Smith showing that age need not mean decline
Mike Smith's first NHL game was a 4-0 shutout for Dave Tippett's Dallas Stars on Oct. 21, 2006, a road game in Arizona — so, top of the mountain as first impressions go.
But he was also 23 years old with 154 games in the minors, with pads packed for stops in Utah, Kentucky, Houston and Iowa.
We're not talking overnight-success Carey Price here.
Now, Smith is turning 39 on Monday — the second-oldest active NHL goalie behind Anaheim backup Ryan Miller, 40, who gives John Gibson the odd breather.
The difference is Smith, probably the most exciting goaltender in the league with his puck-handling skills, the odd mistake and no-holds-barred stopping-thepuck style, is 11-3 with a .922 save percentage and 2.34 goals- against average. He is 39 going on 29, with considerably better stats than Price who is 10-5, .903 and 2.71.
Smith's game should have dropped off but surprisingly it hasn't. His birth certificate says he's 39, born March 22, 1982, in Kingston, Ont., but you would never know it. Like Dwayne Roloson when he was here, age doesn't seem to matter.
Oilers GM Kevin Lowe traded for Roloson in the spring of 2006 when the goalie was 36 years old. He played until he was 42, and there are a lot of comparisons in terms of battle level in the net.
“Smitty's one of the fittest people I've ever seen. I've had him since he was a rookie and now I've got him at 39,” Tippett said.
“He's just a phenomenal athlete, one of the top athletes I've ever coached. He might be 39 but his body isn't.”
The save on the Jets' Kyle Connor after a miscue was a 10-beller.
“We love it when Smitty plays the puck; we want him to do it because he's so good at it and makes the breakouts easier,” Oilers captain Connor Mcdavid said. “Ninety-nine per cent of the time he does it better than anybody else and maybe with that other one per cent he makes a mistake. But we have a lot of trust in him.”
Smith's game is hyperkinetic. He doesn't play quietly in the net. He handles the puck so much he can give it away. As he's said, Marty Turco once told him to shake mistakes off, get back in the net and never show the other team you're rattled. So, if he had to dive and stab Connor's gold-plated second-period chance, he kept moving the puck later.
He won't always been this hot. He took a major tumble in December 2019 when he lost all five of his Oiler starts and gave up 24 goals with an .828 save percentage. But in January he was 5-2 with a .920 GAA and in February he was 6-3 with a .916 GAA.
“He's a battler, comes with his playing style,” Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl said, rehashing Smith's saves on Connor and the leg save on Dylan Demelo on the last tick of the clock in the second period Saturday.
And his age? Not many Nhlers are older than Smith.
“He's in great shape and he's more capable of handling the workload,” Draisaitl said.
SUPER HAPPY JESSE
Nobody gets more excited when he scores than Jesse Puljujarvi. He does wear his emotions on his jersey sleeve and when Draisaitl got the winner in the third, he reacted as though he had scored an OT dagger, instead of getting an assist on the play.
Maybe some of that raw emotion has rubbed off on the other Oilers because they were giddy, to a man, in their comeback Saturday.
“Jesse earns those big smiles and it's fun to see for a guy like that who's worked at his game,” said Mcdavid, also exuberant after Draisaitl's goal. “Jesse goes to the net, makes good plays, keeps pucks alive. He's one of the best forecheckers I've seen in a long time.”