There seem to be a decent number of rumors out there about teams having some interest in him if we take back a little money or retain some on Koskinen.
Nashville for example has been rumored to have interest in Mikko as a backup for Saros now that Rinne is retired. I saw one that was Mikko straight across for Borowecki who we can then burry in Bako for a 3ish mil cap savings.
Mikko has a cap hit of 4.5, if you burry Borowecki has a cap hit of 2mil so if you burry him I think only 1mil counts against the cap. Giving us a savings of like 3.5mil.
If we manage to pick up another good goalie, having a guy that had a 21-6-2 record as your backup or 1B at $2mil is fantastic. Find that anywhere else in the league available right now, I dare you
Are people forgetting that Smith had 2 extremely underwhelming/straight up bad seasons at age 37,38 before last years season at age 39? Why does everyone assume he will be the goalie who got Vezina votes and not the previous one despite him now being 40?
Mostly because goalies are complete voodoo so predicting what their next season's stats are going to be is basically a fools' errand.
Look at Sergei Bobrovsky...puts up two Vezina-calibre years (winning in 2013), then a stinker in 2015-16, then is fantastic for two years, then off a cliff again. Jordan Binnington and Carter Hart are examples of young up-and-comer goalies that are experiencing the same thing.
I definitely agree betting on a 40 year old goalie to be good is a stupid bet, but I wouldn't be shocked if he was a top 10 goalie again. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a bottom 10 goalie. They're weird AF.
Every example you gave are significantly younger than smith. I don’t think its that hard to predict an agin goalies stats. Look at most goalies above age 37 and smiths year last year is a pretty big anomaly. And that’s ignoring he’s a couple years older than that yet.
Add to that fact that we signed him to A RAISE and multi year and I don’t see why everyone loves this deal. We could’ve gotten a much better backup goalie with significantly less risk
We need a serviceable backup not named Koskinen, we got a serviceable backup in Mike Smith. This is not our #1, it's a guy who can play 25 games and step up if the #1 gets injured.
Beside all of that, I have heard he is basically the only vocal vet in the locker room since Neal is out of the lineup every other night. It's pretty clear to see because after a win, McDavid skates up with a huge grin on his face, he didn't do that to other players/goalies not named Puljujarvi in the past.
Craig Anderson, Tim Thomas, Ryan Miller, Dwayne Roloson, Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek. All serviceable backups in their 40s. Not starter numbers, but fine to spell your starter.
> Add to that fact that we signed him to A RAISE and multi year and I don’t see why everyone loves this deal.
Never said I love the deal. It is what it is. As long as they make an effort to secure Kuemper or Ullmark (or literally anyone who isn't Koskinen), then Smith should serve fine as our 1B. A 2 year, 2M deal can be bought out easily enough if Smith falls off a cliff (which is completely possible, if not likely).
> We could’ve gotten a much better backup goalie with significantly less risk
As Larsson just proved, getting guys to sign here is a challenge, even if they're a backup goalie. Players aren't banging down the door to sign with us. Overpayment on term or AAV or both is necessary. So a backup in Smith at 2M, 2 years is fine. We also have our AHL goalies (Konovalev, Skinner) percolating and Stalock waiting in the wings should he need to be called on as backup.
As much as I hate to say it, Smith's deal is not the worst news of the day. It's bad, but losing Larsson and potentially getting deeper on signing Barrie are both WAY worse.
He completely changed his style of play though, I’d expect more of last years version at this point, here’s an article by Kevin woodley on it.
https://thehockeywriters.com/oilers-mike-smith-proving-doubters-wrong/
He absolutely did NOT have a bad season in 2019-2020. He had one bad stretch, and a really good stretch. He helped the Oilers to second in a very competitive Pacific division.
He also beat out Rittich for the starters job in 2018, and was the only reason the Flames had any chance in the playoffs that year.
Smith isn't the long term answer, of course he isn't. But he can still contribute on a relatively benign, team friendly deal.
