Primer: Mike Smith of the Phoenix Coyotes
Most of hockey fandom spent the first round of the playoffs cursing this man's name. I spent the first round of the playoffs having my heart ripped in half like a squishy, bleeding wishbone. I do love the Hawks, and I did desperately want to see them advance, but... but Mike Smith.
There are no photos of Mike Smith not wearing his gear. Probably because he exists in
a perpetual state of preparation for turning away pucks from any aperture he happens to find
himself standing in.
The Coyotes are a reasonably good team. This primer talks about their history a bit, although it doesn't go into the details of the difficulties the team has faced because of their lack of an owner. For more on that, I highly recommend this ESPN article about the team and their coach, Dave Tippett, a dude who knows how to kick ass without losing his cool. The upshot is: the team is in a bad place. They're sharing a practice facility with kids' birthday parties, their games are getting attendance rates like a high school calc class on Senior Ditch Day, their coaching staff is operating in a pit of mildew, and somehow the team still manages not to suck. Everyone acts like they do, because people have a hard time respecting a hockey team based in the desert, but they're honestly pretty good.
And one of the best things about them is this guy.
That wetness on his dangler isn't sweat or condensation. It's the tears of opposing forwards, who
frequently get close enough to him to smear their sorrow all over his gear and yet still fail to score
on him.
Mike Smith (known informally as Smitty), possibly the least googleable man in the NHL, is the only goalie in known history ever to record a shutout, score a goal, and receive a fighting major all in the same game. That happened during his time in the OHL. I don't know the details of that particular game, but I'm guessing the goal-scoring was a result of him wandering away from the goal to play D-man, a habit that caused a friend of mine to declare him the second coming of Dominik Hasek (whose similar wanderings prompted the coining of the "Jesus what the fuck are you doing all the way out here Hasek" radius).
Wanderlust notwithstanding, the dude is fantastic. In the 2011-2012 regular season, he recorded 38 wins, a .930 save percentage, a 2.21 GAA, and eight shutouts. He's the only goalie to record more than one shutout in the postseason so far, and he very nearly wrapped up the series against Nashville with two consecutive shutouts, although he was foiled by a goal in the third period of Game 5.
Then he ended that game by taking a backhand shot at Nashville's empty net from the Phoenix goal crease, over the heads of six opposing players, and missing the net by inches with two seconds on the clock. There are not enough italics in the world.
The moment comes at 4:30 in this video:
As I vaguely remember feverishly e-mailing a friend in the aftermath of that game, if that shot had gone in, I would have had to buy new panties, because every pair I own would have spontaneously exploded. GOOD GOD, MAN.
Could probably have advanced to the third round of the playoffs without a single other Coyotes player on the ice.
Okay, so, some background info. Smitty is 30 years old, 6'4", 215 pounds, and comes from Kingston, Ontario, where he played softball as a teenager. He's married to a skier named Brigitte Acton, with whom he has a 9-month-old son. He started out in the OHL in 1999, then got drafted by the Dallas Stars in 2001 and played in the ECHL and the AHL before becoming the backup goaltender for Dallas in 2006, behind Marty Turco, with whom he lived while he was settling in [source]. Smitty's first ever regulation NHL game was a shutout. Even so, the Stars never gave him much of a chance to play.
In 2008 he was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning, and shortly thereafter became the first rookie goaltender in 79 years to record shutouts against two different teams in one season. In general, though, his time with the Lightning wasn't his best. He got injured a few times, too, which didn't help things.
Dude definitely looks better in red.
But then last summer Dave Tippett, who knew Smitty when they worked together in Dallas, was like "yo dude, come sweat with us in Arizona!" and Smitty was like "OKAY" and promptly set the NHL record for saves in a shutout. Which, by the way, came at the end of a three-shutout streak.
Look at this badass motherfucker. Fifty-four saves and not a single goal. Why the rest of the
Coyotes let the goddamn Blue Jackets get in fifty-four shots on him is a different question. But this
primer isn't about them, it's about Mike Smith being the coolest cucumber on NHL ice.
He also helped them win every regulation game for a month, going 11-0-1 in February 2012. As previously stated, his 2011-2012 season record was seriously fucking impressive, ending with an assist on his team's last goal in the regular season; he's objectively the best goaltender in the NHL who wasn't nominated for the Vezina this year. And everyone who's paying attention to the playoffs knows how that's going for him. Two shutouts so far, including a Game 6 4-0 shutout victory against the Hawks to take the series. I was so emotionally conflicted about that, you guys, SO CONFLICTED ;_____;
Poor Corey Crawford.
The Coyotes took their second-round series against Nashville in a gentleman's sweep ( you give 'em one, you know, just to be polite) in which Smitty soundly outplayed Pekka Rinne, who was nominated for the Vezina.
Those straps are unnecessary. His pads stay affixed to his body through the sheer force
of the constant pucks bouncing off them from all directions.
