The Coyotes beat the Sharks 3-2 in a shootout Saturday night. They are now an impressive 4-2 in their last six, and the two losses coming to Chicago and LA, so those are even excusable.
This is by far the best six game run (arbitrary) the team has been on all year. A team that hasn't won consecutive games in regulation all season long, bear in mind.
Interesting also, is that the Coyotes have now beat the Sharks three times this season. The Sharks are - or at least should be - among the best teams in the league, so that is impressive.
Mike Smith has been awesome. I mean totally radical. Dudes. Along with the regulation games thing, the other thing that isn't getting any league-wide attention but should be, is that Mike Smith is having one finely aged wine of a sesaon.
Mike Smith has the fakest sounding, most generic name a person could have, and I believe, though cannot prove, that he would be a far more famous, appreciated, well-paid and, most importantly, properly respected as one of his generations better-ish goalies if he had a better name. One that people could remember.
I mean, he's no Lundqvist. But he's not as far off as you might think. More or less, he's just unlucky to have played on bad teams for the most part of his career. Teams, I think, you could easily prove were not bad because of him. Teams that might have been better with a goalie with a more flavourful name.
Mike Smith, if that is even his real name, once lead the 2012 Coyotes past the Dynastic Blackhawks and the Predators to make the Conference Semis.
He was the only goalie to get a shutout with two different teams as a rookie in 79 years, and he once held the record for most saves in a regulation game and these are things you would know if he had a cool name like Carlos Smith or Mike Lightning. At least if he had a cool nickname like Zeus or the Walrus people would remember him.
I didn't even know those things, I had to find them out on wikipedia.
Which was hard, because his name is Mike Smith.
I could have been looking for Mike Smith (Jazz Saxaphonist) or Mike Smith (Saxaphonist) or Mike Smith (Actor, Broadcastor, Dick Clark Five, Guitarist or American Football Coach).
Another thing that is crazy is have you ever seen Mike Smith without his helmet? You probably don't remember if you have or not. I did a very, very specific google image search just to find out what he looks like and guess what? Totally normal. What a surprise to learn that Mike Smith looks like a generic athlete. The face, nose and beard of a normal person, not a memorable one. He looks exactly like you'd figure the goalie of the Arizona Coyotes would look.
Anyways, old Carlos Smith would get my vote for the Vezina, which, considering recent world events, I might as well get one, because he is doing everything Holtby, Dubnyk, and Price are doing, but on a way worse team.
If the standard of winning the Vezina was how many games was the goalie's team competitive in because of him alone, then Mike Smith would win it. By a mile.
Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»