Calgary Flames three stars of the week: December 10-16
By Ramina Shlah
Third star
David Rittich
David Rittich, or Big Save Dave, has been incredible for the Calgary Flames this season and has been earning the starter role much more than Mike Smith has. This week, he had to relieve Smith in the game against the Flyers and while he let in one goal on just five shots all in the third period, it was a breakaway shot and it wasn’t necessarily his fault.
In the other two games, he really earned the win, especially against the Minnesota Wild, where he let in just one goal on 35 shots, earning the first star of that game. He went 3-0-0 and improved to a 0.925 sv% and has a 0.944 sv% at even-strength.
On the season, he’s 11-3-1 and is seventh in sv% among all goaltenders (min. 10 gp). Without him, the Flames probably wouldn’t be this high up in the standings. In fact, they probably could have had more points if he started in some games instead of Smith. Like that game against the Montreal Canadiens where Smith let in a weak goal late in the third in a tie game. The Flames could have had at least an extra point from that game, maybe two.
Must Read. To nobody's surprise, Mike Smith is terrible again. light
And while the argument that can be made is that the Flames haven’t played all the well in front of Smith, especially in the first month, they’ve played the same in front of Rittich as well and have allowed many high-danger shots on Rittich too. But he’s stopping those.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make this a bashing Mike Smith section. Let’s get back to Rittich.
He also played in back-to-back games this weekend, where normally the goaltenders would split it since Smith was injured. While the team could have gone with Jon Gillies in net against the St. Louis Blues on Sunday, Rittich stepped up to the plate and proved why he deserves more starts than he’s getting. And that’s why he’s our third star of the week.