[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Who did you want as a replacement?


I still don't think there was an obvious move to be made in the summer. You're planning to give more time to your young(ish) backup. On a young, rebuilding team who just changed a few big pieces, new coach, and whose veterans were Giordano, Frolik, and a couple new UFAs, it made all the sense in the world to keep a steady, older goaltender play out the last year of his deal. .916 and 2.65 gaa in the last season. Only Raanta had a better sv % among starting goalies on non-playoff teams.

Ward, Khudobin, Bernier, Mrazek, Hutton, Hutchinson, Chad Johnson, Halak, and Lehner. None of these guys seemed like significant upgrades on Smith in the summer, and only 2-3 of them really panned out.

Even if BT had targeted one of them, there's no guarantee they would have wanted to come here. All 9 of those guys signed with American teams on July 1 (Lehner was July 3). So, BT would have needed to trade Smith before July 1 (zero leverage with so many UFA goalies avail.) and risk being all alone when they turn the ugly lights on, or sign a guy, then try to trade Smith (zero leverage).

So, UFA was basically impossible. Who did you want to trade for?

The other thing is that I'm not sure Treliving thought this was a contendership year. I think he figured on being a solid PO team but not a front runner, that the core needing another year to gel and for the young D to get going for a long PO run to be in the offing. Who could have predicted the play of Andersson and Valimaki/Kylington? So I think he figured on continuing to build and just using up the last year of Smith's contract (and perhaps having Gillies, Rittich and Parsons continue to percolate).