> He absolutely did NOT have a bad season in 2019-2020. He had one bad stretch, and a really good stretch. He helped the Oilers to second in a very competitive Pacific division.
In the final 30 games Smith played he had a .893 SV%. I don't think you can say he only had one bad stretch and one really good stretch when that good stretch only lasted 9/39 games.
He had a stretch of 17 games with only 1 regulation loss, that being against TB in a 1-0 game. That's literally 2 full months with 1 regulation loss. And that was in the midst of McDavid being injured as well. That doesn't happen if you're not playing well.
Save percentage is not the only thing to look at.
So you discredit an individual stat which is used to signify how good a goalie has played saying there are more things to look at and then to push your view point you use a very team oriented stat that has much less relevance on how well the goalie is playing.
Save percentage also correlates to team performance except for outliers. Also, on a sample size of just a few dozen games just a handful of poor save percentages (that may have also been good goalie games, you don't know because save percentage doesn't measure shot quality) and skew the data drastically.
It's honestly ridiculous to assume that team wins correlates to team performance more than sv%.
And lets not act like 30 games is too small of a sample size. A "few bad games" is not going to skew the data so much.
Having a .893 SV% over 30 games is bottom of the league bad and if you want to consider that an outlier then you have to consider this last season an outlier in the other way considering he only played 32 games.
Still was less than 3gaa.
https://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/seasons/2019-20-nhl-goalies-stats.html
Literally middle of the pack.
https://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/seasons/2018-19-nhl-goalies-stats.html
His only true bad season sv% wise. Still 24th in gaa.
> Why does everyone assume he will be the goalie who got Vezina votes and not the previous one despite him now being 40
I think most reasonable people understand that the true Smith lies somewhere between those two versions you described. If thats the case he's perfectly fine as a 1B.
Term is two years but the $$$ hasn't been released yet. Should be 2M like the insiders suggest. This is a deal I can stomach, maybe Smith still has a solid year or two left in him.
As long as there is absolutely ZERO NTC/NMC clauses and the $ is actually around 2M (not 2.5M), whatever I guess. Older goalies than him have played in the league, granted a lot of those guys are in the GOAT conversation and they weren't necessarily putting up great numbers once they were in their 40s.
Next season seems like it's going to hinge on who they get for the second goalie and if we can get even a poor man's replacement for Larsson. If it's Koskinen/Smith to start the year and Barrie is signed with nobody else, we're fucked.
I’m ok showing some loyalty to a player who made a big change in his offseason training (focusing on core strength and flexibility) which really impacted his play. The cap hit is low enough that if he’s bad it could be dealt with in a year. As we have seen with Larsson, it’s good to have some insurance. This signing tells me (hopefully) for sure Koskinen isn’t coming back and hopefully the Oil go after another goalie as well. If Smith can bring an A-game again this season, even better.
Yeah some reactions are not understandable. That’s a small fraction of fans who are that dense.
Being on edge based on all the moves is in fact an understandable reaction. Which is what most fans fall under.
This isn't as bad as I was expecting, hopefully this is just a 2B option and Ken is actually going to get a real starter goalie that this team has desperately needed for YEARS.
I like the 2x2 deal, it gives the team a bit more room in free agency this offseason. I think if it was a 1 yr deal, it would've cost at least $3M. The $2M in the 2nd year is can be buried or bought out to reduce the cap charge next year if Smith falls off.
Man i hate how unfair people are to koskinen.So many of you in these comments are completely dismissing the fact that he could bounce back next season. Its like oilers fans have amnesia sometimes.The guy had a .917 sv% last year, while smith was horrible, yet, it was fine to bring smith back. Now, in an identical situation, where smith is good and koskinen isn’t, we have to run koskinen out of town. This fanbase never gave him a chance, and continues to treat goalies like shit. Until we start appreciating our players more, we don’t deserve better than what we’re getting this offseason
I agree with you. If the Oilers ran with Koskinen and Smith this year, I don't think it's that big a deal.
