparable.
“We’re married to one another,” Lovullo said. “My wife and his wife used to say we’re like an old married couple.”
And like most married couples, they argue. Lately, their most intense discussions revolve around subjects outside of baseball. Hazen, who, according to Lovullo, “can self-loathe with the best of them,” will talk about never finding love again. Lovullo will tell him he’s being foolish. He’ll also remind him that people are eager to help him take care of his sons, an offer Hazen will often dismiss.
“His mindset is, “I’ve got this. I have to do this. This is for my children and me. I’m raising my children as a mother and a father, and I got this,'” Lovullo said. “I want him to know that we’re there to help him whenever he needs it. And he’s like, ‘I got this. Shut up, dude, leave me alone.'”
Less than a month after Nicole died, the Diamondbacks raised an initial $1.5 million to launch the Nicole Hazen Fund for Hope, which supports medical research for aggressive brain tumors. Her four boys (from youngest to oldest: Sam, Teddy, John and Charlie) each threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 3 of the NLDS, which qualified as the franchise’s first postseason home game in six years. Lovullo, of course, caught one of them.
It took Lovullo 14 years, from 2002 to 2016, to earn a job as a major league manager. Along the way there were several interviews and a handful of other teams that came close to hiring him. He could have landed with any one of them, and instead he wound up working alongside his close friend and helping him through tragedy.
He thinks about that a lot.
“I believe in fate, and I think there’s a lot of times where you want something so bad, you don’t know the reason why you don’t get that or achieve that goal, and so you’re on a totally different path,” Lovullo said. “Personally, I couldn’t have imagined it going any other way. I’m so grateful for the hardships that I’ve had to go through and endure, because it’s landed me here in Arizona with Mike Hazen.”
-
Buster Olney
The Boston Red Sox might be the best embodiment of the emotional swings that teams go through in this era of major league baseball.
Ten days ago, they had dropped nine of their past 12 games, and industry executives were eyeing the strongest parts on Boston’s roster in case the team was forced to start dealing players before the July 31 trade deadline. But instead, right-hander Hunter Dobbins notched two wins against the New York Yankees, Roman Anthony arrived in the big leagues (finally) and the Red Sox are back to .500, fostering a run at the postseason, real or imagined.
Then, a Father’s Day trade, out of the blue: Craig Breslow, the head of baseball operations for the Red Sox, shipped Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants. He addressed all the necessary business at once — dumping the contract of the unhappy Devers, adding pitching depth, and creating opportunity for the team’s young position players by opening the team’s DH spot.
He and the Giants’ Buster Posey completed what seems destined to be the biggest trade of the summer. In doing so, they shifted more onus onto some of their peers. Here are seven more who have the most at stake as trade season heats up.
Mike Hazen, general manager, Arizona Diamondbacks
Hazen will have a lot of say about what happens at this year’s trade deadline because if Arizona decides to trade talent, he’ll dangle a highly marketable set of players. Josh Naylor (Could the Mariners be interested? Or the Giants?), Eugenio Suarez (Yankees would be in on him), Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen would become some of the best options, and other GMs like to trade with Hazen because they find him communicative and decisive.
But Hazen has also seen success when his team has been on the fringe of contention. Two years ago, the D-backs won 84 regular-season games and, after upsetting the Phillies in the playoffs, came within two victories of winning the World Series. Arizona just lost Corbin Burnes and reliever Justin Martinez to major injuries, but with an extraordinary core of talent, could Hazen add help, rather than trade away players? Knowing that Burnes will miss most or all of next year, could Hazen start constructing the team’s 2026 rotation? A lot is riding on his choices this trade season.
Arizona’s chances for making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs, are 34.9%.
David Dombrowski, president of baseball operations, Philadelphia Phillies
Over the past couple of years, Dombrowski installed two younger starting pitchers into his rotation, 28-year-old left-hander Cristopher Sanchez and 27-year-old Jesus Luzardo, acquired in a trade with the Marlins. Meanwhile, Andrew Painter, the highly regarded 22-year-old right-hander the Phillies held out of the Garrett Crochet trade talks last summer, has reached Triple-A.
However, the Phillies’ group of position players is older, with Bryce Harper in Year 7 of the 13-year deal he signed and Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto in the last years of their respective contracts. The team’s window is now. Jose Alvarado could return from his PED suspension before the end of the regular season, but he will be ineligible for the postseason. The Phillies need bullpen help, just as they did last season, and Dombrowski will need to augment that group before the deadline.
“He’s been through this plenty of times before,” one of his peers said. “He’ll make deals. He always does.”
