Todd Cordell: Wild 4, Flames 2: Poor showing from Smith proves costly

Do you hate Iggy or what?
Told you guys Czar is a good pickup.

Hockey people have heen saying defence and goaltending will hold the flames back. Prob should have addressed that at the deadline. Maybe they tried.

Hockey people have heen saying defence and goaltending will hold the flames back. Prob should have addressed that at the deadline. Maybe they tried.
- oil90

Defense? Not an issue at all.

Do you hate Iggy or what?
Told you guys Czar is a good pickup.
- shoreorrpark

Smith's the one who ruined his night

Totally agree with you todd ! Their is absolutely no reason why smith stayed behind the net as long as he did that is 100% inexcusable. Let your Defence play defence you play goal. Don’t get me wrong he does help his D from getting hit more and his outlet passes are prob best in the league among goalies. But he pushes the envelope to much hangs onto the puck to long especially when the D is in good position to either receive a pass or simply get the puck themselve. Brian Burke can blow smiths horn all he wants, and say that he Is more then an assets then a hindrance when he comes out of the net. BUt players and coaches are not stupid they want smith to play the puck. bide their time until he makes a mistake. And he’s makes a mistake every game! It doesn’t always turn into a goal, but their is always a scary moment. And I will tell you that doesn’t get unnoticed buy the rest of the team!! especially in a game that you prob should have won.

Last night on HNIC Brian Burke said Smith is the best puck handling goalie in the NHL - no one else is even close. He said that the D-men love it because it saves wear and tear retrieving the puck. He also said it works "90% of the time" which really surprised me because 10% error rate means giving up a goal probably at least half that or 5% of the time he does it.
Smith has done this for years and his puck handling potential is undeniably very good. The problem obviously is that the increased speed of the game means he has to be faster than ever at getting rid of the puck which means the D have to position themselves as fast as possible to make it work.
It's a great advantage if the entire team works to make it so.
But if other teams purposely tempt him to play the puck (which is what I think is happening lately) then the Flames have 2 choices; either help him out by better anticipation and getting into position as quickly as possible to receive the puck - or stop doing it altogether.

On another note todd you completely dropped the ball yesterday. You couldn’t say one dam thing about the greatest flame of all time! Didn’t think you were a flame s fan.

On another note todd you completely dropped the ball yesterday. You couldn’t say one dam thing about the greatest flame of all time! Didn’t think you were a flame s fan.
- pzoxic

Perhaps this helps explain things. (At least no one can accuse him of being a homer.)


https://www.hockeybuzz.co...acific-Division/187/98111

Bill Peters ruined Rittich's confidence and ended his long run of good play by pulling him from a game, very early on, after one time going out (rightfully) to play the puck and (unfortunately) putting the clearing attempt into the middle/ Joe Thornton rather than up the boards.

Smith does that EVERY game (90% good plays, Burkie? Shake your head), and he stays in the game.

Unforgivable. Smith killed all the momentum, and then again after the late goal by the Flames.

Rittich and Gillies for the playoffs, and I don't care if it does cost them an early playoff exit. I've had enough of Smith's BS play.

I wasn't able to watch the game last night but when I saw the final score and saw Smith was in net. I automatically thought how many softies he let in.

I agree with Burke that Smith is the best puck handling goalie in the league. However, that doesn’t mean he’s the smartest at it. He has made so many mistakes this year handling the puck that it’s becoming painful to watch.

There is a time and a place for it and there’s a time to just fire it up the boards. He thinks he can stick handle behind the net with a huge goalie stick better than players can which is ridiculous.

It’s time to give Rittich the ball again as he’s the one who got us to where we are at in the standings. Rest him when you can for the playoffs but smith is just going to cause frustrations amongst the team.

As soon ass Smith saw Hanifin coming in he should have went back to the net. He did well to stop the puck and stop the Wild player but then he was just in Hanafins way. I hope someone ripped him afterwards. That was just brutal. Get out of your Defensemans way!

IMO this team needs to find its groove. Depth scoring helped us win the month of February, but things get serious in March.

Good to see Mony score but time for the first line to produce more. We will not go far without them.

Poor showing from Smith proves costly

That same quote was on the cover of the Tampa Bay Times sports section for almost every game Smith played for the Lightning.

Hiya fellows!

Not even a mention of the Garnet Hathaway incident todd ma boy?

Not even a mention of the Garnet Hathaway incident todd ma boy?

- DeflatedPucks

You're too late. We're done with that.



