How long must a team suffer? How long has a team suffered? This is the fourth of several posts looking into notable playoff droughts of 30 of the 32 active NHL franchises to figure out what went wrong and how it ended. This post covers Ottawa, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Jose, and St. Louis.
One word is rarely a window into the soul. But by saying so little, Mike Smith revealed so much about the competitive fire that rages in him with a response to a question earlier this month.
Reporter: “Is there extra satisfaction for you putting probably the final nail in Calgary’s playoff hopes here?”
Smith: “Yup.”
“To say Mike Smith is very competitive, that’s probably an understatement,” said Marty Turco, Smith’s former teammate on the Dallas Stars and one of his close friends. “He will use any motivation he can find. He loves to prove people wrong.”
That hunger, that drive to prove people wrong is a big reason why the 39-year-old Edmonton Oilers netminder is TSN Hockey’s Comeback Player of the Year in the non-Oskar Lindblom category.