Jerry Dipoto, president of baseball operations, Seattle Mariners
Seattle has been wildly inconsistent while sorting through some rotation injuries. George Kirby has gradually improved over the five starts since being activated from the injured list, and Logan Gilbert was just activated off the IL and will start Monday against the Red Sox. If not for Aaron Judge, Cal Raleigh would be the front-runner for the American League MVP Award.
But despite Raleigh’s power, the Mariners are struggling for offense at first base (their group has a wRC+ of 90, 22nd among the 30 teams) and DH (24th in wRC+, at 89). There is a clear need for a thumper, whether it’s Ryan O’Hearn or Josh Naylor — or someone of that ilk. As with the Orioles a year ago, the Mariners’ farm system is loaded, and Dipoto can present a buffet table of options to rival executives looking for a match.
Chris Young, president of baseball operations, Texas Rangers
Last July, with the Rangers coming off their first championship in 2023, Young waited and waited for a turnaround that never came before the trade deadline, refusing to deal. This year’s problems are a little different, but still similar. Jacob deGrom is dominating, but the offense has been shockingly sparse, with Texas ranked 26th in runs scored. There are reasons for hope: Evan Carter, impacted by injuries over the past 18 months, is hitting .387 in June (although he has been experiencing a wrist issue in recent days), and Wyatt Langford is getting better. It’s also hard to imagine Marcus Semien hitting .224 all year.
Young bet on a turnaround last summer. Will he do so again this year?
Mike Elias, general manager, Baltimore Orioles
The hole the Orioles have dug this season might be too deep to escape — they’re 6½ games out of the last AL wild-card spot. The Orioles were just 2½ games out of the wild-card race in 2022 when Elias chose to trade talent away rather than acquire it. But the context is different now, with Baltimore’s group of prospects older. By year’s end, Adley Rutschman will have four years of service time.
One way or another, Elias has to start building a rotation for next season. Maybe dealing Ryan O’Hearn and/or Cedric Mullins and others will help.
J.J. Picollo, general manager, Kansas City Royals
With the recent spate of losses, Kansas City is under .500 — and their playoff chances are 13.3%, per FanGraphs. Picollo’s track record is well-established: He has done what he can to win, signing free agents such as Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Carlos Estevez, and more recently, promoting top prospect Jac Caglianone and bypassing the opportunity to manipulate his service time.
But Cole Ragans is out indefinitely because of a strained shoulder, and Lugo has an opt-out on his deal after this season — and at 35 years old, it makes sense for him to take advantage of his leverage. Maybe that’s a contract extension with the Royals, or maybe that’s testing free agency. If the Royals’ recent malaise takes root, Lugo would be coveted in the trade market.
Jed Hoyer, president of baseball operations, Chicago Cubs
Chicago is so good — its offense so dynamic and versatile, its defense so efficient — that one evaluator believes that the question for Hoyer is not whether the Cubs will make the playoffs (their playoff chances, per FanGraphs, is 88.5%), but what will make them more dangerous in the meaningful games they’re bound to play at the end of the season. Especially with Kyle Tucker, the heart of the offense this year, headed for free agency in the fall.
Pitching is needed, with Justin Steele out for the season. The talented-but-young Ben Brown has an ERA of 5.71, and Colin Rea has been inconsistent. The Diamondbacks’ Kelly or Gallen might be a perfect fit, while the Orioles’ Zach Eflin would be an upgrade.
The Cubs’ payroll is well under the luxury tax threshold — 12th highest in the majors — but Chicago’s offer to Alex Bregman wasn’t competitive, even though he would’ve been a perfect fit. Rival evaluators wonder if Cubs ownership will green-light the sort of pricey acquisition that could help this team compete for its second title in the past decade.
-
Kristen Shilton
There is an art to becoming a full-time NHL starting goaltender.
There is art, too, in being a successful NHL backup.
It requires embracing the unknown. It’s preparing to play without actually playing. There are long stretches of no puck touches — but the expectation of delivering your best at a moment’s notice.
That kind of pressure isn’t for everyone. But Edmonton Oilers‘ goaltender Calvin Pickard isn’t just anyone. He has forged a career excelling in secondary roles, the classic blue-collar contributor exemplifying work ethic and a straightforward mentality. One day at a time. One game after another.
It’s not easy. Pickard just makes it seem that way.
“I guess you’d say he’s one of the rare goalies,” Oilers forward Evander Kane said. “He’s just a normal guy. He’s really popular in [our] room.”
And how. Pickard has helped save Edmonton from back-breaking deficits in this NHL postseason not once, but twice. And Pickard could be on track to keep the Oilers alive again as they face elimination in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET, TNT/Max).
