Billy Smith (Murillo Pyramid Rank = #63)
Adjusted Stats
1971-1972 LA 5 GP, 1-3-1, .300 win%, 315 min, 24 GA, 4.62 GAA
1972-1973 NYI 39 GP, 7-25-3, .243 win%, 2231 min, 145 GA, 3.90 GAA
1973-1974 NYI 48 GP, 9-24-13, .337 win%, 2749 min, 136 GA, 2.96 GAA
1974-1975 NYI 59 GP, 22-18-17, .535 win%, 3452 min, 144 GA, 2.50 GAA
1975-1976 NYI 40 GP, 19-10-9, .618 win%, 2310 min, 91 GA, 2.35 GAA
1976-1977 NYI 37 GP, 22-8-6, .694 win%, 2141 min, 83 GA, 2.31 GAA
1977-1978 NYI 39 GP, 21-8-8, .676 win%, 2208 min, 91 GA, 2.47 GAA
1978-1979 NYI 41 GP, 26-8-4, .737 win%, 2318 min, 97 GA, 2.52 GAA
1979-1980 NYI* 39 GP, 15-14-7, .514 win%, 2167 min, 93 GA, 2.58 GAA
1980-1981 NYI* 42 GP, 23-10-8, .659 win%, 2422 min, 106 GA, 2.62 GAA
1981-1982 NYI* 47 GP, 33-9-4, .761 win%, 2752 min, 104 GA, 2.28 GAA
1982-1983 NYI* 42 GP, 18-14-7, .551 win%, 2399 min, 91 GA, 2.28 GAA
1983-1984 NYI* 43 GP, 24-13-2, .641 win%, 2336 min, 104 GA, 2.67 GAA
1984-1985 NYI 38 GP, 18-14-3, .557 win%, 2142 min, 108 GA, 3.02 GAA
1985-1986 NYI 42 GP, 21-14-4, .590 win%, 2366 min, 114 GA, 2.88 GAA
1986-1987 NYI 41 GP, 14-18-5, .446 win%, 2308 min, 113 GA, 2.95 GAA
1987-1988 NYI 39 GP, 17-14-5, .542 win%, 2160 min, 96 GA, 2.66 GAA
1988-1989 NYI 17 GP, 3-11-0, .214 win%, 748 min, 46 GA, 3.65 GAA
Adjusted Playoff Stats
1974-1975 NYI 6 GP, 1-4, .200 win%, 333 min, 21 GA, 3.79 GAA
1975-1976 NYI 8 GP, 4-3, .571 win%, 437 min, 20 GA, 2.80 GAA
1976-1977 NYI 10 GP, 7-3, .700 win%, 580 min, 24 GA, 2.46 GAA
1977-1978 NYI 1 GP, 0-0, --- win%, 47 min, 1 GA, 1.24 GAA
1978-1979 NYI 5 GP, 4-1, .800 win%, 315 min, 9 GA, 1.73 GAA
1979-1980 NYI* 20 GP, 15-4, .789 win%, 1198 min, 48 GA, 2.39 GAA
1980-1981 NYI* 17 GP, 14-3, .824 win%, 994 min, 30 GA, 1.79 GAA
1981-1982 NYI* 18 GP, 15-3, .833 win%, 1120 min, 37 GA, 1.96 GAA
1982-1983 NYI* 17 GP, 13-3, .813 win%, 962 min, 34 GA, 2.09 GAA
1983-1984 NYI 21 GP, 12-8, .600 win%, 1190 min, 48 GA, 2.42 GAA
1984-1985 NYI 6 GP, 3-3, .500 win%, 342 min, 14 GA, 2.50 GAA
1985-1986 NYI 1 GP, 0-1, .000 win%, 60 min, 3 GA, 3.46 GAA
1986-1987 NYI 2 GP, 0-0, --- win%, 67 min, 1 GA, 0.80 GAA
Career - 698 GP, 313-235-106, .560 win%, 39524 min, 1786 GA, 2.71 GAA
Career-Highs - 59 GP (74-75); 33 wins (81-82); .761 win% (81-82); 3452 min (74-75); 2.28 GAA (81-82)
Avg. (17 seasons) - 41 GP, 18-14-6, .560 win%, 2306 min, 104 GA, 2.71 GAA
Peak Avg. (75-83) - 41 GP, 22-10-7, .654 win%, 2340 min, 95 GA, 2.44 GAA, 3 Cups
Playoff Career - 132 GP, 88-36, .710 win%, 7645 min, 290 GA, 2.28 GAA
Playoff-Highs - 15 wins (twice); .833 win% (81-82); 1.73 GAA (78-79)
Accolades - 1 Vezina Trophy, 1 Jennings, Conn Smythe
All-Star Teams - 1-time 1st-team
4-time Stanley Cup Champion
Another Grant Fuhr-like entry on the Pyramid, in that his regular season numbers, while excellent, don't come anywhere near telling the story. Billy Smith is one of the few goaltenders on the Pyramid (the only other one being Chris Osgood near the bottom) who routinely split regular-season duty. Shockingly for such a legendary goaltender, only once did Billy Smith play more than fifty regular season games. Just once! Every other year he was in the 38-45 range, essentially part of a 1-1A tandem with the likes of Chico Resch, Roland Melanson and Kelly Hrudey.
