The Great Flames Goalie Debate Thread

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Bonded

We need the goalie voodoo to strike one of our prospects. Gillies, Parsons, or Schneider.



Based on the AHL you almost call up Schneider at this point. I do not watch the Heat but Gilles stats don't look all that promising.

I think that in the long run Gillies has been better. I'm not going to be making excuses for the guy but the AHL defence core is god awful this year. Gillies should get the call up. He has actual NHL experience, and he is still being groomed to be the next in line to make the team.

Full time AHL duty will do Schneider well. Outside of this year his numbers have been poor. He will need a better body of work before its his chance.

[t0rrent98]

With the change in smaller equipment for the goaltenders, do you think it has affected their style of play? This coming from Price, and a few other goalies along with Smith saying they are getting more bruised up in places they don't normally get because of less padding.

[Zoller]

Was that the worst goal against of Smith's career last night against Philly?

Sure looked like it

[Bingo]

Smith has struggled.

He's had some good games of late, but lets face it you just never feel that safe when he's in net. I'm guessing that won't change.

The day in and day out questioning of Peters over starts and pulls though is so silly to me. The Flames most logical road to success this season is rehabilitate Smith (mentally I guess), and if they fail then rely on Rittich the rest of the way.

If they just go Rittich now and he falters you have nothing. A failed backup, and a starter that had zero confidence that got mothballed and would have even less.

It's logic gang. Until they finally say that's that, it's the most prudent course to success this year.

You don't have to love that, but questioning it like you know better comes across as silly and/or naive.

[t0rrent98]

Smith hasn't been the same since his injury last season.

[TheIronMaiden]

Smith has been showing improvement, His play is not a revelation, but it is at least moving up to average, which might be just good enough for the role he is going to be playing.

OCT 4-4-1 3.55 .878
NOV 3-3-0 2.55 .895
DEC 4-0-0 2.54 .902

Another interesting thing is that Smith plays better on Sundays,Mondays and Tuesdays. On those days he is above .930 Sv%. That said on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturdays he is below .900.

[GreenLantern2814]

Smith is 36 and not the answer. He will not be back next year. Until then, he's still the 2nd best goalie in the system. I actually thought they were on the right track with him a few weeks ago - start him against bottom feeders and in the weaker of back to backs.

There's merit to making Rittich take the job while putting a sword through the incumbent's heart. It's still a long season, and it was important to remind Smith that he can still do alright when the deck is in his favor.

Rittich has also entered into that Grubauer/Jones/Korpisalo territory, where if he wasn't on our roster, he would be one of the players we debate acquiring in the summer.

They need to know if Rittich can do this. Because if he can't, they need all available assets to be in play to finally address this position. They need the cap space, and they need the 1st round pick. There is no addition this team can make at forward or defense that will offset problem goaltending.

All aboard the Big Save Dave Express.

[redpaint]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Smith has played very well prior to the bad goal in the second period last night. I still think he sustained an injury early in the game and tried to play through it. He had to make a couple big saves in the first minute of the game, and was very slow to get up. I think he tweaked something.

I think the injury was his ego. 6 decent games + occasional soft goals = mock cheers. This bugs me to no end. we have stated this numerous times on the board that smith gets rattled at home when this happens.

WHY! when has mock cheering ever improved the play of a player? let alone a goalie with shaky confidence? lets try to actually support this team not make things worse for him.

[SuperMatt18]

The biggest problem with goalies is that are goalies are weird and hard to predict season to season.

If you look at goalies that started at least 120 games between 2011-12 to 2017-2018 seasons the difference between the top 30 goalies actually isn't that huge.

Top 5:

1) Gibson - .923
2) Raanta - .922
T3) Rask, Bobrovski - .921
T5) Schneider, Lundqvist, Luongo, Price - .920

Then you look at the bottom end of the top 30.

30) Howard - .914
T27) Bernier, Hutton, Anderson - .915
T21) Lehner, Jones, Smith, Halak, Miller, Varlamov, .916

So between first and the 30th best goalie it's a .009 save percentage difference. Less than 1%. Pretty much the equivalent of 1 Goal every 3.25 games or 25 goals for the season. So while it's not a minor impact, I would also say it's not the end all be all.

Then the real issue is even if you went out last offseason and got one of the 8 guys that are tied for the top 5 in save percentage over the last 7 seasons, that wouldn't have guaranteed you good goaltending this year anyways.

Gibson: 27 GP, .925
Raanta: 12 GP, .906
Rask: 16 GP, .916
Bobrovsky: 21 GP, .898
Schneider: 8 GP, .862
Luongo:13 GP, .903
Lundqvist: 23 GP, .916
Price: 24 GP, .904

Pretty mixed bag. Same thing with the bottom end. Some guys like Smith, Jones, and Anderson having terrible years, other guys like Lehner, Howard, Halak having great years.