I would like to point out that everyone, and I mean every single person I saw make a prediction about the second round of the playoffs except myself, thought Nashville would take this. Puck Daddy posted their staff picks and it was nothing but Predators in six, Predators in five, Predators in six. Somebody posted a map of people's predictions for that series, and the twenty-something percent that thought Phoenix could do it at all (much less in five games) were pretty much all in Arizona. I'm the only person I know of with no personal connections to the Southwest who seriously believed they would pull off that series win. I have faith in Mike Smith.
Smith and LaBarbera did a little victory dance after the series win against the Predators. NBC replayed it three times during the
post-game footage.
Jason LaBarbera, Phoenix's backup goaltender, appears to have a pretty great relationship with Smitty. I'm glad LaBarbera seems to have come to terms with the fact that there's no way short of disastrous injury he's getting a chance in net this postseason.
LaBarbera attempting to smush his face through Smitty's cage. I approve.
Smitty's team in general seems to appreciate the shit out of him, which is awesome and wonderful and exactly how the world should be. Shane Doan, Phoenix's captain, said, "He's been our best player, I mean it hasn't even been close," [source] and called him "the most valuable player to his team in this league" [source], and the rest of the team keeps mentioning him in the postgame interviews. Because yeah, they would not still be in this without him.
Besides his killer goaltending, Smitty is just a chill dude. He's always classy about his wins in the postgame interviews. After that mindblowing Game 5 finish against Nashville with the barely-missed empty net from across the ice, he told reporters that he should have kept it and killed the clock instead, because the shot meant his teammates had to deal with another faceoff in their zone. There's not a whole ton of interview footage with him, but he's obviously been getting a lot more attention lately, so hopefully more character-building stuff will show up soon.
"What? Oh. I appreciate the offer, Yands, but I kick ass for the good of the team, not for the
grateful blowjobs. Really, it's okay."
The Coyotes are taking on the L.A. Kings in the Western Conference finals, starting tomorrow. I'm looking forward to this series so much I cannot even express it. L.A.'s Jonathan Quick is a seriously incredible goaltender too, and I've been watching a lot of the Kings' games this postseason--it's gonna be great. I hope the series goes to overtime in Game 7.
Puck Daddy ships Smitty/Quickie. I'd read it, yo.
So that's Mike Smith!
♥_____________♥
EDIT: People are posting neat stuff about Smitty in the comments to both the DW and LJ versions of this post, so if you want to see more, check out both posts.
This entry was originally posted at http://jedusaur.dreamwidth.org/61876.html.
There are no photos of Mike Smith not wearing his gear. Probably because he exists in
a perpetual state of preparation for turning away pucks from any aperture he happens to find
himself standing in.
The Coyotes are a reasonably good team. This primer talks about their history a bit, although it doesn't go into the details of the difficulties the team has faced because of their lack of an owner. For more on that, I highly recommend this ESPN article about the team and their coach, Dave Tippett, a dude who knows how to kick ass without losing his cool. The upshot is: the team is in a bad place. They're sharing a practice facility with kids' birthday parties, their games are getting attendance rates like a high school calc class on Senior Ditch Day, their coaching staff is operating in a pit of mildew, and somehow the team still manages not to suck. Everyone acts like they do, because people have a hard time respecting a hockey team based in the desert, but they're honestly pretty good.
And one of the best things about them is this guy.
That wetness on his dangler isn't sweat or condensation. It's the tears of opposing forwards, who
frequently get close enough to him to smear their sorrow all over his gear and yet still fail to score
on him.
Mike Smith (known informally as Smitty), possibly the least googleable man in the NHL, is the only goalie in known history ever to record a shutout, score a goal, and receive a fighting major all in the same game. That happened during his time in the OHL. I don't know the details of that particular game, but I'm guessing the goal-scoring was a result of him wandering away from the goal to play D-man, a habit that caused a friend of mine to declare him the second coming of Dominik Hasek (whose similar wanderings prompted the coining of the "Jesus what the fuck are you doing all the way out here Hasek" radius).
Wanderlust notwithstanding, the dude is fantastic. In the 2011-2012 regular season, he recorded 38 wins, a .930 save percentage, a 2.21 GAA, and eight shutouts. He's the only goalie to record more than one shutout in the postseason so far, and he very nearly wrapped up the series against Nashville with two consecutive shutouts, although he was foiled by a goal in the third period of Game 5.
Then he ended that game by taking a backhand shot at Nashville's empty net from the Phoenix goal crease, over the heads of six opposing players, and missing the net by inches with two seconds on the clock. There are not enough italics in the world.
The moment comes at 4:30 in this video:
Click to viewAs I vaguely remember feverishly e-mailing a friend in the aftermath of that game, if that shot had gone in, I would have had to buy new panties, because every pair I own would have spontaneously exploded. GOOD GOD, MAN.
