Quote:
Originally Posted by gamesaver
When I was playing in goal, I hated friendly games, because my team was never really trying hard in our own zone and in front of me. Nobody wanted to get injured, especially if the real season was about to start in week or two. Forwards where not blocking shots. Defensemen were not covering bodies or making space so I could see the shot. Lazy skating, risky passes, odd man rushes. Its simply different. And its really hard to go out there and give 100% effort if noone in front of you is willing to do the same in terms of playing defence. You let in 2 or 3 which were really hard to stop and you get pissed even more. It can get really frustrating and you can see many goalies struggling throught the league at this point. What was the score of DET vs CHI match last night? 8-6? Classic preseason game. Howard let in 6. Do you think wings fans are calling for his head because of it?
|
Jimmy Howard vs. Rittich or Gilles is complete apples and oranges. Howard is a long-established goalie who played 60 games last year and put up a "okay for a struggling team" sv% of .910. And for what it's worth, the organization brought in Jonathan Bernier to make sure he had a reliable second goalie.
I'm not just judging Rittich and Gilles based on their preseason play alone - the fact is both were abject failures when asked to step in and play significant minutes once Mike Smith went down last year. Given their poor play last year, I still maintain that one of Rittich and Gilles needed to come into camp and really win that backup position with a strong showing. Granted there's still time for one or both to do that, but so far neither one has.
Smith is yet another year older and had given no indication that he's passed his proneness for injuries, so we can't just stick our heads in the sand and pretend like there's not a very good chance that Calgary's backup goalie will have to step in and play significant time again. The flames cannot put themselves in a position going into the season where they award the backup position to the least bad of the two guys that happen to be in the organization, and hope that one of them turns it around when it matters. If neither Rittich or Gilles have won the backup position with solid play, IMO the flames owe it to the rest of the team to solidify that spot with a guy like McElhinney.