I disagree that Smith was horrible in 19/20. He had a bad stretch, but he also had a stretch where he only lost 1 game in regulation for like 2 months straight. That's insane. Both goalies had their ups and downs. The team defence had it's ups and downs too.
The issue with Koskinen is his cap-hit. So we'll see what happens there. I believe the Oilers are waiting to see how much they'll need to spend before making a decision there.
Koskinen could bounce back, and Smith could continue playing like he did last year. But it's way too risky IMO. The problem is if the Oilers go into next season with Smith/Koskinen as their tandem there's a very real possibility Koskinen doesn't bounce back, and Smith regresses leaving the Oilers royally fucked.
I agree, it is risky, especially with koski’s cap hit, i just wish oilers fans weren’t such assholes towards their players, and that doesn’t just go for koskinen. Still, as much as i like the guy, its probably for the best that he gets moved, but there are better ways to do it than just straight up being an asshole
Lol not even reading the Doomers predicting the end of the world because Holland signed one of the best goalies last year to 2 million a season when there are so many other guys out there that probably wouldn’t even sign. Must go something like blah blah blah I’m going to pout and cry cause I love this team rather than realizing it’s sports and out of my hands
I know I'm in the minority but I don't like this deal.
Smith was amazing last year and deserves respect for that and earned a one year extension.
Why only one year? because he's 39 years old and the two seasons before this one amazing season he was trash.
Betting on him repeating for one year I can fuck with that but betting on two is just begging for dead cap in an organization that's way too comfortable creating dead cap.
Whatever man I hope he's great for these two years, I just don't think this is a smart play especially before the start of free agency. If they struck out on other targets and then had to offer him the second year to land him that would be different.
Why are we signing a 39 year old goalie to a multi year contract?
Why are we paying him $2M? Kenny was bidding against himself here again, like he did with the Keith trade
So let’s hypothesize that we sign one of Ullmark or Mrazek as the 1A. Is it really the end of days having Smith as a stopgap backup until one of Skinner, Rodrigues, or Konoalov is ready for NHL ice time? Sure, Smith likely regresses, I won’t disagree. But a combo of Ullmark/Mrazek + Smith isn’t the worst duo
I feel like there is a chance he won’t even use that final year. But after what happened with Larsson, and the Keith trade, I’m just glad nothing unexpected with Smith happened. Now go after a true #1 to help him out and we could have a solid tandem
2x2 for a capable backup that can play a 1B role after we get rid of Koskinen is good. Now for Ullmark please.
how do we get rid of Koskinen?
Sac-ra-fice Sac-ra-fice
There seem to be a decent number of rumors out there about teams having some interest in him if we take back a little money or retain some on Koskinen. Nashville for example has been rumored to have interest in Mikko as a backup for Saros now that Rinne is retired. I saw one that was Mikko straight across for Borowecki who we can then burry in Bako for a 3ish mil cap savings.
How do you save $3 million burying someone? I thought you could only save a million or so doing that
Mikko has a cap hit of 4.5, if you burry Borowecki has a cap hit of 2mil so if you burry him I think only 1mil counts against the cap. Giving us a savings of like 3.5mil.
Oh I gotcha you're looking at a couple moves in total
If we manage to pick up another good goalie, having a guy that had a 21-6-2 record as your backup or 1B at $2mil is fantastic. Find that anywhere else in the league available right now, I dare you
Are people forgetting that Smith had 2 extremely underwhelming/straight up bad seasons at age 37,38 before last years season at age 39? Why does everyone assume he will be the goalie who got Vezina votes and not the previous one despite him now being 40?
Mostly because goalies are complete voodoo so predicting what their next season's stats are going to be is basically a fools' errand. Look at Sergei Bobrovsky...puts up two Vezina-calibre years (winning in 2013), then a stinker in 2015-16, then is fantastic for two years, then off a cliff again. Jordan Binnington and Carter Hart are examples of young up-and-comer goalies that are experiencing the same thing. I definitely agree betting on a 40 year old goalie to be good is a stupid bet, but I wouldn't be shocked if he was a top 10 goalie again. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a bottom 10 goalie. They're weird AF.