That’s as pressure-packed as it gets, yet Pickard’s most recent efforts showcased a goalie at his peak.
Pickard entered the Final as Edmonton’s No. 2 behind Stuart Skinner. He looked on as the Oilers split the series’ first two games, and then entered troubled waters. Skinner started again in Game 3, and Florida pounded Edmonton 6-1. Coach Kris Knoblauch replaced Skinner with Pickard late in that debacle, where all Pickard could offer was cleanup duty.
Edmonton moved on to Game 4 with a 2-1 series deficit, carrying an undeniable whiff of fragility that was about to be painfully exposed.
Knoblauch passed over Pickard for Skinner as his starter. The result was disastrous. Skinner gave up three goals on 14 shots in the first period, for an .824 save percentage. Edmonton limped off the ice down 3-0 and Knoblauch had to do something.
Enter Pickard.
The 33-year-old took over Edmonton’s crease and backstopped them to a shocking comeback as the Oilers scored three second-period goals for a 3-3 tie heading into the third. Pickard was excellent holding off the Panthers’ attack with tough, critical stops that gave the Oilers a chance to offer some goal support at the other end. And Edmonton’s eventual 5-4 victory in overtime would not have been possible without Pickard’s 22 saves.
2:24
How ‘clutch’ Calvin Pickard helped spur Oilers to Game 4 win
Steve Levy and Kevin Weekes break down the Oilers’ comeback win in overtime in Game 4 to even the series with the Panthers.
It was simple enough then that when the series returned to Edmonton tied 2-2 going into Game 5 on Saturday that Pickard would have at least 24 hours notice of his next playing time. That it was happening in the Cup Final could rattle other goalies who hadn’t actually started a full game in five weeks.
But then again, Pickard isn’t a typical backup. He’s built differently.
“I guess you could look at [Game 5] as the biggest game in my life, but the last game was the biggest game in my life until the next one,” Pickard said. “It’s rinse and repeat for me. It’s been a great journey; I’ve been to a lot of good places. Grateful that I had the chance to come to Edmonton a couple years ago, and this is what you play for. I’m excited.”
The game itself didn’t go to plan for Edmonton. The Oilers fell behind early — again — and this time no number of eye-popping stops by Pickard (including a massive one on Carter Verhaeghe in the first period) could save Edmonton from itself in a 5-2 loss.
Pickard’s stat line was weak — giving up four goals on 18 shots for a .778 save percentage — but Knoblauch wasn’t convinced he was the problem. Nor would Knoblauch commit to him for Game 6.
“I’m not going to make that decision right now after a tough loss tonight,” the coach said after Game 5. “But from what I saw, I think Picks didn’t have much chance on all those goals. Breakaways, shots through screens, slot shots. There was nothing saying that it was a poor performance.”
It was Pickard’s first loss in the postseason, a testament to his body of work. It wasn’t so long ago he was in control of the Oilers’ crease. A stronger team effort in front of Pickard could have him shining there again Tuesday; Edmonton has been outscored 15-8 in its past three games, a frustrating reality given the Oilers’ depth of offensive talent and defensive capabilities.
“The quality of opportunities were really good [in Game 5], so there’s no fault at Calvin at all on any of those goals,” Knoblauch said. “When the pressure’s not on [the goalies] that they have to make every single save to keep this close or keep us ahead [it’s better]. It’d be nice to get some goal support. [Game 5] was a case where we were having difficulty generating offense. It’d be nice to have that lead and play knowing that they have to open things up when they’re trailing.”
THE OILERS WERE in a bad spot midway through the first round.
They’d entered the playoffs among the field’s Cup favorites after making the Final a year ago, falling there in Game 7 to the same franchise they’re battling now. The Oilers rebounded in a strong regular season, finishing third in the Pacific Division with 101 points.
It was worrisome then that they started the postseason with a thud, falling behind 2-0 in their first-round series against the Los Angeles Kings. Skinner was Edmonton’s starter at the time, and had given up 11 goals in those two defeats. Pickard had watched (almost) all of it happen from the bench, save for a brief appearance late in Game 2.
Knoblauch tapped Pickard to start in Game 3. Cue another comeback.
Pickard helped the Oilers reel off four straight wins to vanquish the Kings and send Edmonton to the second round. He peeled off another pair of wins against the Vegas Golden Knights to spot Edmonton a 2-0 series lead — only to sustain a lower-body injury in Game 2 that would cut his magical postseason run off at 6-0-0 with an .892 save percentage and 2.76 goals-against average.
Edmonton again turned to Skinner, who responded with a sensational run of his own leading the Oilers through their Western Conference finals series against the Dallas Stars. The now-healthy Pickard was more of a spectator again. Biding his time had become second nature.
