“This is the best that I have felt in the National Hockey League throughout my career. This is probably the best I’ve felt about my game, personally.” – Canucks goalie Casey DeSmith
“Casey DeSmith, I mean, every game he’s just been real solid.” – Canucks coach Rick Tocchet
VANCOUVER – Backup goalies are a little like stay-at-home defencemen. Going largely unnoticed, not being the story, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Usually, it means they’re quietly doing their jobs.
It says a lot about Casey DeSmith’s March run as the Vancouver Canucks’ fill-in starter that since Thatcher Demko was injured two weeks ago – Demko, the likely Vezina Trophy finalist – not once has goaltending been mentioned as an issue for the National Hockey League team.
In nearly 14 periods since Demko removed himself from a 5-0 win against the Winnipeg Jets on March 9, DeSmith has stopped 91.2 per cent of shots and the Canucks are 3-1-1.
After a personal 0-1-3 lull over nearly two months of sparse winter play for DeSmith reached its nadir with a 10-7, stats-destroying humiliation in Minnesota on Feb. 19, the goaltender has displayed his most consistent form of the season.
Nine years into his professional career and after five-and-a-half seasons in the NHL as a backup, DeSmith declared after Tuesday’s 3-2 win against the Buffalo Sabres that this is the best he has felt about his game.
Then he stopped 16 of 17 shots in Thursday’s 4-1 dismantling of the Montreal Canadiens.
“Besides (adding) some confidence and some enjoyment of being able to play the game consistently, I would say that, just, it’s fun being ‘the guy’ even if it’s just for a couple of weeks,” DeSmith said after Friday’s practice at Rogers Arena. “Thatcher has been so good all year and, obviously, I’ve kind of gotten in there when I’ve gotten in there and I’ve had some mixed results. It can be frustrating having a bad game and then not playing for a week and a half, or even having a good game and not playing for a week and a half. It’s just hard to get in a rhythm.
“I would say that rhythm of being the guy for a couple of weeks is unique and it’s an experience that I don’t get very often. So I think just the opportunity to feel a little bit of a rhythm and feel like the guy for a couple of weeks is a nice change.”
Acquired on the eve of training camp from the Canadiens, who owned DeSmith’s rights for seven weeks after an August trade that saw the Pittsburgh Penguins dump DeSmith and his salary to help facilitate the Erik Karlsson blockbuster, the goalie said his year in Vancouver has been everything he hoped. So far.
Working alongside Demko under goaltending guru Ian Clark, DeSmith has built on a game that has always revolved around his quickness. DeSmith’s .900 save rate this season is actually the lowest of his career, harpooned by six overtime losses and four five-on-three power-play goals against. At five-on-five, however, his .925 save percentage is actually 2/100ths better than Demko’s.
“Clarkie and I put in a lot of work this year on areas where we kind of felt maybe I had deficiencies or could really make vast improvements,” DeSmith said, “like post play, efficiency of crease movement, getting to my spots quicker and basically just staying ahead of the game. Those are obviously very broad topics and there’s a lot that goes into it. Just incrementally, little by little, they’ve been improving, and I’m really starting to feel and see the results of that work.
“It’s a team effort, the three of us. Obviously, I spend a little bit more time with Clarkie one-on-one working on stuff. But I also pick up little things from Thatch that maybe I never thought of or I see him doing something in a certain way and I ask him his thought process behind it. Just watching, you kind of absorb some stuff through osmosis. Obviously, we’re very different goalies and I’ll never be him and he’ll never be me. But there are overlaps as far as stuff that he does well that I can apply to my game.”
Until he was collateral damage in the three-way trade involving Karlsson and the San Jose Sharks, DeSmith had spent his entire career with Pittsburgh where his first general manager was current Canucks president Jim Rutherford.
“It was nice having a reset coming here to a different place, different coach, different team,” DeSmith said. “I think maybe that can ignite a little bit of fire. New surroundings can kind of reinvigorate you.”
DeSmith’s expiring contract carries a cap hit of $1.8 million and the goalie becomes an unrestricted free agent on July 1. Given his market value, salary-cap pressure and the evolution of Canuck prospect Arturs Silovs, it may be difficult for Vancouver management to maintain the Demko-DeSmith tandem.
But DeSmith’s play the last two weeks, during a critical stage of the season when Tocchet is demanding players ramp up for a potentially-long playoff run, has given both the player and his team added confidence.
It helps that the Canucks are playing as well defensively as they have all season, surrendering just 12 goals (and only 184 shots) over the last eight games.
“I’m really happy for Casey; I think all the guys are,” centre Teddy Blueger, a teammate in both Vancouver and Pittsburgh, said of the goalie. “He’s a great teammate and I think him and Demmer have a great relationship. It’s no surprise to any of us that he’s playing really well right now. I mean, I don’t want to say it’s what we expected, but we kind of knew what we were going to get.”
ICE CHIPS – Tocchet said Elias Lindholm’s departure from practice Friday was a “maintenance day” and that the centre should play Saturday against the Flames, who traded him to Vancouver on Jan. 31. . . Tocchet was non-committal about whether veteran defenceman Ian Cole would return to the lineup after being scratched for Thursday’s win against the Canadiens. Cole, who practised Friday, has a minor injury, Tocchet said. . . Depending on out-of-town scores, the Canucks could clinch a playoff spot with wins against Calgary and the Los Angeles Kings, who visit Monday. At 44-18-8, Vancouver has 96 points. “That’s not how we approach it,” Tocchet said. “I think it’s important that you think game to game. If you (think you need) 98 points or 100 points. . . I think it gets dangerous if you think that way.”