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Mike Smith hoping strong finish can help Coyotes into next season

GLENDALE, AZ – NOVEMBER 19: Goaltender Mike Smith #41 of the Arizona Coyotes in action during the NHL game against the San Jose Sharks at Gila River Arena on November 19, 2016 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
GLENDALE, AZ – NOVEMBER 19: Goaltender Mike Smith #41 of the Arizona Coyotes in action during the NHL game against the San Jose Sharks at Gila River Arena on November 19, 2016 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES – Mike Smith’s first year with the Arizona Coyotes went splendidly. He helped the franchise reach the 2012 Western Conference Final and found himself in the middle of the Vezina Trophy discussion that year.

Since then, well, things haven’t gone as well, and there have been many, many additions to Goalie Stick Heaven, thanks to Smith’s frustrations.

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Five years since that conference final, the Coyotes are looking at the prospect of another high draft pick to add to their pool. But for the soon-to-be 35-year old Smith, it’s another lost season as the franchise hopes their young players develop into important pieces moving forward.

Smith has played well this season, which is why he’s the Coyotes’ representative on the Pacific Division All-Star roster this weekend. In 30 starts he’s posted a .925 even strength save percentage and been a big factor in a number of wins this season. But there’s also been those tough nights, like when he made 59 saves and lost in a shootout or that 6-3 loss to the New York Rangers in December, both of which resulted in an expression of frustration from the netminder. Then there was also the post-game scrum following a loss to the Edmonton Oilers where he called out his teammates for having “no emotion” following their bye week.

The hope, according to Smith, is that while things haven’t gone their way, the Coyotes take something away from this season.

“We don’t want to go into next season going, ‘We didn’t learn anything this year.’ I think that’s been the message as of late is we need to be improving, we need to be getting better as a group,” Smith said during Saturday’s NHL All-Star Media Day. “We’re not writing off this season by any means. We want to feel like we’ve accomplished something this year. We’ve moved the team in the right direction, the organization in the right direction. Our young players have learned a lot. The older guys have gotten accustomed to the system. At the end of the season we want to feel like we’ve gotten better, we’ve improved.

“We’ll worry about next season when it comes but I think every year you want to set yourself up for a good start for the next season. I think we’re doing that right now and if we continue to do that we’ll feel more comfortable coming into next season and hopefully we’ll have a better start than this year.”

New faces added in the off-season mixed with young faces that the organization is trying to develop means there’s an adjustment period while learning Dave Tippett’s system. That led to a 3-6-0 start in October, which didn’t improve in November or December. January didn’t start any better, but a three-game win streak is a good way to head into the All-Star break.

“We’re a young group. We signed 4-5 free agents that hadn’t played in [Dave Tippett’s] system before, so it was definitely a period of time where everyone was getting used to each other,” Smith said. “Young guys were trying to get accustomed to the NHL and it’s a lot different than playing in junior hockey and the [AHL]. It was definitely a time where everyone was trying to find their way and I think as of late, the last month or so, we’ve done a lot of things real well. We’ve seen some growth from our young players. Our veteran players that signed in the off-season have really stabilized our group. We’re playing some of the best hockey we’ve played this year leading into the All-Star break.”

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With a young roster and some new faces, practice time would be vital, but the compressed schedule this season plus the new bye week doesn’t allot for much chances to work on systems and to tweak things. It’s not an excuse, Smith said, because all teams have to deal with it, but it would certainly help.

They may not be able to salvage the season playoff-wise — Arizona is currently 25 points out of the division race and 15 out of the wild card — so like Smith said, it’s about taking something out of this year that can aid them in the future.

“Obviously practice time would help with a younger squad but there’s nothing like playing in an NHL hockey game either,” Smith said. “We’re playing a lot of games in a short period of time. Guys will kind of learn on the fly, but like I said, I think we’ve done a lot of good things as of late. Our team’s come a long ways since the start of the season until now. I’m proud of our group. We’ve worked real hard at it and we deserve the results right now.”

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Sean Leahy is the associate editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!