Mike Smith will keep playing puck for Edmonton Oilers despite mistakes - Edmonton Sun

Mike Smith is either confident or stubborn or both.

After puck-handling mistakes gifted the Los Angeles Kings two first-period goals Saturday, he wasn’t lassoed to his net the last 40 minutes.

That’s not the way the Edmonton Oilers goalie is wired. That his teammates, who relish his unwavering ability to try and get the puck up going north to kick-start an attack, outscored his mistakes and beat the Kings 6-5 speaks to their current offence, also what they think of their new ‘tender.

“Hopefully this doesn’t happen very often. I can’t remember too many where there’s been two in a game,” said Smith. “I remember my first year in Tampa after I was traded from Dallas, we were in Boston and it happened. One (mistake) is obviously easier to overcome than two, but it is what it is.

“Mistakes are going to happen. I’m no different than anybody else. You want to play a perfect game but things happen where pucks bounce or plays don’t get made. That’s why you have teammates to bail you out. Fortunately, we scored and got those mistakes back.”

Smith tried to get the puck up ice four minutes in, but Anze Kopitar intercepted it inside the blue line and rather than bury his head and shoot at the partially open net, he calmly fed Dustin Brown for one. Five minutes later, Smith was behind the net, and Kyle Clifford got position on him along the boards and fed it into the slot where Trevor Lewis made it 2-1.

“There’s the old cliche in golf where there’s no pictures on the (score) card,” Smith said. “OK, there’s replays in hockey, but I’m not going to go back and watch those. You have to let it go.”

Smith swears he never gets gun shy, even after errors that show up on TV highlight packages like those ones.

“If you show your teammates or the other team that it’s bothering you, they have you right where they want and know you’re not confident,” said Smith. “You don’t want to show you’re down. You still want to show you’re battling and competing for the group.

“I think this is a good lesson for younger players that mistakes are going to be made. It’s how you overcome them and become a better player.”

Defenceman Oscar Klefbom, who loves Smith’s ability to take for checking pressure off the guys going back for pucks, shrugged off the Smith errors.

“We know it’s going to happen every now and then but in the long-run he’s going to help us so much more, especially the defencemen,” he said.

“After the first one we were saying let’s get it back for Smitty, then after the second one we were saying ‘OK, let’s really get it back for Smitty.’” said winger James Neal, his teammate in Calgary before both joined the Oilers this summer. “That’s good for a few months. He got rid of them (errors) in the second game. It’s going to happen, bobbled pucks, things happen quickly.”

Smith kept fighting and as Grant Fuhr used to say, it’s not how many you give up. It’s when.

And when the game’s on the line at the end, do you crack?

“He made some huge saves on back-door passes to keep it tied up and at the end of the game he’s solid. It wasn’t the prettiest for any of us,” said Neal.

Oilers coach Dave Tippett said he never considered pulling Smith for Mikko Koskinen after the Brown or Lewis goals on LA’s first four shots when he wasn’t in the net. Or one by Kopitar that squeezed by his arm on the Kings sixth shot to make it 3-2 after 15 minutes.

“Smitty kept battling and if it had gone south, maybe. But you want to let him battle through it,” said Tippett.

He could stick with the unbeaten Smith to start the four-game road trip in Long Island Tuesday or go to Koskinen with input from goalie coach Dustin Schwartz.

Head coaches can be autocratic, democratic or pragmatic.

Why go to Koskinen when the team is 2-0?

When asked Sunday if Tippett is a “win and you’re in” coach or if he thinks there’s enough time between games (Wednesday, Saturday, Tuesday in the first three) so Smith can’t be tired, he said he’s not a guy who relies on W’s for goalie decisions.

“He (Koskinen) will play on this road trip,” said Tippett, taking a broad brushstroke.

He didn’t say if that would be Tuesday against Barry Trotz’s Islanders or Thursday in New Jersey against the struggling Devils, who play Wednesday in Philadelphia. The Oilers play next Saturday afternoon (Oct. 12) against the Rangers in New York, then Monday Oct. 14 in Chicago.

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October 07, 2019 at 06:18AM