Louis Domingue has struggled in relief of the injured Mike Smith. Is Louis the goaltender from January 2016, or is the guy who played for the Coyotes in 2014-15 and also from February – March 2016 the real, inconsistent Louis Domingue?
Caitlyn Pence:
It’s unfair to judge Louis at this point in the season.
Especially after he began the season thinking he wasn’t gonna see ice any time because “Smitty was back.”
Louis is a solid goaltender that got thrown in a tough position during a long road trip. He will get there, just needs to find his momentum.
His momentum was definitely starting to show during the Ranger game with multiple impressive saves. He stopped some that shouldn’t have been saved and by miracle he did.
People are gonna doubt and question his ability but Mike Smith did not win when he was in net either to start this road trip.
The Coyotes have to find themselves as a whole.
Louis is a solid goaltender, but his defense and offense aren’t helping him much. If your offense isn’t scoring and the other team is, of course you’re gonna lose.
Alex Temes:
I think Louis has been getting better. I don’t think he was expecting, or prepared, to play this many games this soon.
Obviously, even if he wasn’t expecting it, he should be prepared but he had some great plays over the last two games in New York and I think he’s trending upwards.
Ultimately, Louis, much like Smitty, feels like he will be a consistently inconsistent goalie.
Both have tendencies to get streaky, so all we can hope for is that one or even both get a hot hand and pull Arizona back into relevancy.
Jonathan King:
Louis Domingue seems to excel at stopping the hard stuff while letting the easy stuff fly right on by.
Reminds me a lot of Mike Smith, who seems to play his best after allowing an easy goal or two early in the game.
I think the starting goaltender has a lot more impact on the backup’s play than most will admit.
We’ve seen King Louis play unbelievably well. The key is whether he can reproduce that.
Once again, competition is a good thing and with Smith hurt he has no real incentive to shut them down. Perhaps sending him a message that he could be backing up the backup will get his gears going.
I love him in goal. I just want to see him play at the higher level we know he can achieve.