Goalie Smith’s woes continue in loss to Habs
Flames netminder gives up easy winner while Price shines for visiting Canadiens
MONTREAL 3, CALGARY 2
After a complete effort, a game that saw the Calgary Flames outbattle, outplay and outshoot the visiting Montreal Canadiens, it only took one bad goal to sink the home side.
It will show up as Artturi Lehkonen’s second goal of the season, an innocent, stoppable wrister from the left circle that stood as the winner in a 3-2 Montreal win over the host Flames.
But it represented a larger, ongoing problem that’s been plaguing the Scotiabank Saddledome’s main tenants since the end of the 2017-18 season: Mike Smith’s goaltending.
While the 36-year-old had an excellent outing in San Jose in Sunday’s 3-1 loss to the Sharks, the third period goal he allowed on Thursday seemed to negate his previous performance. Goaltending in the National Hockey League is very much a ‘what-have-you-done-for-me-lately ’ business where you’re only as good as your last outing.
Just ask visiting goalie Carey Price, who has openly battled confidence issues this season. He was the hero after turning aside 43 of 45 shots.
Smith, by allowing three goals on 22 shots in Calgary’s second loss in a row, which saw them drop to 10-8-1, was on the other side.
“You ever have a bad day at work?” snapped a furious Travis Hamonic, coming to the defence of his teammate. “There you go. Not to jump on your question like that, but it’s not fair at all. Everyone that is going to say that has bad days at work, too.
“That’s not fair.”
The gaffe — which simply slipped through Smith’s pads with 7:46 remaining — had the Flames’ goalie fuming at himself.
“Bad goal,” Smith said, shaking his head. “Bad goal, bad timing. I honestly have no idea how that went in. That was obviously a goal that can’t happen. I’m as mindboggled as you guys are right now.”
The questions continued. Smith continued.
“It’s obviously disappointing,” he said.
“When you feel like you’ve let your team down, it’s probably the biggest frustration, disappointment that can ever happen in your career when you feel like you’ve dropped the ball. Our team played such a great game tonight and we felt like we deserved a lot better fate. When something happens like that and it’s on you, it’s disappointing.
“You feel like you’ve let your whole team down.”
Backlund ended the game with eight shots. Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan and Matthew Tkachuk each had six.
Tkachuk had both of Calgary’s goals and had a dominating performance.
But none of that mattered in the end.
“He’s bailed our team out multiple times, he’s bailed me out on multiple times,” Tkachuk said, coming to Smith’s defence.
“I think that was kind of a weird one. I don’t know if it dipped or maybe hit a stick, but he’s bailed me out multiple times, so it’s definitely the least of my worries.”
The Flames kicked off an important four-game homestand Thursday and will host the visiting Edmonton Oilers on Saturday. There’s a good chance you will see David Rittich take over the crease from the struggling Smith.
Up until that point, the story had been all about Tkachuk. His one-timer blast from the point on the Flames’ lone power play of the night and a tap-in off a TJ Brodie feed from behind the net had the locals up 2-1 in the second period.
The Flames rode that lead until the Canadiens tied it 2-2 at 8:32 of the third period on a bad clearing attempt by Gaudreau that led to a defensive scramble between Mark Giordano and Brodie in front of Smith.
Smith stopped the initial attempt on Andrew Shaw but Jonathan Drouin potted the rebound.
That one can’t be faulted completely on Smith. But the gameopening goal he allowed was another story.
As soon as Tomas Tatar’s shot whizzed by him at eight minutes of the first period, the goal had locals groaning and wondering if it was going to be one of those nights. In the end, it was.
But there were stretches of brilliance from Smith, who hadn’t seen a pile of action and, at one point in the second period, had only faced nine shots.
He looked sharp when he stopped Drouin on an end-to-end rush with 7:23 remaining and, in the last five minutes, on Brendan Gallagher’s first attempt and rebound.
But, as the saying goes, you’re only as good as your last save.
“I felt great, I felt good,” said Smith, referring to the stretch prior to the final goal.
“I felt like it was coming back and I felt like I’ve strung a nice week together as far as practice and play. Obviously it’s tough to swallow right now. But life goes on.
“I’ve worked so hard to try and find it and get it back and get the confidence going. When something happens like that and it goes in like that, you kind of go, ‘Why?’ Like, I have no idea how that went through me.”