Quote:
Originally Posted by transplant99
No question Rittich WAS better...by a lot.
We are talking about now...and moving forward, there most certainly is a debate as to who is playing better.
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Yeah, I understand what you are trying to say and like that people think Smith is finding his mojo.
Quality of competition actually matters a whole bunch here. Each goal affects save percentage in a small sample by a lot.
I was at the Arizona game, pretty close to the net and saw lotsa muffins off the blocker. That’s a bad team. And that’s fine, he did what he had to do, but he wasn’t challenged by any means.
Rittich has definitely allowed 11 goals on his last 58 shots, which really is the thing making this any kind of debate in the minds of some. Recency bias and all, stats without context.
He has faced 608 shots total since your chosen date of Nov 25 (cherry picked with Smith’s hot streak included and Rittich’s worst games bookended) and allowed 60, right?
It would be .911 in your date range if you exclude the last 3 games.
I just don’t see anything Smith has faced that was remotely like Tampa (who has scored 5+ in 22 of their last 41), in terms of offense and in terms of the Flames basically being destroyed by a greatly superior opponent.
Washington had to sit Ovechkin, and still got 4. Florida is not a good team. Arizona looked barely like a NHL team.
I think it’s arguably as simple as this. If Smith got the Tampa game, the stats aren’t close and there is no ‘controversy’