It has been brought to my attention that the Mike Smith experiment might be coming to an end in Edmonton. A source informed me that multiple people in the Oilers organization are unhappy with Smith’s performances of recent. In addition to that, the fact that Smith chose to blame the team as a whole instead of taking some personal accountability for his .769 SV% game against the Wild.
BLH’s Thoughts
When I listen to that interview, I see a proud guy who’s been stung. He does take a bit of accountability at the beginning but probably not the kind that some of the fans of the Oilers would like. I think they want to see him say that the loss is on him and he’s got to be much better bla bla bla.
He’s not playing well at all, no argument there but his team around him HAS to be better too. If your goalie is the last line of defense, that means the rest of the skaters on the ice have jobs to do as well before he’s required to do his. So, when Smith refers to the team as a whole, that’s what he’s talking about. He’s holding his teammates accountable and from all reports, this is the kind of guy he is. On the other hand, if nobody is doing their jobs, success at this level is near to impossible.
You could probably hear a pin drop on the Oilers flight home eh?
I’m no goalie expert but these are my observations regarding Smith:
- He’s having trouble with shots on the glove hand. Minnesota buried quite a few there last night.
- His reaction time is poor. Remember that game against San Jose where the Sharks were scoring tipped shots left and right? It felt like every shot from the point that was touched found its way behind Smith.
- Going post-to-post isn’t easy for any goalie but most can do it pretty well at this level. Smith got dinged up a few games ago and I feel like he’s struggled even more pushing off since that happened.
- Smith used to come out and play the puck A LOT at the beginning of the year, but that’s slowed down.
I’ll say this though, consistency has never been a friend to Mike Smith. He’s always been up and down and if this is new to you, well there’s only one person to blame at that point. Head over to his Hockey-Reference page and take a look at his game logs over the years. Things will start to make a little bit of sense then.
What doesn’t make sense is Tippett’s insistence on soldiering on with him. He’s a “battler”, I get it, but that’s going to wear off real fast. Just ask Milan Lucic. The vets get the benefit of the doubt more often than not but the players know who can play and who cannot and if you cannot, you’ll lose that in-house support.
What I think we’re looking at is another Jason Garrison situation. If you remember, the Oilers signed the veteran defender last year after he came to camp on a PTO only to find out he didn’t have what it took to compete at the NHL level anymore. Eventually, he was shipped to Chicago along with Drake Caggiula for Brandon Manning and a random prospect.
I don’t think that the Oilers will have any luck trading Mike Smith. Either they stand by him (the most likely option) or they send him to the AHL (WAIVERS!!!) and call up Starrett when he’s healthy. Another option would be to release him and trade for a more capable backup keeper (not necessarily in that order).
The Options
- MTL has Keith Kincaid and Charlie Lindgren playing in the AHL right now. I mean if the Oilers are looking to bring in Taylor Hall, they should consider Kincaid too since he had a large hand in Hall winning the MVP a couple of seasons ago.
- Speaking of NJ, would you try to bring in Cory Schneider? Maybe along with Hall to bring Hall’s price down?
- Eric Comrie in DET? They’ve got Jimmy Howard and Jonathan Bernier too.
- WAS has a good tender playing in the AHL named Pheonix Copley. He was supposed to back up Holtby but Ilya Samsonov took that job.
- PIT’s Casey DeSmith is another option. He was the Pens backup before they ran into some roster issues and were “forced” to swap him and Tristan Jarry.
- Alexander Georgiev is being touted as a starting netminder who just needs an opportunity. Something he’s probably not going to get in NY with Igor Shesterkin completely dominating the AHL and looking like the de-facto successor to Henrik Lundqvist.
I just hope he’s not playing with a blown-up knee or a shredded hip or something because I like the guy and I’m disappointed his game is where it is at the moment. That said, the one thing that could derail Edmonton’s year is poor netminding.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!