You should be forgiven if, in 1974, you looked at the career of young Billy Smith and didn't see a future Hall-of-Famer in the works. For his first three seasons, Smith was an atrocious 17-52-17 with an expansion Islanders club. But as the Islanders improved, so did Smith's play, and although (as mentioned) Smith never would be mistaken for a Glenn Hall or Martin Brodeur in terms of workload, his regular season goals-against average became more and more respectable. For his eight-year peak from 1975 to 1983, Smith had an adjusted-GAA of 2.44.
Still, it's Billy Smith being discussed here, so there's no point in talking about the regular season. That's not where his legend was built, and that's not why he's ranked this highly. No, this is a goaltender, like Fuhr, who stepped up his game in the postseason...perhaps more than any other goalie in history. His career regular-season winning percentage is .560, and he played in half of his team's games during that time. Come postseason, Smith played 90% of his team's games and his career postseason winning percentage is .710 (a close-second all-time to Ken Dryden's .714). As with Fuhr, Smith's save percentage shot up when it mattered...it's 21 points higher than his regular-season mark (although to be fair, save% wasn't recorded until the mid-80s...can't we retroactively go back, watch all games, and figure this out?).
During that remarkable four-year stretch in the early 1980s when the Islanders won four straight championships, Smith's accomplishments were off-the-chart. In the regular season, he won but one Vezina, in 1981-1982, but in the postseason he was a staggering 57-13 (yes, you read that right, 57-13!!!) during those four championship runs. His best performance may have been in 1983, when the aging Islanders faced the up-and-coming Oilers. Smith stood on his head in the series, earning Conn Smythe honours, and the Islanders swept the heavily-favoured Edmonton squad.
Smith is of course also remembered for his hacking and whacking of anyone who dared enter his stratosphere. He was public enemy #1 in Edmonton during the back-to-back finals in which the Isles played the Oilers. In his book on the Oilers' dynasty, Kevin Lowe mentions how much everyone hated Smith, and how surprised he was after a game by how polite and cordial Smith was to everyone. He may have been a gentleman off the ice, but Smith's competitive desire consumed him during game time...he wouldn't even talk to teammates on days when he was starting, and he didn't mind breaking ankles if that is what it took to preserve his crease area.
So while Smith, like Fuhr, Dryden, Osgood and others, benefited from being the backstopper of an elite team, we'll remember him as a game-saver and one of the most clutch goaltenders of all-time. He's the anti-Tony Esposito, a non-workhorse in the regular season who took it to a completely different level when the season was on the line. That's all you can ask of a championship-caliber goaltender, and for a period of six or seven years, there was no one better at delivering than Billy Smith.
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