The Great Coyote Goalie Debate: Dubnyk Vs. Smith
Dec 22, 2014; Vancouver, British Columbia, CAN; Arizona Coyotes goaltender Mike Smith (41) enters the ice for the start of the first period against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena. Mandatory Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports
I don’t have to tell you that Mike Smith has struggled this season.
He is having the worst statistical season of his career — literally. You can graph it. In the very first graph I shared with you, you may not have even noticed Mike Smith– he was the furthest away from relevance you can be in that particular graph, hiding in the far bottom left corner. His SV% and AD SV% are among the league’s worst for goalies that have played the type of minutes Smith has played this season.
However, not unlike Dubnyk’s 2013-2014 season, this season is an anomaly for Mike Smith. For the most part, he has been near league average — with the exception of his iconic playoff run, Smith has been somewhat unremarkable.
(Told you this season was bad.)
If you subscribe to the idea that over the course of time, statistics will regress to the mean (in this case, expecting Mike Smith to regress in a positive direction, back to near league average), then you can argue that at some point this season something has to give — and Smith will return to form. For Devan Dubnyk, though, that never happened last season — he needed both a new season and a new team to regain his form.
Coyotes fans — and for that matter the front office and on ice personnel — of course can’t afford to assume Smith needs the same change of pace. Smith signed a six year, $34 million deal prior to last season — meaning he won’t become a free agent until 2020.
Why not trade him then?
Well, he has a no move clause in his contract through next season… and a limited no trade clause through the end of the contract. Mike Smith is here to stay — even if he waived his NMC, his cap hit is far higher than most teams would be willing to take on. We have to hope he regresses back to the mean on his own.
With that said, though, what exactly is going wrong for Mike Smith this season?
Many have argued that the defense in front of Smitty has been less than stellar — especially in comparison to the kind of defense Devan Dubnyk has been getting — but simply put, Smith is not making the saves that Dubnyk has.
Much like earlier with Dubnyk, here is the Hextally data from Mike Smith this season.
Makes it pretty easy to see why he is struggling this season — based on his Hextally chart, it appears that the league is feasting upon Mike Smith in the good scoring areas. This could be the consequence of bad defending in front of him, which would explain his lowered SV% –but not to the point at which Mike Smith has fallen to this season. If he was performing at the league average, like he has shown in the past, than those red dots should look a little lighter than they are this season.
Case in point is how Smith has done in these areas in previous seasons.
That, my friends, is exactly what a league average goaltender looks like — and at some point this season, I would expect Mike Smith begins to look more like this and less like the former graph.
Why do I say this is what league average looks like, though?
Check out what War On Ice has as it’s league average Hextally Chart.
Looks familiar, doesn’t it?
It’s hard to accept, particularly for Coyotes fans, but this is what Mike Smith is as a goaltender. I know it sucks to hear it, because we all have those memories from the run to the Conference Finals. Mike Smith was a top-5 goaltender in the league in the 2011-2012 season (still should have been nominated for the Vezina) but over his career, that’s as unsustainable as his poor play this fall. We have to realize that Mike Smith is league average, and will be for the rest of his career — assuming he hasn’t permanently declined for some reason or another.
(In case you want to see what an elite goaltender looks like, here is the same hextally graph for the career of Tukka Rask. As you can see, his league-leading save percentages cover a larger area for shots taken. Mike Smith has one season with these numbers — Rask has multiple.)