Honestly the only sure thing goalies in the league right now that have been consistent year to year the last 3 seasons feel like Gibson, Rinne, and Freddy Anderson. Smith has been horrible but I'm not sure there is a truly available external solution that would really be any more reliable than Rittich has been to start this season.

IMO they should just stick with the win and you're in coaching plan. And more focus on limiting defensive breakdowns like they did in that stretch after the Pens game. Giving up 13 HD chances a game like they did against Philly is not a recipe for success for any team, and they need to get that back down to the 6-8 they were managing for a while there.

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by stone hands

Smiths been scary bad for a long time, 6 win streak be damned. Results based thinking to rationalize continual usage of this guy is dangerous when you have a guy who has not only looked way better on the eye test, but has much better stats to boot. I frankly do not care that he's lost his last 2 starts nearly as much as some other posters

Rittich has also had his up and downs. Kind of funny that their stat lines are pretty similar when you look back over the last 20 games.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by redpaint

I think the injury was his ego...

Well, no. Wills reported this morning that Smith was injured, but the coaches do not believe it is serious.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by iloveicedhockey

Thanks for setting this up. The PGT was not as fun as it should've been after last night's result.

The natural reaction after a huge comeback win that puts us in 1st place in our conference in mid-December is to... complain about how the team isn’t perfect, obviously.

[Mattman]

Originally Posted by chummer

Poor Smitty can't win.

Let's in a bad goal and he's a quitter.

Tries to battle through an injury and he's selfish.

This place is unbelievable.

I don't recall people calling Monahan selfish for playing through injuries at the end of last year.

For the simple reason Monahan is good enough of a player to make that decision. To me that's a leader and warrior, because he still out up decent numbers while injured.

On the otherhand goaltending is IMO the single most important position in hockey.

The point I'm making and the difference between Sean Monahan and Mike Smith battling through an injury to keep playing is this: The team relies on their goaltender stopping pucks more than they rely on 1/12 forwards to score points.

And in my honest opinion, if what has been reported is true, that Mike Smith knew he tweaked something and thought he could play through it and let in multiple goals, that is selfish.

Edit: I do not know enough about Smith's injury to speculate. Just using the context of the posters who said Smith was injured early in the game after he let in the goals.

[Matata]

As great as things are now, this whole season is going to ring hollow if it ends with Smith or Rittich sewering the team in playoffs.

This teams only hope for a playoff run is that Rittich gets hot at the right time and can handle all that pressue. That's a lot to hope for right now.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Matata

As great as things are now, this whole season is going to ring hollow if it ends with Smith or Rittich sewering the team in playoffs.

This teams only hope for a playoff run is that Rittich gets hot at the right time and can handle all that pressue. That's a lot to hope for right now.

Either goalie could get hot at the right time and go on a long playoff run.

[Duffalufagus]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

If you can win the cup with Niemi and Huet, you can win the cup with Smith and Rittich.

It depends on the rest of the roster, but it can be done.

This flames team seems to score at will like that hawks team did. Need to find more second line scoring punch and the goalies won't matter so much.

Exception, not the rule.

This team is a SC contender from the blueline out. But Smith isn’t winning three playoff rounds. Our chances this year are tied to Rittich’s development.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

Smith has been showing improvement, His play is not a revelation, but it is at least moving up to average, which might be just good enough for the role he is going to be playing.

OCT 4-4-1 3.55 .878
NOV 3-3-0 2.55 .895
DEC 4-0-0 2.54 .902

Another interesting thing is that Smith plays better on Sundays,Mondays and Tuesdays. On those days he is above .930 Sv%. That said on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturdays he is below .900.

So we only have to wait until February to maybe see Smith post an entire month of +.910 hockey?

[Duffalufagus]

Originally Posted by stone hands

Smiths been scary bad for a long time, 6 win streak be damned. Results based thinking to rationalize continual usage of this guy is dangerous when you have a guy who has not only looked way better on the eye test, but has much better stats to boot. I frankly do not care that he's lost his last 2 starts nearly as much as some other posters

Agreed. Tough to win when your team doesn’t score any goals. He was amazing in that Oil game. We should have lost by 4 at least.

[The Boy Wonder]

Originally Posted by Duffalufagus

Exception, not the rule.

This team is a SC contender from the blueline out. But Smith isn’t winning three playoff rounds. Our chances this year are tied to Rittich’s development.

Agreed. Need to let him develop, and that means going through everything that a starter would.

He actually has a team in front of him this year while smith appears to have fallen off a cliff

Rittich last season was still miles better than smith this season.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by t0rrent98

Smith hasn't been the same since his injury last season.

Yes he has. He's the same, inconsistent, ho-hum starter he's always been. There's a reason he's only had one season in his career as a starter with a Sv% over .916 (which is right around league average most years).