Quote:
Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce
Except they aren't.
They are investing in Rittich.
Handling his workload. Handling his shaky starts (all 2 or 3 lol). Credit for his great play goes mostly to him, and the rest to the fantastic way Peters is handling him, in my opinion. So I trust coach implicitly when it comes to his handling of Rittich. The others nights pull is more about the long game than an individual result.
This is all only my opinion, but I am convinced it's accurate. Rittich hasn't been successful in spite of coach. He is, in part, because of coach.
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I agree with this, while I also truly don’t believe it is all about Rittich. Peters and the organization still believe they can salvage Smith for this season IMO. Maybe that is why he started coming off the break.
Perhaps Treliving sees the goalie market and believes the best hope for having two effective goalies are the two we have. In that scenario, they are trying to prep both to succeed and not going all in on Rittich carrying the club through an extended playoff run.
I don’t mean to trigger all the Smith haters but if the definition of your “starting goalie” is whoever starts game 1 of the playoffs, then Rittich is the starter, right now. But I don’t find it impossible seeing Smith in that role.