Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
No. The Flames should have their eye on playing deep in the playoffs, and with the goalies they have on the roster this means managing their starts all the way into the stretch-drive. There is a real danger that the Flames ride Rittich and he falters, and a real chance that a rusty and deflated Smith is not in a position to pick up the mantle.
You could not be more wrong about this. Like I said above, this is a reactionary panic-play with no view to how long the season is, nor how dramatically things can change from one week to the next. I expect the coaches will select their starter on the basis of who looks best ready to win, and with a view to how best to keep them both on top of their games. Not based on some knee-jerk fear about who is most likely to fail.
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There is no point whatsoever in managing starts when you're essentially tossing points into the trash can by putting Smith in the net more often than naught - playoffs won't be an issue and starting Smith again tonight simply because he didn't look bad against the doormat Coyotes would be exactly the knee jerk reaction you are preaching against.
I too suspect the coaching staff will make the right choice and choose the goalie best suited to get the win - Rittich. They certainly wouldn't be so easily blinded by a poor sample last game that they would go back to Smith after he has single handidly cost this team several points already this year. Nevertheless, fear mongering that Rittich cannot handle playing a 1A type workload this season is baseless and quite odd considering you'd only be talking about a modest 20 game increase on his starts over the last 2 seasons and would be spread out over several months. He even started 48 of 50 games for his Czech league team three years ago so 55 ish starts would not be outlandish for the him in any way.