The Athletic: Mike Smith could help the Flames in more ways than one

[GullFoss]

Great article by Eric Duha! Tidbits below...

Originally Posted by The Athletic

Stats don't tell the whole story
We did a lot of work on Smitty,” said Treliving, in a one-on-one interview. “In our data, there are certain things we studied...When you look at his stats, they don’t tell the whole picture of what he faced, really, in the last two years."

Reduced wear at tear on defensemen
"Mike Stone, when he came to us last year, the only goalie he’s ever played with was Mike Smith. Five or six games in, we went for a coffee and I asked him, ‘How are things going?’ And he said, ‘To be honest, I found myself caught off guard a bit because you’re used to going to the wall and Smitty gets it and fires it to you. Now, I’m getting hit more – and you forget, you have to go back for pucks more.'" - Brad Tre

“So if you think about Mark Giordano as he gets older. He plays a lot. But what if you take two or three hits per game away from him, that’s 160 fewer hits per season he has to take. That’s a lot of wear-and-tear that Smitty can prevent." - Brad Tre

Better 3-on-3 overtime

For his part, Giordano can see another benefit to having Smith on the ice – in how much more aggressive they can be playing three-on-three overtime.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

That is an interesting angle. Not having the Athletic myself, is the whole article based on Treliving quotes or do the writers do any actual analysis?

[djsFlames]

Flames might be even harder to beat in OT now.

[zukes]

Not sure about OT, not often you see anyone dump the puck in 3 on 3. I suppose you could throw a pass back to Smith and make a line change and he could make a good pass back.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by zukes

Not sure about OT, not often you see anyone dump the puck in 3 on 3. I suppose you could throw a pass back to Smith and make a line change and he could make a good pass back.

Pretty much what you just said. Could help the Flames keep possession which is what it's all about 3 on 3.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by zukes

Not sure about OT, not often you see anyone dump the puck in 3 on 3. I suppose you could throw a pass back to Smith and make a line change and he could make a good pass back.

Exactly. Every team should do this, but especially the Flames, given what Smith can do with the puck. There should be no instance where the puck leaves your stick in OT except to make a pass or shoot, and no instance where you're trying to force a pass or a shot because there's no good lane. If there's nothing available or you need a change, give it back to Smith and let him make things into a 4 on 3.

Warning, this is a Canucks highlight, but it's the easiest recent example of what should be done far, far more often.

Spoiler!

[red sky]

Going to have to take the good with the occasional bad when it comes to playing the puck.

[CaptainCrunch]

I think Smith makes a huge difference to how this team plays.

I mean frankly even if he brings league average goaltending every night and the Flames cut down on confidence killing bad goals allowed, that's a huge difference in how the team plays.

If he's still good with the puck it keeps other teams a lot more honest, and a bit more tentative on the forecheck.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by red sky

Going to have to take the good with the occasional bad when it comes to playing the puck.

Quick, we'd better come up with a way to prevent goalies making mistakes handling the puck! Trapezoid!!


I hated it then, and I hate it now. Encouraging goalies to play the puck will lead to more mistakes. The trapezoid had the opposite effect they thought it would, dumbass NHL. Thanks Obama.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by zukes

Not sure about OT, not often you see anyone dump the puck in 3 on 3. I suppose you could throw a pass back to Smith and make a line change and he could make a good pass back.

I'm actually really interested to see something like that.

I noticed last year that more teams in OT would pass it to the goalie and he'd receive the puck and just hold it, but most teams would never dare pass it to their goalie.

To be able to play the goalie as an additional player? That would be awesome.

[tvp2003]

Playing the puck back to the goalie is such an easy way to get an advantage in OT. The other team instinctively will send a guy in to pursue; all you need is someone to outlet the puck to (which is much easier with 3-3) and boom: you now have a 3 on 2 coming back. The only way to stop it is to literally force your lead forechecker to stop at the red line, or to shadow the player instead of the puck.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by tvp2003

Playing the puck back to the goalie is such an easy way to get an advantage in OT. The other team instinctively will send a guy in to pursue; all you need is someone to outlet the puck to (which is much easier with 3-3) and boom: you now have a 3 on 2 coming back. The only way to stop it is to literally force your lead forechecker to stop at the red line, or to shadow the player instead of the puck.

Right, in which case you're just tiring the defenders out while never giving up a scoring chance. But more often what will happen, I think, is that the other team will just go for a change, which obviously opens things up completely. That's what happened in the clip I posted above, resulting in an easy zone entry and a scoring chance that was way better than what was on offer before the goalie pass.

[Huntingwhale]

Originally Posted by red sky

Going to have to take the good with the occasional bad when it comes to playing the puck.

That's what I'm worried about. I'm probably less excited then everyone else to have a goalie who wants to play the puck. While it's nice we have a goalie who can pass the puck, I'm bracing myself for more giveaways than usual, including a couple game winners that are going to sting and might hurt us in the standings....

I just hope the good outweighs the bad. Calgary has one of the best puck moving D's in the league. I personally don't see a need to have the goalie play the puck every chance he gets. I'd rather have our D making outlet passes then having the goalie wandering out every dump in and trying to make passes. Pucks also do weird bounces of the stanchions as the goalie is leaving the net and next thing you know it's in the net and on the TSN goof of the night replay.

Then again, Smith is supposedly the 'best in the league' at playing the puck. So I supposed if we are going to have a goalie play the puck all the time, at least he's 'the best' at it.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

Then again, Smith is supposedly the 'best in the league' at playing the puck.

Bishop is.

[drewtastic]

<Insert obligatory "Plus He's Been Through A Couple Arena Deals" joke here>

[sempuki]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Quick, we'd better come up with a way to prevent goalies making mistakes handling the puck! Trapezoid!!


I hated it then, and I hate it now. Encouraging goalies to play the puck will lead to more mistakes. The trapezoid had the opposite effect they thought it would, dumbass NHL. Thanks Obama.

I still think they way they should have handled that was to bring back the two line pass for goalies.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by sempuki

I still think they way they should have handled that was to bring back the two line pass for goalies.

Why? A goalie should be able to handle the puck anywhere if he chooses. So silly of the NHL trying to stifle that.

[dustygoon]

Originally Posted by zukes

Not sure about OT, not often you see anyone dump the puck in 3 on 3. I suppose you could throw a pass back to Smith and make a line change and he could make a good pass back.

How many times do we play Dallas?

[Geeoff]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Quick, we'd better come up with a way to prevent goalies making mistakes handling the puck! Trapezoid!!


I hated it then, and I hate it now. Encouraging goalies to play the puck will lead to more mistakes. The trapezoid had the opposite effect they thought it would, dumbass NHL. Thanks Obama.

I think a lot of this was a parity thing. GMs didn't think it was fair that Martin Brodeur could kill their dump-ins while their goalie handled the puck like a grenade.

[saillias]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

That is an interesting angle. Not having the Athletic myself, is the whole article based on Treliving quotes or do the writers do any actual analysis?

Duha himself didn't use any analysis himself. The article is quotes, anecdotes, theory etc. There is mention from the Flames of the analysis they did (James Mirtle pls don't sue me):

Said Treliving(...) “Total chances against. High danger chances against. Odd man chances against. Special teams chances against. He faced the toughest competition in the NHL last year. When you look at his stats, they don’t tell the whole picture of what he faced, really, in the last two years."

“We had Jordan (Sigalet, the team’s goalie coach) go through and look at every touch Smitty had last year. He went through every clip.