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.
|
I was thinking the same thing. The Flames Defense is actually pretty bad. And I mean in terms of the whole group, the way they play. Forwards included. And they’ve been bad for awhile too... I’m not sure how Smith is supposed to be stopping all of these grade A chances every game.
For what he is, Smith is just fine or at least shouldn’t be the focus of the solution. Although I will admit when Rittich suited up in Colorado there was something to his game that gave a little more confidence (after the first).
Only other name not mentioned yet is Steve Mason... does he still have it in him to be an okay back-up that could carry more games off Smith than Rittich?