Is Rittich the real deal?

Satire

Registered User
Nov 20, 2016
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3,810
He has been looking great so far. It's too early to tell if this is the new norm for him or if he is just hot right now. In the games I have caught he has looked very good positionally and hadn't had any extraordinary puck luck. I suspect he's not as good as the numbers show, but hes still probably capable of becoming a true starter.
 

Analyst365

Registered User
Oct 24, 2011
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1,025
Victoria
He's starting to pretend he's Dryden half the time, and prancing about in some kind of euphoria the other half of the time. This has crash and burn written all over it.
 

Fig

Absolute Horse Shirt
Dec 15, 2014
12,977
8,454
The Real Deal is James Neal.

Rittich is Terrible, Terrible, Dave. Anything else would be Rittich-ulous.
 

johnnybbadd

Registered User
Mar 29, 2011
1,023
957
Too early to tell. He could be the next Kipper or Thomas or the next Reimer or Hammond.
 

blankall

Registered User
Jul 4, 2007
14,976
5,303
Rittich is a back-up. Everybody was going on about Grubauer all last season. Went into the play-offs as the starting goaltender and then came the resounding thud. Holtby came in and the Caps won the cup.

The Av's believed in all the hoopla and where is he now? 0.896 save percentage.

Rittich is a back-up on a good run. Completely wasted thread.
Really don't see why Rittich is relegated to being a backup. Will the work out? Who knows. But randomly declaring him a backup is weird
 

Blitzkrug

Registered User
Sep 17, 2013
25,785
7,634
Winnipeg
Who the hell knows. It's like when people though Michael Hutchinson was the answer after it was apparent Pavelec sucked. He was good for the first like, 20 or so games and then fell off immense to the point where he's not even NHL material anymore

We'll need a full season, if not more of work to figure him out
 

Bond

Registered User
May 10, 2012
3,915
2,803
I will tell you at the end of the season. His goal right now is basically don't be worse than Smith and that isn't exactly hard. We also thought we had Johnson's breakout season as well and then the wheels fell off the bus.
 

Prsut18

Registered User
Jul 30, 2018
467
587
CZ
yeah, too soon to tell.. but I wish him thge best... not enough good Czech goalies right now
 

WhiskeyYerTheDevils

yer leadin me astray
Sponsor
Apr 27, 2005
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He's not elite but he's very good. And I expect him to be very good moving forward, could definitely find his way into the top 10 goalie conversation before long.
 
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Deegee

Registered User
Oct 29, 2013
283
292
Edmonton, AB
The notes about last year is when he was called to be the started and failed it was because he was putting pressure on himself and preparing differently than he was when he was going in as a backup (and doing well at this).

For now the Flames have handed him the keys and he has done well. The goalie coach has said they have worked with Rittich to ensure he isn't preparing differently like he did last year and so far it's working out.

Yes, I am biased as a Flames fan, but I hope things work for him. There's nothing wrong with having more good goalies in the league.
 

tucker3434

HFBoards Sponsor
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Apr 7, 2007
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Atlanta, GA
Rittich is a back-up. Everybody was going on about Grubauer all last season. Went into the play-offs as the starting goaltender and then came the resounding thud. Holtby came in and the Caps won the cup.

The Av's believed in all the hoopla and where is he now? 0.896 save percentage.

Rittich is a back-up on a good run. Completely wasted thread.

We believed in the hoopla so much we gave up a whopping 2nd round pick and made him our backup.

Grubauer has played 7 games in Avs sweater. Declaring him bad after 7 is just as ridiculous as declaring Rittich elite after 11.
 
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PsYcNeT

The No-Fun Zone
Jan 24, 2007
1,145
335
While it's been noted his puck tracking and positional play are quite good, based on the last year or so I find the more games Rittich plays the more he tends to overcommit and fling himself aggressively into lanes.

That said, he seems like a passionate guy and is quite obviously a team favorite (seriously, watch his teammates after a win, they can't keep themselves off of him) so it might just be the high of riding the wave.
 

BillNy

Registered User
Jun 20, 2018
477
198
He's a goalie in an ultra small sample size, and because he's never played anywhere long enough to develop a good sample looking much at HockeyDB, cuz he's had big swings in small sample partial-seasons, so it's honestly hard to tell. Goalies are so weird. Once you know which aspects of the game make the difference, you only need stats cuz no matter what you think, you aren't watching enough of 31 teams to know a ton about all the players, and because you can't really just trust the fans of other teams on HF, cuz like half are gonna be insane or homers anyway. But for goalies, even watching regularly, it's so hard to judge. I'd look to see how much he feels like he's battling in the net. So much of goaltending happens before the shot is even taken, if he's constantly making heart attack-inducing saves, he's either Dominik Hasek or he's probably not very good.
 

SaintMorose

Registered User
Jul 21, 2009
3,937
526
He’s pretty calm in his net, he can stretch for a big save, but mostly he’s just been forcing shooters to make a play to beat him.
There’s nothing about his game that’s made me think he was going to shore up something and become elite but if this is who he really is (I wouldn’t trust a sample size enough to say until next season) he could find himself as a slightly above average starting nhl goalie.
 

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