“The last couple of years, [Skinner] has played much more than I have,” Pickard said. “So, practice time is huge for me. [Our staff] has me dialed in when I’m not playing and doing different drills to replicate situations in games, and for when that chance comes.”
Pickard has learned how to leverage his reps, perceiving each one as meaningful even when the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
“Getting the time in Game 3 [of the Final] at the end, even when it was out of hand there [with the score], it’s still good ice time for me to get out there and see game action,” Pickard said. “That propelled me to be ready for Game 4. [Any of that] practice time’s huge.”
It’s also fitting for a goalie like Pickard — who can revel entering a rout — to be on the path to a potentially distinctive feat. According to ESPN Research, the last time multiple goalies on a Cup-winning team recorded decisions in a Final for non-injury related reasons was when the Boston Bruins alternated between Gerry Cheevers and Eddie Johnston in 1972. Cheevers started Game 1, Game 3 and the clinching Game 6 in that series.
Skinner and Pickard are also only the second tandem in NHL history to have each recorded at least seven victories in a single postseason, joining Marc-Andre Fleury (nine wins) and Matt Murray (seven) during the Pittsburgh Penguins‘ Cup run in 2017.
But Pickard’s road here wasn’t quite like his predecessors — or his current goalie teammate.
Pickard was drafted by Colorado in the second round at No. 49 in the 2010 NHL draft. His first and only season as a starter for the Avalanche was in 2016-17, when he filled in for injured Semyon Varlamov.
Colorado exposed him that summer in the expansion draft and Pickard was selected by Vegas, with the idea he’d be Fleury’s backup. But the Golden Knights also selected Malcom Subban off waivers and put him behind Fleury instead. Pickard was then put on waivers and picked up by the Toronto Maple Leafs, who sent him to the minors.
From there, the New Brunswick, Canada, native kept moving around, waived by Toronto and then Philadelphia before a brief stint in Arizona. In July 2019, Pickard signed as a free agent with the Detroit Red Wings — his fifth team in two years — and still couldn’t take hold in the NHL. He toggled between the Red Wings and the American Hockey League for three seasons.
In July 2022, Pickard arrived in Edmonton … sort of. He signed a two-year, two-way deal with the club and spent his first season in the AHL. Pickard finally saw sustained NHL play the next season as the Oilers grappled with struggling starter Jack Campbell, giving Pickard his most games in the league (23) since 2016-17. That was enough to keep him on as Skinner’s backup this season.
The rest, as they say, is history. Pickard’s patience through the process has impressed those teammates now relying on him to pull them through to a Cup title.
“He’s been doing this for a long time, he has a ton of experience and been to a lot of different dressing rooms,” Kane said. “That can help you along when you do come on to different teams, making a little bit of an easier transition. Now you’re just seeing that off-ice translate on to the ice with his performance, and how much he’s helped us to where we are here today … in the Stanley Cup Final.”
If people weren’t paying attention to Pickard when he stepped in for Skinner against the Kings, there’s no doubt all eyes are on him now. It’s attention that Pickard has earned.
“[Pickard is] someone who’s just kind of stuck with it all along and he’s been a true pro and a great person all the way through,” Edmonton captain Connor McDavid said. “I think good people get rewarded and he works as hard as I’ve seen. Couldn’t be more deserving.”
KNOBLAUCH ISN’T ONE to be rushed.
He has been cagey about naming a starter throughout the Final. That will hold true again for Game 6.
“[It’s] a conversation with the staff, obviously our goaltending coach, Dustin Schwartz, but with all the assistants, the general manager,” Knoblauch said. “[We’ll] kind of weigh in how everyone feels and what’s best moving forward. It’s not an easy decision. We’ve got two goalies that have shown that they can play extremely well, win hockey games and we feel that no matter who we choose, they can win the game.”
Pickard’s numbers in the series (.878 SV%, 2.88 GAA) are stronger than Skinner’s (.860 SV%, 4.20 GAA) and they are on par for the entire postseason (Pickard holds an .886 SV% and 2.85 GAA to Skinner’s .891 SV% and 2.99 GAA). Their records, though, are quite different: 7-1 for Pickard, 7-6 for Skinner.
So, who gives the Oilers their best chance to win Game 6 and drag Florida back to Edmonton for a second straight Game 7 finale between these teams in the Cup Final?
If Pickard does get the call, it will be a culmination of 10 years of consistent effort to be trusted when there’s no tomorrow. There’s only the present moment — where the right backup goalie has always been trained to stay ready.
1:26
Weekes perplexed by Oilers: ‘They look like a shell of themselves’
Kevin Weekes calls out the energy level by the Oilers in their Game 5 loss to the Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final.
