Player Discussion Smith or Rittich down the stretch?

[Flameshomer]

You're absolutely blind if you think that Smith and Rittich are on the same level.
The eye test very easily shows smith's 50-hole weakness and lack of side to side mobility. Also, 50/50 chance that when he leaves the net to play the puck he effs it up.

The stat that confirms the separation is the HDSV% of both goalies:
Rittich is at .852 (25 overall, approx 9th out of starters), same as Gibson, Saros, Rask, Raanta, Carter Hart, Corey Crawford (AKA the good starters)
Smith is at .812 (57 overall, around 40th out of the "starters") along with such luminaries as Malcolm Subban, Cam Talbot, and Martin Jones.

When a skater actually has a chance to score, you definitely want Rittich to be in net rather than Smith.

Incidentally, Stolarz does pretty well here and I also still regret giving up on Brossoit. Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

 

[Rubi]

I'm quite happy with the way Smith has been playing recently. I don't think either of the two goals that he let in were his fault.
I certainly have become a lot more comfortable with him in net these days.

As for BSD... I'm quite happy with his play also.
Rittich, on the most part has played pretty good in the last 2 months. His last game played was Mar 19. He's played 14 games from Jan 19 to Mar 19. See below for his record in those games. Because of 3 exceptionally bad games (Feb 7, Feb 12, Mar 4) his Sv% and GAA record has been skewed. In those 3 games he let in 14 goals on 65 shots (4.167 GAA & .785 Sv%). Without those 3 games he would have a .924 Sv% and a 2.18 GAA and a win/loss record of 9-1-1.

	David Rittich Stats
Games Played	Date	Opp	DEC	GA	SA	SV	SV%	SO	PIM	TOI
1	2019-01-19	EDM	W	2	24	22	0.917	0	0	59:21:00
2	2019-01-22	CAR	W	2	35	33	0.943	0	0	60:15:00
3	2019-02-03	CAR	W	3	37	34	0.919	0	0	60:00:00
4	2019-02-07	SJS		2	6	4	0.667	0	0	13:42
5	2019-02-09	VAN	O	3	25	22	0.880	0	0	64:28:00
6	2019-02-12	TBL	L	6	27	21	0.778	0	0	60:00:00
7	2019-02-24	OTT	W	1	23	22	0.957	0	0	60:00:00
8	2019-02-27	NJD	W	1	20	19	0.950	0	0	59:46:00
9	2019-03-04	TOR	L	6	32	26	0.813	0	0	60:00:00
10	2019-03-06	VEG	L	2	38	36	0.947	0	0	57:26:00
11	2019-03-10	VEG	W	3	28	25	0.893	0	0	60:00:00
12	2019-03-12	NJD	W	4	26	22	0.846	0	0	59:55:00
13	2019-03-15	NYR	W	1	25	24	0.960	0	0	60:00:00
14	2019-03-19	CBJ	W	2	33	31	0.939	0	0	59:59:00
				38	379	341	0.900	Sv%
			GAA	2.714
RECORD: 9-3-1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

I think the Flames are looking pretty good, goalie wise, going into the playoffs.

 

[MaWa]

Hi guys,

there was a short comment today in one of articles in MF DNES (czech newspaper) that Rittich is not 100% healthy and will not come to 2019 iihf world championship. Is there any info about that injury ? Thanks.

 

[crackdown44]

Hi guys,

there was a short comment today in one of articles in MF DNES (czech newspaper) that Rittich is not 100% healthy and will not come to 2019 iihf world championship. Is there any info about that injury ? Thanks.

I was under the impression he was sick and that’s why Smith had more starts lately. Smith has been playing well enough that he will get game 1 in the playoffs I believe but I would not be surprised to see Rittich very fast if Smith plays bad

As for World Championships hopefully he will not be available because we will still be playing

 

[Khrox]

Hi guys,

there was a short comment today in one of articles in MF DNES (czech newspaper) that Rittich is not 100% healthy and will not come to 2019 iihf world championship. Is there any info about that injury ? Thanks.

Yeah, everything I heard is that he wasn't feeling well (a few members of our team had some pretty bad colds recently, including Mike Smith and Sean Monahan, so wouldn't be surprised if a couple of the other guys got sick as well, but just maybe didn't get hit as badly).

 

[MaWa]

As for World Championships hopefully he will not be available because we will still be playing

Well I hope for that too. But the comment in newspapers was just about injury. And I cant see why being sick now means he cant play in iihf month and half later (if his NHL season will be over). So I was thinking there is something more serious...

 

[crackdown44]

Well I hope for that too. But the comment in newspapers was just about injury. And I cant see why being sick now means he cant play in iihf month and half later (if his NHL season will be over). So I was thinking there is something more serious...

I think this must be speculation. There was never talk of an injury and he was always on the bench as backup even when he wasn’t playing

 

[Ace Rimmer]

Well I hope for that too. But the comment in newspapers was just about injury. And I cant see why being sick now means he cant play in iihf month and half later (if his NHL season will be over). So I was thinking there is something more serious...

Well he did play yesterday so I think the injury "rumour" could be put to rest. There's no way they would risk further injury at this time of the season.

 

[CamPopplestone]

I'm leaning Smith, and the moment he has a bad game, switch to Rittich. It's easier to change that way. Smith is the vet, if he blows it, it's on him. But if we play Rittich game one, then have to switch to Smith, that would probably not be good for Dave mentally. Both have been pretty good down the final stretch, so it isn't out there that the veteran starts.

 

[Wish You Were Here]

I'm not overly worried about starting Smith in Game 1 of the play-offs because I'm confident that Rittich can take over if necessary.

 

[OvermanKingGainer]

So with the season complete, Calgary finishes about middle of the playoff pack for goals against

Playoff Team	Shots Against	SV%	Goals Against
NYI	13th	1st	1st
DAL	18th	2nd	2nd
BOS	8th	4th	3rd
NSH	9th	5th	4th
STL	4th	14th	6th
CAR	3rd	13th	7th
TBL	21st	3rd	8th
CGY	1st	19th	9th
VGK	5th	15th	10th
CBJ	7th	16th	11th
PIT	25th	7th	14th
COL	20th	12th	15th
WPG	26th	8th	16th
TOR	23rd	9th	17th
WAS	16th	17th	18th
SJS	2nd	31st	21st

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

although we've certainly been better since Oct 26th (1st/16th/4th)

Given the stark gap between shots and saves, I was curious how that stacks up to past Stanley Cup Winners

Season	Cup Champ	Shots Against	SV%	Goals Against
1995	NJD	5th	11th	5th
1996	COL	9th	13th	9th
1997	DET	1st	5th	2nd
1998	DET	7th	11th	7th
1999	DAL	3rd	5th	1st
2000	NJD	4th	13th	7th
2001	COL	4th	10th	3rd
2002	DET	13th	5th	4th
2003	NJD	1st	6th	1st
2004	It Was In	5th	7th	3rd
2004	TBL	4th	14th	10th
2006	CAR	19th	15th	19th
2007	ANA	5th	6th	7th
2008	DET	1st	13th	1st
2009	PIT	18th	14th	17th
2010	CHI	1st	23rd	5th
2011	BOS	29th	1st	2nd
2012	LA	5th	3rd	2nd
2013	CHI	4th	2nd	1st
2014	LA	2nd	2nd	1st
2015	CHI	22nd	2nd	2nd
2016	PIT	15th	3rd	6th
2017	PIT	27th	10th	17th
2018	WAS	14th	16th	16th

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

While I'm not pretending to have done anything resembling a real statistical analysis, it does seem like outside of a 6 year stretch from 2011 to 2016, SV% is all over the place. Outside of a 4 year stretch from 2015 to 2018, shots against is consistently pretty damn high. And regardless of whether shots or SV% are the driving force, goals against is pretty consistently important.

So overall - yes our goaltending should ideally be a bit better, but the same could be said about a team like Tampa's shot suppression

 

[MaWa]

Well he did play yesterday so I think the injury "rumour" could be put to rest. There's no way they would risk further injury at this time of the season.

So, this "injury rumour" was real after all. It was confirmed by Rittich in czech newspapers today. It happened on 31st December vs San Jose - some knee problem. He played with it until the end of the season and because of that he could not go to worlds.

 

[Anglesmith]

So, this "injury rumour" was real after all. It was confirmed by Rittich in czech newspapers today. It happened on 31st December vs San Jose - some knee problem. He played with it until the end of the season and because of that he could not go to worlds.

We actually found this out just after being eliminated.