Even before the conception of Winged Pride, we were big fans of Brendan Smith. We were his some of his biggest advocates and were really patient with him, even though he was struggling in the transition to the NHL. But the tide seems to have turned lately, Smith has been playing significantly better hockey, making good decisions and being responsible with the puck in all areas of the ice.
Previously, Smith struggled quite a bit pertaining particularly to transition play. This is one of the most consistently overlooked parts of the game. The ability to get the puck from the defensive zone into the offensive zone is such a pivotal part of the game and Smith struggled a bit here last year. He was a player who really struggled due to the speed of the game and was having trouble reacting to smaller passing windows as well as making quicker decisions, as well as being the source of a lot of turnovers which led to a lot of goals. However this year he seems to turned a corner. He has much more confidence and has adjusted to the increase in speed both offensively and transitionally.
Why has this happened? Well its a product of a few things, most players struggle on some level when they transition over to the NHL. It just so happened that Brendan Smith needed around a year to make this adjustment. He was an extremely highly touted defensive prospect and he didn't live up to his bill at the beginning of the year. However, people forget that very few players, especially defenseman are able to make a quick transition into the NHL. As a forward the transition is much easier because when you possess the puck the play goes at your speed. You choose when to pass and when to shoot and this is a power that allows you to dictate the pace of the game. This is a luxury that a defenseman doesn't have. Smith had two big issues last year, his defensive positioning and his defensive breakouts. His issue with breaking out was a combination of two things, firstly, the speed of the game was significantly increased. This may be one of the only valid reasons to not allow prospects to overripe in Grand Rapids. Smith was a player who was there so long that scouts had said he didn't take it seriously and looked like he was going through the motions waiting for his NHL call up. This may have stunted his growth and allowed him to develop bad habits, making plays that were only available because he was more skilled than everyone else on the ice. These habits took awhile to break, but Smith seems to be back on track with his development. The other reason is that he was playing with Kyle Quincey. There has been a lot of debate over this pairing, specifically whether Smith was making Quincey bad or whether Quincey was making Smith bad, last year, they were pretty equally poor. The only evidence you need right now is that for today's game(January 16th) Smith is playing on the first pairing with Kronwall and Quincey is not. Babcock knows a lot more hockey than I do and this should say enough about this argument.
As a quick aside as well Winged Pride is going to act as an advocate for certain players who we feel are being undervalued by fans which is why we are going to be featuring a lot of articles defending players who are being unfairly criticized. This is why there might be a lot of profiles about a player like Brendan Smith and not a lot of articles on a player like Henrik Zetterberg. I don't have to defend Zetterberg because it is almost universally accepted that he is a great player.