Sportsnet reports: "Flames’ Garnet Hathaway won’t have hearing for hit on Wild’s Luke Kunin"


https://www.sportsnet.ca/...ing-hit-wilds-luke-kunin/

Not even a mention of the Garnet Hathaway incident todd ma boy?

- DeflatedPucks

Not sure what to make of that play... looked like Hath tried to get out of the way, don't know that it was match penalty worthy, but also agree that it wasn't entirely clean...

Todd Cordell: Wild 4, Flames 2: Poor showing from Smith proves costly
- ToddCordellCGY

Flamin_Irishmin: Poor showing from Cordell proves costly.

5 keys to the blog:

1: There was no blog on game day. I don’t know what coach Eklund is thinking when he consistently allows one of his main bloggers to no show on game days. A job is a job, and a work day is a work day. To just show up on days you feel like it shows complete disrespect to the fan base. It’s completely classless.

2: No showing and skipping work on a Hockey Night in Canada day is inexcusable. Would an NFL blogger skip out on his teams Monday Night Football game?! I think not. And this is getting to be a habit. A bad habit. HNIC nights are when the family gathers around the TV to watch their favourite teams play showcased games with their favourite TV personalities, and use social media sites like Hockeybuzz to talk to far away fellow fans and friends about the game. Having to go back to the previous game days blog on big game night is so low class it’s not even funny.

3: If the biggest star in franchise history was having a huge ceremony to have his number retired in the rafters amongst all his friends and family, with 19,000 + fans all wearing the Iginla t-shirts left on all the seats, or their Iginla jerseys, you couldn’t think of a better time to write up a well written and thought out blog for the fan base, and for your career as a writer. And yet, what we got, was nothing.

4: Jarome Iginla isn’t just the best hockey player to ever play for the Calgary Flames, he is ingrained in the community. He is a friend, he is family, a hero to the many kids of all the charitable organizations he volunteered for. He was an inspiration to other ethnic cultures to get involved with hockey. To not even try to put out a blog on this most special of days is shameful.

5: The proof is in the pudding. If it wasn’t clear before, it is now. We are just some lowly form of revenue to Todd Cordell. Nothing more. Cookie cutter blogs, a heat map here, a retweet there, and that’s it. No thought or emotion involved. If it wasn’t for money, Todd couldn’t care less about the Calgary Flames, or their fan base.

Thanks for no showing on one of the biggest days in Calgary Flames franchise history Todd. How very classy of you.

Not sure what to make of that play... looked like Hath tried to get out of the way, don't know that it was match penalty worthy, but also agree that it wasn't entirely clean...
- rmull905

You took the words right out of my mouth.

Hockey people have heen saying defence and goaltending will hold the flames back. Prob should have addressed that at the deadline. Maybe they tried.
- oil90

We have on defence:

Giordano
Brodie
Hanifin
Hamonic
Andersson
Fatenburg
Stone
Kylington
Valimaki

How many NHL quality defenders do you think we need?! More than 9?!

Thanks for going above and beyond yesterday Todd.

Do you hate Iggy or what?
Told you guys Czar is a good pickup.
- shoreorrpark

Yeah, took him a while to get out of the coaches doghouse for whatever reasons, but he’s definitely in the good books now. It’s going to be either Hathaway or Mangiapane that come out of the lineup when Neal returns, not Czarnik.

Last night on HNIC Brian Burke said Smith is the best puck handling goalie in the NHL - no one else is even close. He said that the D-men love it because it saves wear and tear retrieving the puck. He also said it works "90% of the time" which really surprised me because 10% error rate means giving up a goal probably at least half that or 5% of the time he does it.
Smith has done this for years and his puck handling potential is undeniably very good. The problem obviously is that the increased speed of the game means he has to be faster than ever at getting rid of the puck which means the D have to position themselves as fast as possible to make it work.
It's a great advantage if the entire team works to make it so.
But if other teams purposely tempt him to play the puck (which is what I think is happening lately) then the Flames have 2 choices; either help him out by better anticipation and getting into position as quickly as possible to receive the puck - or stop doing it altogether.
- itwasin

Yeah I listened to Burkie’s talk on that as well. And for the most part, I agree.

But this is the second time in three games where he comes out of the net and stick battles the opposing defender against the boards with a goalie paddle. Now THAT’s just ridiculous. Even Kelly Hrudey was like wtf is Mike Smith doing?! Get back in your net where you belong and let’s the D handle the board battles. I would hope he feels more than a little silly after watching the replays of those gaffs. And hopefully something sinks in.