Could probably have advanced to the third round of the playoffs without a single other Coyotes player on the ice.
Okay, so, some background info. Smitty is 30 years old, 6'4", 215 pounds, and comes from Kingston, Ontario, where he played softball as a teenager. He's married to a skier named Brigitte Acton, with whom he has a 9-month-old son. He started out in the OHL in 1999, then got drafted by the Dallas Stars in 2001 and played in the ECHL and the AHL before becoming the backup goaltender for Dallas in 2006, behind Marty Turco, with whom he lived while he was settling in [source]. Smitty's first ever regulation NHL game was a shutout. Even so, the Stars never gave him much of a chance to play.
In 2008 he was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning, and shortly thereafter became the first rookie goaltender in 79 years to record shutouts against two different teams in one season. In general, though, his time with the Lightning wasn't his best. He got injured a few times, too, which didn't help things.
Dude definitely looks better in red.
But then last summer Dave Tippett, who knew Smitty when they worked together in Dallas, was like "yo dude, come sweat with us in Arizona!" and Smitty was like "OKAY" and promptly set the NHL record for saves in a shutout. Which, by the way, came at the end of a three-shutout streak.
Look at this badass motherfucker. Fifty-four saves and not a single goal. Why the rest of the
Coyotes let the goddamn Blue Jackets get in fifty-four shots on him is a different question. But this
primer isn't about them, it's about Mike Smith being the coolest cucumber on NHL ice.
He also helped them win every regulation game for a month, going 11-0-1 in February 2012. As previously stated, his 2011-2012 season record was seriously fucking impressive, ending with an assist on his team's last goal in the regular season; he's objectively the best goaltender in the NHL who wasn't nominated for the Vezina this year. And everyone who's paying attention to the playoffs knows how that's going for him. Two shutouts so far, including a Game 6 4-0 shutout victory against the Hawks to take the series. I was so emotionally conflicted about that, you guys, SO CONFLICTED ;_____;
Poor Corey Crawford.
The Coyotes took their second-round series against Nashville in a gentleman's sweep ( you give 'em one, you know, just to be polite) in which Smitty soundly outplayed Pekka Rinne, who was nominated for the Vezina.
Those straps are unnecessary. His pads stay affixed to his body through the sheer force
of the constant pucks bouncing off them from all directions.
I would like to point out that everyone, and I mean every single person I saw make a prediction about the second round of the playoffs except myself, thought Nashville would take this. Puck Daddy posted their staff picks and it was nothing but Predators in six, Predators in five, Predators in six. Somebody posted a map of people's predictions for that series, and the twenty-something percent that thought Phoenix could do it at all (much less in five games) were pretty much all in Arizona. I'm the only person I know of with no personal connections to the Southwest who seriously believed they would pull off that series win. I have faith in Mike Smith.
Smith and LaBarbera did a little victory dance after the series win against the Predators. NBC replayed it three times during the
post-game footage.
Jason LaBarbera, Phoenix's backup goaltender, appears to have a pretty great relationship with Smitty. I'm glad LaBarbera seems to have come to terms with the fact that there's no way short of disastrous injury he's getting a chance in net this postseason.
LaBarbera attempting to smush his face through Smitty's cage. I approve.
Smitty's team in general seems to appreciate the shit out of him, which is awesome and wonderful and exactly how the world should be. Shane Doan, Phoenix's captain, said, "He's been our best player, I mean it hasn't even been close," [source] and called him "the most valuable player to his team in this league" [source], and the rest of the team keeps mentioning him in the postgame interviews. Because yeah, they would not still be in this without him.
Besides his killer goaltending, Smitty is just a chill dude. He's always classy about his wins in the postgame interviews. After that mindblowing Game 5 finish against Nashville with the barely-missed empty net from across the ice, he told reporters that he should have kept it and killed the clock instead, because the shot meant his teammates had to deal with another faceoff in their zone. There's not a whole ton of interview footage with him, but he's obviously been getting a lot more attention lately, so hopefully more character-building stuff will show up soon.
"What? Oh. I appreciate the offer, Yands, but I kick ass for the good of the team, not for the
grateful blowjobs. Really, it's okay."
The Coyotes are taking on the L.A. Kings in the Western Conference finals, starting tomorrow. I'm looking forward to this series so much I cannot even express it. L.A.'s Jonathan Quick is a seriously incredible goaltender too, and I've been watching a lot of the Kings' games this postseason--it's gonna be great. I hope the series goes to overtime in Game 7.
Puck Daddy ships Smitty/Quickie. I'd read it, yo.
So that's Mike Smith!
♥_____________♥
EDIT: People are posting neat stuff about Smitty in the comments to both the DW and LJ versions of this post, so if you want to see more, check out both posts.
This entry was originally posted at http://jedusaur.dreamwidth.org/61876.html.