Mike Smith - Aggressive puck handling still beneficial?
This was brought up a few times in the PGT but I wanted to explore it a bit more in depth. We all love Smith's fiery competitiveness, and his widely known puck moving capabilities were supposed to help the team's transition. But after an admittedly very small Rittich sample, it seems to me that our defense looks more comfortable with a more traditional, conservative approach to goalie puck touches.
If the defenseman gets control of the puck and has to skate or pass to advance it themselves, the breakout seems to be more secure. But if they're anticipating Smith firing it to them, they seem to take it either slowed or stopped and turned around, which opens them up to getting pressured and coughing the puck up along the boards.
In my opinion the athletic/aggressive Smith style manifests itself in other ways, such as making saves look a bit more spectacular than they should be, or making close in scrambles somewhat more chaotic. All credit to him for helping prop up the Flames at many points, but it makes me wonder if there's an issue when you have two guys in net who are so different from each other.
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