Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
Mrazek was really pouty his last two years in Detroit, which was an underlying reason for his move to Philadelphia in 2017.
But I suspect there is nothing to the idea that Treliving passed on Mrazek because of "attitude problems." I think it is as simple as the Flames identifying David Rittich as a 40-50 game starter in 2019–20, and really only having room to pursue a backup goalie who will at best split starts with Rittich. The pool of goalies who fit that description was quite small, and did not include Mrazek.
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The time Mrazek would have been on our radar (around the expansion draft I think) was just before we acquired Smith. At that time, we were in the process of saying farewells to Elliott and Johnson and none of Gilles, MacDonald, Parsons or Rittich looked ready. Rittich was better than Gilles only by a hair. He would have been in a similar boat as the evaluation of Grubauer I believe. Rittich would not have been part of the Mrazek consideration the first time, perhaps that same evaluation kept him out of the running when he went UFA (or we just felt better with Smith and a young guy).
In Detroit, Mrazek had been platooning well with Howard and looking like the heir apparent, but there were some open conflicts with management and threats to go to arbitration for his contract. Mrazek's play began deteriorating in Detroit, but it seemed like he wasn't taking responsibility for it. He was moved to the Flyers who didn't seem interested in keeping him and later on he ended up on the Canes.