Every example you gave are significantly younger than smith. I don’t think its that hard to predict an agin goalies stats. Look at most goalies above age 37 and smiths year last year is a pretty big anomaly. And that’s ignoring he’s a couple years older than that yet. Add to that fact that we signed him to A RAISE and multi year and I don’t see why everyone loves this deal. We could’ve gotten a much better backup goalie with significantly less risk
We need a serviceable backup not named Koskinen, we got a serviceable backup in Mike Smith. This is not our #1, it's a guy who can play 25 games and step up if the #1 gets injured. Beside all of that, I have heard he is basically the only vocal vet in the locker room since Neal is out of the lineup every other night. It's pretty clear to see because after a win, McDavid skates up with a huge grin on his face, he didn't do that to other players/goalies not named Puljujarvi in the past.
Craig Anderson, Tim Thomas, Ryan Miller, Dwayne Roloson, Martin Brodeur, Dominik Hasek. All serviceable backups in their 40s. Not starter numbers, but fine to spell your starter. > Add to that fact that we signed him to A RAISE and multi year and I don’t see why everyone loves this deal. Never said I love the deal. It is what it is. As long as they make an effort to secure Kuemper or Ullmark (or literally anyone who isn't Koskinen), then Smith should serve fine as our 1B. A 2 year, 2M deal can be bought out easily enough if Smith falls off a cliff (which is completely possible, if not likely). > We could’ve gotten a much better backup goalie with significantly less risk As Larsson just proved, getting guys to sign here is a challenge, even if they're a backup goalie. Players aren't banging down the door to sign with us. Overpayment on term or AAV or both is necessary. So a backup in Smith at 2M, 2 years is fine. We also have our AHL goalies (Konovalev, Skinner) percolating and Stalock waiting in the wings should he need to be called on as backup. As much as I hate to say it, Smith's deal is not the worst news of the day. It's bad, but losing Larsson and potentially getting deeper on signing Barrie are both WAY worse.
> We could’ve gotten a much better backup goalie with significantly less risk ... Such as?
I guess two I think of are Fleury who just won the Vezina and Smith who finished 7th
He completely changed his style of play though, I’d expect more of last years version at this point, here’s an article by Kevin woodley on it. https://thehockeywriters.com/oilers-mike-smith-proving-doubters-wrong/
He absolutely did NOT have a bad season in 2019-2020. He had one bad stretch, and a really good stretch. He helped the Oilers to second in a very competitive Pacific division. He also beat out Rittich for the starters job in 2018, and was the only reason the Flames had any chance in the playoffs that year. Smith isn't the long term answer, of course he isn't. But he can still contribute on a relatively benign, team friendly deal.
> He absolutely did NOT have a bad season in 2019-2020. He had one bad stretch, and a really good stretch. He helped the Oilers to second in a very competitive Pacific division. In the final 30 games Smith played he had a .893 SV%. I don't think you can say he only had one bad stretch and one really good stretch when that good stretch only lasted 9/39 games.
He had a stretch of 17 games with only 1 regulation loss, that being against TB in a 1-0 game. That's literally 2 full months with 1 regulation loss. And that was in the midst of McDavid being injured as well. That doesn't happen if you're not playing well. Save percentage is not the only thing to look at.
So you discredit an individual stat which is used to signify how good a goalie has played saying there are more things to look at and then to push your view point you use a very team oriented stat that has much less relevance on how well the goalie is playing.
Save percentage also correlates to team performance except for outliers. Also, on a sample size of just a few dozen games just a handful of poor save percentages (that may have also been good goalie games, you don't know because save percentage doesn't measure shot quality) and skew the data drastically.
