Sam Bennett tonight will tie Micheal Ferland in Games played as a Flame with 250 games putting them both at 78th all time. Making Micheal Ferland 79th all time.
How fitting,
__________________
"May those who accept their fate find happiness. May those who defy it find glory."
The goaltending situation is intriguing. Rittich has shown well coming in periodically as a backup but when he's played successive games his play has dropped off. Will he take advantage of this opportunity to run with a starting or co-starting role or will history repeat? If Rittich shows he's ready to play more games how will Smith accept a lesser role? He's a competitor and pretty vocal. Will he treat this as a demotion and pout or will he be a good team player and support Rittich?
The Following User Says Thank You to Erick Estrada For This Useful Post:
We need to be careful of their speed. They are a very fast team. If Brodie falls over or drops his stick or we allow to many odd man rushes we could dig ourselves a hole. I hope the defence brought their legs.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to Psytic For This Useful Post:
It's not unlike the situation in Calgary for years - a complete rebuild wasn't tolerated.
It only wasn't tolerated amongst the Flames owners. Fans were clamouring for them to rebuild years before they actually did. Montreal can handle it just fine, and they'll come out the better for it. Toronto finally did the right thing too and its working out fine for them.
Hockey fans aren't the short sighted idiots owners think sometimes.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Table 5 For This Useful Post:
We need to be careful of their speed. They are a very fast team. If Brodie falls over or drops his stick or we allow to many odd man rushes we could dig ourselves a hole. I hope the defence brought their legs.
Brodie falls in every ...period
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to simonarea For This Useful Post:
I don't think Montreal is that bad: Domi, drouin, Gallagher, Kotkaniemi, tatar, Byron. It's not terrible. The first line looks quite weak, but the next 9 looks above average to me. I especially like their third line. Their 2nd line with drouin-domi also looks decent. And the fourth line looks decent too.
On the back end, price is amazing. Weber and petry is an above average first pairing. And their third pairing looks decent. It's their 3-4 I'd be concerned about.
So they lack top end talent on the front, but have depth. And at the back they have top tier talent (top 2 + goalie), but lack depth.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts
The fact Gullfoss is not banned for life on here is such an embarrassment. Just a joke.
I don't think Montreal is that bad: Domi, drouin, Gallagher, Kotkaniemi, tatar, Byron. It's not terrible. The first line looks quite weak, but the next 9 looks above average to me. I especially like their third line. Their 2nd line with drouin-domi also looks decent. And the fourth line looks decent too.
On the back end, price is amazing. Weber and petry is an above average first pairing. And their third pairing looks decent. It's their 3-4 I'd be concerned about.
So they lack top end talent on the front, but have depth. And at the back they have top tier talent (top 2 + goalie), but lack depth.
The thing they are doing well is playing cohesively as a team, which when coupled with available speed, makes them arguably better than the sum of the parts.
I think that they may be a team who looks at how Vegas was successful and believes they could do likewise. (Not necessarily get to the final, but play above expectations that external folks have)
Really impressed with Bill for starting Rittich again. He could look like a genius or it could blow up in his face but regardless of the outcome tonight this was the right call.
P.S. I think Rittich will look sharp again.
The Following User Says Thank You to Samonadreau For This Useful Post:
I like seeing Riddich in net tonight for the same reasons as posted.
Not sure if this was posted here, but I also really liked the take on Mike Smith from u/jessemadnote on Reddit. I'm excited to see Riddich light it up and become a true 1b, but this post is a solid take on Mike Smith and an interesting discussion point.
Quote:
u/jessemadnote
I’ve heard a couple people bemoaning the Mike Smith performances of late and I’d like to touch on why they are not as bad as they seem, and why our team’s defensive execution is much worse than it appears. People have stated that maybe Rittich deserves a chance to carry the mail for a bit after his otherworldly performance in New York and I agree, he at least deserves another shot in the next 2-3 games, but his performance has nothing to do with Smith. We can’t say one goalie is poor because another goalie is performing amazingly. I’m here to argue that outside of the first two games of the season, Mike Smith has not been poor.
(All stats are 5v5 and have been taken from natural stat trick.)
Mike Smith has allowed 13 goals, but 11 of those have been high danger goals. That means that Mike Smith has allowed 2 goals that weren't high danger chances in 6 games. Despite facing the 12th most shots so far with 129, Mike Smith has faced the 3rd most high danger shots against in the league with 51. That means 40% of the shots Mike Smith has faced have been high danger variety. Compare that to Henrik Lundqvist who has dealt with 25% high danger shots you start to see why his save percentage is in the ####ter.
Mike smith has also had the most rush attempt against and the third lowest average goal distance, this all comes from the fact that despite the Flames not being terrible with shots against they absolutely bleed scoring chances. As a former goalie I know if you face 8 shots in a period and 3 of them are grade A chances it’s a recipe for disaster.
All this made me curious about the implication that Peters system is the issue so I went and dug in to the stats. During Peter’s tenure, Carolina faced 6813 shots at 5v5, 1820 of those were the high danger variety. That means 27% of the shots against were high danger which is much more manageable than 40%. I believe the reason for this poor defensive play is the team adjusting to a new system and 3 new defenseman (all under 22 btw) in the lineup. Some may point to TJ Brodie but he’s actually leading the team with Gio in Scoring Chances Against per 60. Not to say he’s playing well, but overall he’s not bleeding chances like Hanifin and Andersson.
So overall, I’m here with a hot take, Mike Smith is not ####. Yes he got lit up for 5 goals in two periods in St Louis, but the game before he had a 43 save shutout against the league's number 1 team. He's been stable. Us ####ting on him for being stable but not a saviour is not healthy as a fan base. We are at a point where 4 goalies sit above the NHL all time save percentage record and amazing starters like Holtby, Bobrovsky, and Quick are below .880. As time passes the goalies on heaters will cool down and the ones adjusting to the new season will stabilize. Mike Smith will stabilize, our defence will stabilize and hopefully Rittich can keep up the Salt Bae domination.
The Following 19 Users Say Thank You to GeoRock For This Useful Post:
Really impressed with Bill for starting Rittich again. He could look like a genius or it could blow up in his face but regardless of the outcome tonight this was the right call.
P.S. I think Rittich will look sharp again.
Agreed. Ride the hot hand.
This season really should be a 1A/1B scenario, whoever is rolling gets the start, Rittich played well so keep playing him.
__________________ The Beatings Shall Continue Until Morale Improves!
This Post Has Been Distilled for the Eradication of Seemingly Incurable Sadness.
The World Ends when you're dead. Until then, you've got more punishment in store. - Flames Fans
If you thought this season would have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.
