Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
He had five wins in his past seven starts before today. As a second option in goal his 11-7-0-1 record is fairly palatable.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Exactly. He is a goalie who will still win games, will still manage to perform for all his faults. He is having a bad season—there is no question about that, but it really is not costing the Flames enough to prioritize making a significant change.
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Disagree (and you're wrong on the stats).
Rittich: 11 - 4 - 2, .923, 2.29, .706 W%G
Smith.: 11 - 8 - 1, .888, 3.00, .575 W%G
A .575 winning percentage works out to 94 points and doesn't get them in the playoffs.
So here we are at the Christmas break, with almost half the season played, and where are we? We have one goalie who's record places us 2nd overall in W%G, and one goalie who leaves us out of the playoffs, or maybe scraping in as a wildcard if we're lucky.
I don't think this is the Flames'
only window, but the window is indisputably now open. And Smith, after half a season, has shown that he is not giving them even acceptable backup goaltending.
Imagine what would happen to this season if Rittich gets hurt.
(I have been in the group touting patience, but time is pretty much up)