Quote:
Originally Posted by Gaskal
I don't want him shying away from playing pucks, but he needs to really learn when to let them go - or failing that, knowing when to abandon his attempt and scramble back into the net.
These low-shot games are bad for him in particular and I've touched on this a couple months back. He attempts to stay engaged and focused through playing the puck for his team, which is understandable, but then occasional blunders happen.
If you have to be peppered with pucks to turn out a great performance, then I don't think he is the right fit for a good team. Probably a bad team.
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That’s an interesting point, it’s almost as if he feels the need to overplay the puck when a team is sitting back when in reality the team really needs him to just not concede a goal. This happened vs the Wild and Ducks, two teams that struggle to score. His puck playing really did not effect the wild at all as they were too busy playing prevention hockey. Smiths puck playing isn’t really needed vs a team that isn’t generating much offence, it increases the likelihood that an error will occur vs a team where this risk isn’t needed. Vs high scoring teams I understand that the risk vs reward may be worth it. When playing teams like the wild it is not, Smith needs to adjust to these types of games.
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