Throughout the summer and into the fall, we’ll be counting down the days until the Edmonton Oilers begin their 2023-24 season with a daily trip down memory lane. Today at No. 41 we have Mike Smith, the enigmatic veteran goaltender who helped the Oilers get back into the playoffs. 

Smith was selected by the Dallas Stars in the fifth round of the 2001 draft and broke into the NHL during the 2006-07 season after four years spent between the ECHL and AHL. He put up a .912 save percentage over 23 games splitting the Stars’ net with Marty Turco and was named to the NHL’s All-Rookie Team.

The Stars traded Smith in January of 2008 to the Tampa Bay Lightning as part of the return that netted them star forward Brad Richards. Smith spent the next four seasons splitting the net on some pretty bad Lightning teams and left Tampa to join the Arizona Coyotes in free agency.

In his first year in the desert, Smith broke out and posted a .930 save percentage over 67 games in the regular season. He then helped the Coyotes reach the Western Conference Final while putting up a .944 save percentage in the playoffs.

Smith spent five more seasons in Arizona but the team didn’t make it back to the playoffs again. He was traded to the Calgary Flames ahead of the 2017-18 season but again missed out on the playoffs. In 2018-19, the Flames finished with the best record in the Western Conference but bowed out in the first round despite Smith putting up a .917 save percentage.

In his first off-season as the general manager of the Oilers, Ken Holland signed Smith to a one-year contract to share the net with Mikko Koskinen. His first season was a rollercoaster ride but Smith helped the Oilers fly out of the gates in 2019-20 and stay in the mix of the playoffs before the season got paused in March because of the pandemic. Smith got shelled in Edmonton’s first bubble playoff game and the Oilers rolled with Koskinen the rest of the series.