from Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun,

Mike Smith is done. Finished. Washed up.

The 17-year, five team, 657-game up-and-down career of the long-haired, six-foot-five, puck-moving character goalie, after Saturday night’s 5-2 loss to the Montreal Canadiens should now be complete.

It’s become virtually unanimous with the entire population of Edmonton hockey fans that, 16 days before his 40th birthday, 15 days and six games before the trade deadline and 53 days and 26 games before the end of the season, the Edmonton Oilers can’t continue to go with No. 41 in goal.

You could make a case that Smith cost his long-time three-stop (Dallas, Phoenix and Edmonton) head coach/believer Dave Tippett his job.

And general manager Ken Holland hasn’t been helping his hockey team make the playoffs by waiting for Smith to regain his form coming off half a season of injuries.

Not to hang Saturday’s disappointing defeat to the Montreal Canadiens with a full house of fans back in the stands at the end of COVID-19 protocol restrictions entirely on their goaltender.

It was the familiar ‘First Games Back From A Road Trip’ dud of a display from most everybody wearing an Oilers uniform.

But saying Smith wasn’t much help and he didn’t give them much hope would be a pair of significant understatements.

Indeed the goalie was graded as a “2” which translates to “terrible” under the 1-to-10 system employed by our highly credible Cult Of Hockey master player-grader Bruce McCurdy.

The best line I heard on the night was that the video replay coaches challenge goal judge made more saves in this game than the father of four Oilers netminder.

continued