Confirmed with Link: Leafs sign D Blake Smith (Flint Firebirds, OHL) to ELC (3 years, $875k)

[The Iceman]

From the Athletic:
When he’s on the ice, everybody knows he’s out there. He polices things, if you will,” Firebirds head coach Paul Flache told The Athletic, before calling him the “toughest player in the league.”

“(Smith) can fight; he can hit. Since I got him, I was comfortable playing him 30 minutes a night, but I had to tell him he could pick and choose his spots,” Flache said. “He hits hard, he plays a solid game, but he had to learn to be smart and not run around chasing guys.”

Smith led all Firebirds defencemen with 54 penalty minutes and +15 plus/minus as

It’s not just his sandpaper that could make him valuable to Treliving and the Leafs organization. The skating skills that every new Leafs defenceman must have in his game? Smith has that in spades.

“(Smith) skates very well for a big man,” Flache said. “He’s got great feet, and he doesn’t get caught flat-footed out there. That’s something we’ve worked on for a while. He’s got the tools to hold lines at the offensive blue line or our own blue line, get to pucks first in our own zone. He’s spent a lot of time working on that first move, whether it be distributing a puck or skating the puck out and beating players.”




For those that remember him, his father is Derrick Smith.
He was a big tough centre that played over 500 NHL games.

 

[cyris]

Does anyone else find this whole “small skilled” vs “big unskilled plug” argument pointless?
Just because some of the prospects we have had haven’t worked out doesn’t mean others won’t. In fact most prospects drafted outside the first 2 rounds or signed as free agents don’t.
There has to be some healthy mix of not drafting just for size but not ignoring it matters in the NHL too.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Big fridge prospects like Webber have less skill than Dubas era darlings like Topi Niemela, but they compete for very different kinds of jobs altogether. Webber is competing for bottom of the roster spot a la Simon Benoit and Phil Myers, and one day could be a 5, 6, 7 and eat pucks, do a grunt job.

A more skilled, smaller defenseman like Niemela isn't competing against guys like Benoit, Myers and Webber. His abilities need to translate higher up on the defense pairings so his to way game, offense can be utilized in a higher impact role. If he fails at that level and is only 70% of a Lane Hutson or something, he's not going to be useful. You don't need a guy like that the lower down you go on the depth chart.

Bottom pairing defensemen aren't limited to defense-only fridges. Not sure where you got that idea.

For me, the Leafs have fallen short in 2 areas when it comes to identifying “talent, skill and intelligence” and grit.

First, the Dubas era did a lot of bad, superficial work adding guys like Michael Carcone, Nic Petan, Denis Malgin, which are your skilled but not skilled enough to play top 6 kind of forwards, and not well equipped to support and compliment the skill already at the top of the roster.

Second, the importing of guys like Nick Foligno to solve maturity and intangibles buckets on a short term basis at a premium cost. That continues to this day with the inexplicable Laughton deal.

Yeah, minor league depth deals and bringing in guys with good leadership and character is really what's been holding us back.

We had one GM that went all small and then another went all big.

Actually, we had a GM that went big... And then another GM that went big... And then another GM that went big... And then finally a GM that went for balance... But people complained that it wasn't all big all the time, so we went back to a GM that goes big...

 

[horner]

Just looking at our last 2 games those trees have blocked a ton of shots .
We now have a brick wall around our goaltenders.
If we could find another Carlo I would be happy , not the fasted skater or a great offensive talent but man can he play D.