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Arizona Coyotes: Lindback Trying To Revive Career Here

By William Grigsby

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Arizona Coyotes New Goalie, Anders Lindback Will Try To Revive His Career Here — Like Former Coyotes’ Goalies Have Done

If starter Mike Smith falters again this upcoming season, newly signed backup, Anders Lindback be counted on to come on in relief of Smitty. We all know about Smith’s unfortunate season last year, and how we are very much hoping that he will regain the magic of his 2011-12 season, when he dominated in between the pipes.

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BUT…..

What if that doesn’t happen? What if Smitty gets pulled due to bad performances again this season? Well, the backup goalie who most recently benefitted from that scenario was Devan Dubnyk, who played brilliantly in a backup role, and almost displaced Smith from his starting job.

Of course, that wasn’t going to happen, since the Arizona Coyotes bestowed an enormous contract his way, which still has $6 million a year for four remaining years. As was so eloquently stated by GM Don Maloney,

"“We’re married to Mike Smith.”"

Turning to Anders Lindback… will he be looking to make a comeback much like a line of Coyotes’ goaltenders have done in the past?

  • Sean Burke did it in the 1999-00 season
  • Curtis Joseph did it the year after the lockout
  • Mike Smith got his break when Ilya Bryzgalov left Arizona for bigger money. Prior to that Smith was a backup goalie, just like Lindback
  • Devan Dubnyk was pegged as Edmonton’s starter, and when he didn’t meet expectations, he got traded to Nashville. He was not even close to a good backup, and was traded to Montreal, where he wasn’t even good enough to be a starter for their AHL team.

Then he signed with the Coyotes, and well… you know the rest of the story. (If you don’t — he was traded to the Minnesota Wild on January 15, 2015 for a third round draft pick. It was the beginning of the Arizona Coyotes official “retooling” of the team. Dubnyk went on to sensational success leading the Wild to the playoffs with an  outstanding record of: W-29, L-6, T/O-2, S/O-5, GAA- 1.78, SV%-.936.)

It doesn’t get much better than that. Most fans feel keeping Dubnyk would have been better than Smith, but Dubnyk wanted to be a starter, and Smith had that spot locked up with his controversial contract. It may come back to bite the Arizona Coyotes.

So, with this trend who’s to say that Lindback won’t follow suit and find his game with the Coyotes? He won’t be the first Arizona Coyotes’ goalie to have done that.

Let’s hope that Smith just needs Lindback for a true backup in case of injury, or an occasional bad game. 

Here’s Lindback’s statistics:

Next: Arizona Coyotes Sign Lindback As Backup Goalie

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