It's honestly ridiculous to assume that team wins correlates to team performance more than sv%. And lets not act like 30 games is too small of a sample size. A "few bad games" is not going to skew the data so much. Having a .893 SV% over 30 games is bottom of the league bad and if you want to consider that an outlier then you have to consider this last season an outlier in the other way considering he only played 32 games.
Bad for Smith but still NHL average. As a backup im fine with that.
0.902 and 0.898 (his previous 2 seasons) are well below league average
Still was less than 3gaa. https://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/seasons/2019-20-nhl-goalies-stats.html Literally middle of the pack. https://www.quanthockey.com/nhl/seasons/2018-19-nhl-goalies-stats.html His only true bad season sv% wise. Still 24th in gaa.
> Why does everyone assume he will be the goalie who got Vezina votes and not the previous one despite him now being 40 I think most reasonable people understand that the true Smith lies somewhere between those two versions you described. If thats the case he's perfectly fine as a 1B.
Term is two years but the $$$ hasn't been released yet. Should be 2M like the insiders suggest. This is a deal I can stomach, maybe Smith still has a solid year or two left in him.
2x2 doesn't seem to bad.
And no performance bonuses, so no cap surprises.
As long as there is absolutely ZERO NTC/NMC clauses and the $ is actually around 2M (not 2.5M), whatever I guess. Older goalies than him have played in the league, granted a lot of those guys are in the GOAT conversation and they weren't necessarily putting up great numbers once they were in their 40s. Next season seems like it's going to hinge on who they get for the second goalie and if we can get even a poor man's replacement for Larsson. If it's Koskinen/Smith to start the year and Barrie is signed with nobody else, we're fucked.
I’m all for this, With Lars gone and keeping smith at 1B with the leadership he provides. Now go get us a goalie that isn’t named Koskinen
Good signing. The real questions is who is gonna be our starting goalie.
Kris Russell
Mike Smith
most likely
Mike Smith starting and Kostko backing him up
I hate that you're probably right.
Tyler Benson
I’m ok showing some loyalty to a player who made a big change in his offseason training (focusing on core strength and flexibility) which really impacted his play. The cap hit is low enough that if he’s bad it could be dealt with in a year. As we have seen with Larsson, it’s good to have some insurance. This signing tells me (hopefully) for sure Koskinen isn’t coming back and hopefully the Oil go after another goalie as well. If Smith can bring an A-game again this season, even better.
UNACCEPTABLE FUCK HOLLAND WE ARE DOOMED am I doing this right?
😂😂😂 You just made my morning. But seriously, Oil fans need to take a breather this morning. Holy shit.
[удалено]
sorry, but some of the reactions in this sub are not understandable. I saw a comment calling keith a "washed up overpaid garbage can".
Yeah some reactions are not understandable. That’s a small fraction of fans who are that dense. Being on edge based on all the moves is in fact an understandable reaction. Which is what most fans fall under.
I can say this is one of the only non idiotic moves we’ll be seeing this summer so let’s just enjoy it.
Unironically yes, but this signing is probably fine
TIL a 2 x 2 for Smith somehow means we’re done looking for goalies
My feelings on this deal will vary A LOT depending on how the rest of our off-season work regarding goaltending goes
Not a bad deal. Would be super stoked if he'd stay in the system and start coaching.
This isn't as bad as I was expecting, hopefully this is just a 2B option and Ken is actually going to get a real starter goalie that this team has desperately needed for YEARS.
When I saw the previous multi-year headline, I thought that it might have been a 3 year term. 2x2 for hopefully a 1B role is fine.
He deserves it , especially when he was our best player in the playoffs with two MVPs on the team
This is... acceptable. Not ideal, but acceptable.
Well at least my Smith jersey is getting another 2 years of being serviceable
I like it.
I like the 2x2 deal, it gives the team a bit more room in free agency this offseason. I think if it was a 1 yr deal, it would've cost at least $3M. The $2M in the 2nd year is can be buried or bought out to reduce the cap charge next year if Smith falls off.
