Mike Smith loses his cool again and throws his stick down the ice

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Liam
June 7, 2022 (2:13 PM)

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In last night's game four matchup between Colorado and Edmonton, the Avalanche completed the sweep and punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup Finals. Despite great games, and great playoffs from Edmonton's stars like McDavid, Draisaitl, Hyman, and Nugent-Hopkins, their ancient goaltender Mike Smith still found ways to make the game about him.

In some ways, that's fair. It's an incredible accomplishment to remain in the league, and play a meaningful role for a competitive team at 40 years of age. However, media and fans alike knew the chances that Mike Smith could backstop the team to a Cup were slim to none.

Despite decent performances overall, including a .913 save percentage, Smith was prone to allowing a back-breaking squeaker goal, reflected by his 3.37 Goals Against Average. And often times on these back-breaking goals, Smith looked for someone else to blame. Last night as Colorado erased a two-goal deficit to complete a comeback win, the Smith Show was on in full force.

Midway through the 3rd period, the Avalanche dumped the puck into the Oilers zone, and Mike Smith played the puck which resulted in a turnover. Seconds later, Darnell Nurse and Duncan Keith panicked and crowded the crease, while in the chaos, Landeskog found loose puck and scored to bring the game to a 4-3 lead for the Oilers.

Smith can be seen inexplicably waving his hands and yelling at the referees. Whether he's raging at himself for a brutal turnover, or requesting the goal be called back because his own team interferes with him, we'll never know. What we do know, however, is that this whining is on-brand for Smith.

Again on the series clinching goal, Smith was seen yelling at the referees to review a high-stick. While he may have had more merit to that claim, he also may have developed a reputation similar to the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

After all, how can you take these claims seriously when he has a similar reaction to a goal from over 150 feet away.

The Oilers may finally look to get a reputable starting goalie, of a more appropriate age, next season to finally capitalize on the prime years of McDavid and Draisaitl. Oilers fans can hope, at least.