{"id":98064,"date":"2021-01-15T19:40:18","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T00:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=98064"},"modified":"2021-01-15T19:40:18","modified_gmt":"2021-01-16T00:40:18","slug":"edmonton-oilers-mike-smith-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2021\/01\/15\/edmonton-oilers-mike-smith-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Edmonton Oilers Mike Smith Out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/oilers\/\" target=\"_self\">Edmonton Oilers<\/a> have lost goaltender <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/smithmi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Smith<\/a><\/strong>. The veteran hasn&#8217;t played yet, but he has encountered an obstacle just the same. The news comes on the heals of a strong victory over the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/canucks\/\" target=\"_self\">Vancouver Canucks<\/a> Thursday evening. Patrick Johnson of the Vancouver Sun announced the absence Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Source tells me Oilers goalie Mike Smith likely out &quot;multiple weeks&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Patrick Johnston (@risingaction) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/risingaction\/status\/1350191919519813632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 15, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Oilers Mike Smith Out<\/h2>\n<p>The 38-year-old Smith had a fine season in 2019-20. He appeared in 39 games, winning 19 with a .902 save percentage and 2.95 goals-against-average. It was a mild bounce back from an even more difficult 2018-19, but Smith is clearly in decline. It seemed highly unlikely he could return to the levels of production he had with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/coyotes\/\" target=\"_self\">Arizona Coyotes<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/flames\/\" target=\"_self\">Calgary Flames<\/a> and this setback only makes things harder. However, he is playable enough to be worth a roster spot even at his advanced age if whatever is troubling him clears up quickly.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/category\/stars\/\" target=\"_self\">Dallas Stars<\/a> originally drafted Smith in the fifth round of the 2001 Draft, but he didn&#8217;t debut until 2006-07 and appear in 23 games. Dallas traded him to the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2008 as part of a trade that included <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/j\/jokinju01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jussi Jokinen<\/a> and others. Smith would eventually sign with Arizona, be traded to Calgary, and sign with Edmonton during his 14-year career. Overall. the Kingston, Ontario native has a career .911 save percentage and 2.71 goals-against in 610 NHL games. He also has a .934 save percentage and 2.33 goals-against in 25 postseason games.<\/p>\n<h3>How Edmonton Survives without Smith<\/h3>\n<p>The Oilers were already using <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/k\/koskimi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mikko Koskinen<\/a><\/strong> as the primary goalie for 2020-21 and that won&#8217;t change with Smith out. The 32-year-old has a career .907 save percentage and 3.55 goals-against in 99 games. He figures to handle the bulk of Edmonton&#8217;s 56 games from this point out. Edmonton also has <strong>Stuart Skinner<\/strong> on the active roster, but the 22-year-old has no NHL experience. He spent most of last year with Bakersfield in the AHL and posted a .892 save percentage and 3.31 goals-against in 41 games. The Oilers would prefer to have Smith as the primary backup, but Skinner will have to be sufficient baring a trade or other move.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"KP1Qrv5UT9R02uGHMWG9iw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1179718066\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'KP1Qrv5UT9R02uGHMWG9iw',sig:'AXo11lQXvlVhFSmV9XF3siSE4PpWajCvk18x98aE2WA=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1179718066',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Edmonton Oilers have lost goaltender Mike Smith. The veteran hasn&#8217;t played yet, but he has encountered an obstacle just the same. The news comes on the heals of a strong victory over the Vancouver Canucks Thursday evening. Patrick Johnson of the Vancouver Sun announced the absence Friday afternoon. Source tells me Oilers goalie Mike [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3127,"featured_media":98075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,4547,34,4548],"tags":[138,5774,5738,1781,5989,3234,2569,955,1790],"class_list":["post-98064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oilers","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-edmonton-oilers-news","tag-hockey-news","tag-mike-smith","tag-mike-smith-out","tag-mikko-koskinen","tag-news","tag-nhl-news","tag-stuart-skinner"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}