Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
I'm not interested in blaming goaltenders until they clean up the ten bell chance rates that they're currently putting on display.
15 more last night at five on five, 16 overall.
Last year the 15th best high danger goaltender stopped 83% of these chances over the course of a season which would be ... drumroll please ... 12 in a game where you give up 16, meaning four go in.
I can pretty much guarantee you Peters is looking at the 16 high danger chances and not his goaltender this morning.
The 10 best team in the league last year in high danger chance surrender gave up 955 over the season for 11.8 per game.
This year the Flames are ranked 28th in the NHL for high danger chances against per 60 minutes.
Smith isn't the issue. He could bail them out more sure as his high danger save rate is at 79.8%, but he's ranked 16th in that stat, and I have him as a middle NHL goaltender.
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While Smith isn't the issue, he isn't the solution either. With great team defence, this team could definitely do some damage with Smith in net - but we don't have that defence yet. I'm really tired watching a team that can't make it because 'x' piece isn't there.
With that said, I wouldn't shred the team when the defence clearly has so much to improve. I'd hope to see Rittich in net with an opportunity to string games together right away and if we can only count on Smith behind this defence for one game in every 4... so be it. I'd really like to see if Rittich, Gillies or Parsons (the latter two absolutely haven't deserved a callup
) can carry a larger load before we start trading assets.
What I really hope is that we don't finish this season outside the playoffs, or staring at another early exit with a goalie that rarely made the save we needed.
I also think we see Talbot here next year
