Quote:
Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper
Not saying you’re wrong, but this would be straight silly if the team “wants” Smith to be the starter for the playoffs. Smith hasn’t played a playoff game in about 7 years. Most players on this team haven’t even had careers longer than that. He’s been better of late, but we’re talking about 3 games here. There’s 23 left to go.
Rittich may appear to be struggling, but he’s been terrific for about 80%-90% of the season and that should hold more weight. I’ve seen that November 25th .901 sv% stat being thrown around a lot. But that’s a skewed stat in my opinion because against teams not named Tampa Bay or San Jose, Rittich has been just fine at .915 in that same time frame.
So sure, he’s struggled a bit against the top scoring teams in the league, but those 2 teams make a lot of goaltenders look bad. Rittich would personally be my #1 starter for the playoffs if I had to choose at this moment because the quality of his competition has been clearly more difficult and he’s excelled for the majority of this season.
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This is a good stat. I can’t imagine what the scores would be if smith had started any of those games.
Rittich is still a better goalie than smith and smith has no recent history of playoff experience and has wilted under pressure all season long.