The San Francisco Giants acquired three-time All-Star Rafael Devers from the Boston Red Sox on Sunday in a stunning trade that sent a player Boston once considered a franchise cornerstone to a San Francisco team needing an offensive infusion.
Boston received left-handed starter Kyle Harrison, right-hander Jordan Hicks, outfield prospect James Tibbs III and Rookie League right-hander Jose Bello.
The Red Sox announced the deal Sunday evening.
The Giants will cover the remainder of Devers’ contract, which runs through 2033 and will pay him more than $250 million, sources told ESPN.
The trade ends the fractured relationship between Devers and the Red Sox that had degraded since spring training, when Devers balked at moving off third base — the position where he had spent his whole career — after the signing of free agent Alex Bregman. The Red Sox gave no forewarning to Devers, who expressed frustration before relenting and agreeing to be their designated hitter.
After a season-ending injury to first baseman Triston Casas in early May, the Red Sox asked Devers to move to first base. Devers declined, suggesting the front office “should do their jobs” and find another player after the organization told him during spring training he would be the DH for the remainder of the season. The day after Devers’ comments, Red Sox owner John Henry, president Sam Kennedy and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow flew to Kansas City, where Boston was playing, to talk with Devers.
In the weeks since, Devers’ refusal to play first led to internal tension and helped facilitate the deal, sources said.
San Francisco pounced — and added a force to an offense that ranks 15th in runs scored in Major League Baseball. Devers, 28, is hitting .272/.401/.504 with 15 home runs and 58 RBIs, tied for the third most in MLB. Over his nine-year career, Devers is hitting .279/.349/.509 with 215 home runs and 696 RBIs in 1,053 games.
Boston believed enough in Devers to give him a 10-year, $313.5 million contract extension in January 2023. He rewarded the Red Sox with a Silver Slugger Award that season and made his third All-Star team in 2024.
Whether he slots in at designated hitter or first base with San Francisco — the Giants signed Gold Glove third baseman Matt Chapman to a six-year, $151 million deal last year — is unknown. But San Francisco sought Devers more for his bat, one that immediately makes the Giants — who are fighting for National League West supremacy with the Los Angeles Dodgers — a better team.
To do so, the Giants gave a package of young talent and took on the contract that multiple teams’ models had as underwater.
Harrison, 23, is the prize of the deal, particularly for a Red Sox team replete with young hitting talent but starving for young pitching. Once considered one of the best pitching prospects in baseball, Harrison has shuttled between San Francisco and Triple-A Sacramento this season.
Harrison, who was scratched from a planned start against the Dodgers on Sunday night, has a 4.48 ERA over 182⅔ innings since debuting with the Giants in 2023. He has struck out 178, walked 62 and allowed 30 home runs. The Red Sox optioned Harrison to Triple-A Worcester after the trade was announced.
Hicks, 28, who has toggled between starter and reliever since signing with the Giants for four years and $44 million before the 2024 season, is on the injured list because of right toe inflammation. One of the hardest-throwing pitchers in baseball, Hicks has a 6.47 ERA over 48⅔ innings this season. He could join the Red Sox’s ailing bullpen, which Breslow has sought to upgrade.
Tibbs, 22, was selected by the Giants with the 13th pick in last year’s draft out of Florida State. A 6-foot, 200-pound corner outfielder, Tibbs has spent the season at High-A, where he has hit .245/.377/.480 with 12 home runs and 32 RBIs in 56 games. Scouts laud his command of the strike zone — he has 41 walks and 45 strikeouts in 252 plate appearances — but question whether his swing will translate at higher levels.
Bello, 20, has spent the season as a reliever for the Giants’ Rookie League affiliate. In 18 innings, he has struck out 28 and walked three while posting a 2.00 ERA.
The deal is the latest in which Boston shipped a player central to the franchise.
Boston traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers in February 2020, just more than a year after leading Boston to a franchise-record 108 wins and a World Series title and winning the American League MVP Award.
Devers was part of that World Series-winning team in 2018 and led the Red Sox in RBIs each season from 2020 to 2024, garnering AL MVP votes across each of the past four years. Devers had been with the Red Sox since 2013, when he signed as an international amateur free agent out of the Dominican Republic. He debuted four years later at age 20.
Boston is banking on its young talent to replace Devers’ production. The Red Sox regularly play four rookies — infielders Kristian Campbell and Marcelo Mayer, outfielder Roman Anthony and catcher Carlos Narvaez — and infielder Franklin Arias and outfielder Jhostynxon Garcia are expected to contribute in the coming years.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike