Smith tries to light A fire under mates
Flames goalie thanks Glass for having his back against Lucic, but wonders why others didn’t help, writes Wes Gilbertson.
Spare-part forward Tanner Glass had just donated blood on behalf of the Calgary Flames.
Five minutes earlier, in a bit of a Battle of Alberta throwback, Edmonton Oilers brute Milan Lucic had slugged Flames netminder Mike Smith with three gloved lefts during a fracas in the crease.
Smith was certainly not an innocent bystander in this sequence, having delivered a whack to Lucic’s legs — a response to a Lucic chop on Calgary’s captain, Mark Giordano — and then a shove to his back. So what next?
When Lucic next stepped on the ice for his first shift after being released from the sin bin, Glass asked for a dance after a neutral-zone draw, a bout he had little chance of winning. Somebody had to try. Giving up two inches and nearly 25 pounds, the 34-yearold Glass was bloodied by a ferocious right but continued to swing away.
Smith, as it turns out, hadn’t delivered his last jab of the night, either.
After backstopping the homeside to a 3-2 slump-buster against the Oilers, Saturday’s first star seemed to call out Calgary’s other could-be candidates to stick up to one of the NHL’s toughest, heaviest hombres.
“It’s sad that a guy that’s been in the minors for most of the year and doesn’t play much has to go out there and answer the bell,” Smith said.
“Glass is that kind of teammate. He’s that kind of guy that will step up for anyone. We need more guys like that.”
Wait … Sad?
What exactly does that mean? “He’s been in and out of the lineup. He’s been dragged through the gutter and back,” Smith said of Glass, who’s logged 14 appearances for the Flames this winter while also spending three-plus months with the AHL’s Stockton Heat.
“And then in a meaningless game, he is a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve for our group. He’s such a great teammate. Obviously, that’s his role, but it’s unfortunate that he was the one who had to go out there and do that.
“That’s the position he’s in, and obviously anyone in this room I hope would go to bat for a guy like that, too,” said Smith.
The Flames were off Sunday, so there was no circling back to Smith’s locker to dig for additional details on exactly what he was alleging, or who he was hoping would catch wind of his remarks.
Glass, an experienced middleweight with 75 career tussles on his NHL resume, won’t be back at the Saddledome next season. After Saturday’s emotional affair, it sure seemed like Smith was hinting that one of the likely returnees should have been standing toe-to-toe with Lucic.
Maybe a guy like Garnet Hathaway, who snapped out of a 41-game goalless drought with a short-handed strike but wasn’t credited with a single hit in the latest instalment of the Battle of Alberta and was also on the ice when Glass scrapped with Lucic.
Maybe a guy like Micheal Ferland, an early-season scoring machine who has now managed just two tallies in his past 32 con- tests and played a team-low 7:56 against the Oilers.
Travis Hamonic has been the Flames’ most willing combatant with seven scuffles this season, but he is currently on the shelf with an upper-body injury.
Although alternate captain Troy Brouwer was among the first on the scene after the LucicSmith flare-up, he can be excused because he’s still wearing a full cage after suffering a facial fracture in February.
Or perhaps, Saturday’s chainof-events simply provided an opportunity for the Flames’ all-star puck-stopper to go public with a gripe that’s been bugging him for a while.
“Good on (Glass) for sticking up for his goaltender,” Lucic told reporters, referencing the fallout in Buffalo after he levelled thenSabres backstop Ryan Miller in the opening period of a clash in November 2011 but wasn’t challenged to drop his mitts until the rematch 11 days later.
“It’s better than that incident with Buffalo, where it lingered for a week or two and they were talking about how the Sabres didn’t respond. You have to respect players like him.”
According to Smith, the Flames need more players like him.
Certainly, he didn’t mean more guys with this season stat-line — 14GP,0G,0A,0P.
That wasn’t the point. “He’s the kind of guy that you know he has your back no matter what,” Hathaway said of Glass. “You know he’ll help you if something is wrong, he’ll be there when something is good. Jeez, the guy has some fight in him and he’s got some will and he’s got … I can’t even find the word for it, but he’s the ultimate team guy and I think that’s what that showed everyone (Saturday).
“But there’s a lot of guys on this team who are like that.”
Glass is that kind of teammate. He’s that kind of guy that will step up for anyone. We need more guys like that.