[News] Flames recall Gillies. Rittich day to day with lower body injury.

[Toonage]

I'm irrationally angry at Hrudey right now. He's always looking for some sort of injury in our goalies and usually wrong. But he got one right.

[sureLoss]

per Gilbertson, Rittich is still with the team on the road trip which hints that the injury is not serious

[BurningSteel]

meh.....just need to pot 7 or 8 again.

[ForeverFlameFan]

Good. Better to play a Rittich at 100%.

Don’t think a couple of the goals would’ve gone in against the Sharks, I don’t think he was himself.

[Split98]

Originally Posted by Otto29

So many haters here. Every season someone picks the player to be whipping boy and everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

Personally i like Smith. I think he is a good goaltender. I think he will get back to form and i understand he is an important part of the dressing room as well.

There does always need to be a whipping boy, and I agree that it's unfair a lot of the time... but Smith has earned every iota of pessimism that comes his way.

Personally, I gave him back a lot of rope after those 6 good games. I thought he still looked slow, played most of the game on his face and didn't have the big save we'd need at certain points in the game we'd want from our #1... but his pushback after so much wasn't going his way was impressive.

Then he took a dump all over our season again and that rope wound back quickly.

If you have more optimism than most, that's great. But he's one of the worst goalies in the entire league by almost every metric and eye-test you look at. Literally any goalie that can play in the NHL has a decent shot at being an upgrade. As the opening night #1, I don't think you could ask for a more deserving whipping-boy.

He's damn lucky Big Save Dave showed up in 2018, as I can't imagine the mental state him and the fans would be in right now if he was getting the tough starts still. We most definitely wouldn't be where we are today, and that would solely rest on his performance.

[bubbsy]

Argh.

Hopefully smith finds his groove given the time off he's had. I suppose the fact that this happens as they kick off a road trip could be a good thing

[edn88]

Clearly Smith has struggled this year. Past results would suggest that he is not going to be better, but this is his opportunity to help the team and show that he is worthy of being the 1B option for this team. For the Flames sake, and for his sake, I am cheering for him to grab the reins and make it hard (for good reasons) to say who the top goalie is on this team.

[Enoch Root]

Big opportunity for Smith to make a contribution and give himself something positive to build off of.

Also, I looked at this back-to-back as a likely split from the get go. I also expected it to be Smith's start. If we can get the win today, then tomorrow's game is gravy. Let Rittich have the two games off, and regroup in Philly on Saturday.

Wouldn't it be great if this roadtrip turns out to be where Smith and Neal step up bigtime.

[kukkudo]

Originally Posted by Otto29

So many haters here. Every season someone picks the player to be whipping boy and everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

Personally i like Smith. I think he is a good goaltender. I think he will get back to form and i understand he is an important part of the dressing room as well.

Not even close. But I do hope he can hold the fort down while BSD is gone.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Otto29

So many haters here. Every season someone picks the player to be whipping boy and everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

Personally i like Smith. I think he is a good goaltender. I think he will get back to form and i understand he is an important part of the dressing room as well.

Have you seen him play this year? It's not like we haven't given him a chance and he has cost us points for sure in the standings.
He is not the same guy since the groin injury.

[dammage79]

Road game. Smiths 1st start in a while. It'll be an adventure but I think the Flames can outscore the opposition.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

I expected Smith to start tonight regardless. Not a serious injury to Rittich, no need to panic, carry on. I hope Smith has a great game.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by Otto29

So many haters here. Every season someone picks the player to be whipping boy and everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

Personally i like Smith. I think he is a good goaltender. I think he will get back to form and i understand he is an important part of the dressing room as well.

I actually think it's the opposite TBH, where there are people irrationally defending him despite his play. How can anyone objectively have watched Smith this season and thought he's been any good? His demeanor in the net has been terrible, his puck tracking has been awful, and his timing of bad goals pretty much spot on. Other than his puck handling, what has been good about his game this year?

[Cleveland Steam Whistle]

I'm feeling weirdly optimistic that Smith with play better over the next stretch and this will be the catalyst to us having both him and Rittich as legit options!!!

[TheIronMaiden]

As always an injury to one player spells opportunity for another. I am glad that Gillies gets another quick look. I am still hopeful that he will be an impact player for this team down the road.

[oldschoolcalgary]

i expected smith to start versus detriot anyways, because of the back to back with boston...I think Smith needs to play more games on the road than at home - he definitely seems more comfortable on the road iirc

we'll see how he does before speculating on who starts in boston...

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by Otto29

So many haters here. Every season someone picks the player to be whipping boy and everyone jumps on the bandwagon.

Personally i like Smith. I think he is a good goaltender. I think he will get back to form and i understand he is an important part of the dressing room as well.

I like the refreshing attitude, but Smith has been objectively poor this year. Optically and statistically.

The vitriol is always ridiculous and over the top, but at least the target is correct.

[Robbob]

Smith is going to be good today, I can feel it.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1080507851750035457

[sureLoss]

News Update

Pat Steinberg @Fan960Steinberg
now
In Detroit, coach Peters says “there’s a chance” Rittich could play tomorrow in Boston. He’ll miss tonight with a lower body injury.

“We’ll see how he responds to treatment here. If everything goes well, then he’s an option for tomorrow.” #Flames