Quote:
Originally Posted by The Boy Wonder
Smith sucks and should not be our playoff starter.
However, I am all for him having a few more starts down the stretch to keep rittich fresh.
If we go into playoffs with smith there are 0 goalie tandems who are less confidence inspiring than ours at this point and smith is by far the worst goalie who may just end up starting in playoffs.
If we play the wild... advantage MIN because dubnyk >>>>>>>>smith
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I agree with this. Here's my predictions of the starters for the current playoff teams in the west, as of tonight.
Calgary - David Rittich; 2.56 GAA, .913 Sv%
San Jose - Martin Jones; 2.95 GAA, .896 Sv%
Winnipeg - Connor Hellebuyck; 2.99 GAA, .910 Sv%
Nashville - Pekka Rinne; 2.50 GAA, .914 Sv%
Vegas - MA Fleury; 2.56 GAA, .910 Sv%
St. Louis - Jordan Binnington; 1.68 GAA, .933 Sv%
Dallas - Ben Bishop; 2.25 GAA, .926 Sv%
Minnesota - Devan Dubnyk; 2.59 GAA, .912 Sv%
Read into it what you will. I agree that Smith, if he starts any games, will be by far the worst goalie in the playoffs. Rittich seems more on par with the other goalies.
It's interesting that some goalies on paper have worse stats than Rittich, but I would be pretty worried going up against them in the playoffs. I think that includes Fleury, Dubnyk and maybe Hellebuyck.
On the other hand, there are goalies that have better stats on paper than Rittich, but I'm not as worried from watching them play: Bishop, Binnington and maybe Rinne.
The other goalie is Jones. I'm on the fence about SJ. On the one hand their team scares me. On the other, Jones has looked pretty awful this year.
If either Colorado or Arizona sneak in, I'm not too worried. I think we can really wear down those two teams in the playoffs.
All of which is to say: start Rittich in the playoffs and we have a fighting chance against any team in the West. I'm still a little worried about playing Vegas though.