Quote:
Originally Posted by Otto29
So many haters here. Every season someone picks the player to be whipping boy and everyone jumps on the bandwagon.
Personally i like Smith. I think he is a good goaltender. I think he will get back to form and i understand he is an important part of the dressing room as well.
|
There does always need to be a whipping boy, and I agree that it's unfair a lot of the time... but Smith has earned every iota of pessimism that comes his way.
Personally, I gave him back a lot of rope after those 6 good games. I thought he still looked slow, played most of the game on his face and didn't have the big save we'd need at certain points in the game we'd want from our #1... but his pushback after so much wasn't going his way was impressive.
Then he took a dump all over our season again and that rope wound back quickly.
If you have more optimism than most, that's great. But he's one of the worst goalies in the entire league by almost every metric and eye-test you look at. Literally any goalie that can play in the NHL has a decent shot at being an upgrade. As the opening night #1, I don't think you could ask for a more deserving whipping-boy.
He's damn lucky Big Save Dave showed up in 2018, as I can't imagine the mental state him and the fans would be in right now if he was getting the tough starts still. We most definitely wouldn't be where we are today, and that would solely rest on his performance.