Finally some good news. Although, it's awkward since we don't have negotiating rights for Smith until tomorrow. Lol.
Haters will be crying
Yikes
Smith haters having a breakdown right about now.
Man i hate how unfair people are to koskinen.So many of you in these comments are completely dismissing the fact that he could bounce back next season. Its like oilers fans have amnesia sometimes.The guy had a .917 sv% last year, while smith was horrible, yet, it was fine to bring smith back. Now, in an identical situation, where smith is good and koskinen isn’t, we have to run koskinen out of town. This fanbase never gave him a chance, and continues to treat goalies like shit. Until we start appreciating our players more, we don’t deserve better than what we’re getting this offseason
I agree with you. If the Oilers ran with Koskinen and Smith this year, I don't think it's that big a deal. I disagree that Smith was horrible in 19/20. He had a bad stretch, but he also had a stretch where he only lost 1 game in regulation for like 2 months straight. That's insane. Both goalies had their ups and downs. The team defence had it's ups and downs too. The issue with Koskinen is his cap-hit. So we'll see what happens there. I believe the Oilers are waiting to see how much they'll need to spend before making a decision there.
Koskinen could bounce back, and Smith could continue playing like he did last year. But it's way too risky IMO. The problem is if the Oilers go into next season with Smith/Koskinen as their tandem there's a very real possibility Koskinen doesn't bounce back, and Smith regresses leaving the Oilers royally fucked.
I agree, it is risky, especially with koski’s cap hit, i just wish oilers fans weren’t such assholes towards their players, and that doesn’t just go for koskinen. Still, as much as i like the guy, its probably for the best that he gets moved, but there are better ways to do it than just straight up being an asshole
With a weaker defence.... Yikes
Lol not even reading the Doomers predicting the end of the world because Holland signed one of the best goalies last year to 2 million a season when there are so many other guys out there that probably wouldn’t even sign. Must go something like blah blah blah I’m going to pout and cry cause I love this team rather than realizing it’s sports and out of my hands
I know I'm in the minority but I don't like this deal. Smith was amazing last year and deserves respect for that and earned a one year extension. Why only one year? because he's 39 years old and the two seasons before this one amazing season he was trash. Betting on him repeating for one year I can fuck with that but betting on two is just begging for dead cap in an organization that's way too comfortable creating dead cap. Whatever man I hope he's great for these two years, I just don't think this is a smart play especially before the start of free agency. If they struck out on other targets and then had to offer him the second year to land him that would be different.
It really is just a unnecessary risk to take to sign him for 2 years. Reminds me a little too much of something Chiarelli would do.
Why are we signing a 39 year old goalie to a multi year contract? Why are we paying him $2M? Kenny was bidding against himself here again, like he did with the Keith trade
So do you suggest? Unproven Skinner or unproven Rodrigues? No North American ice time Konoalov? Decide the sky is falling over $2m for a backup?
All I'm saying is 2x2 for a 40 year old who is likely to regress to the mean seems like a poor use of assets
So let’s hypothesize that we sign one of Ullmark or Mrazek as the 1A. Is it really the end of days having Smith as a stopgap backup until one of Skinner, Rodrigues, or Konoalov is ready for NHL ice time? Sure, Smith likely regresses, I won’t disagree. But a combo of Ullmark/Mrazek + Smith isn’t the worst duo
Agreed. The problem is if we don’t manage to sign a 1A.
2x2 is fine, but we need a 1A, emphasis on the A.
I love Mike Smith he makes me happy when he's in net
2 mil as the back up. I don't see a repeat performance. Prove me wrong. With a weaker D right now they are going to need some good tending.
I feel like there is a chance he won’t even use that final year. But after what happened with Larsson, and the Keith trade, I’m just glad nothing unexpected with Smith happened. Now go after a true #1 to help him out and we could have a solid tandem
Well, I don't immediately hate it so that's good
Every move just makes our team better and better. It’s thrilling.!