"He's been our No.-1 guy here since the first game of the season," Flames forward Sean Monahan said following a 2-1 overtime gut-out against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday. "He's kept us in a lot of games. We give a lot of credit to him. As a team we know we have to be better as a group and help him out more."
The 35-year-old, acquired last June from the Arizona Coyotes, hasn't just been the goalie to stop the swing.
He's been the Flames MVP through the opening eighth of the season.
No question.
"He's been our best player this year. It's not even close," said captain Mark Giordano, also on the heels of that OT victory, which saw Smith kick aside 43 of 44 shots - his 12th start in 13 games and the fourth time he's faced north of 40 pucks in a single contest.
"I think you really feel a difference out there night-in and night-out, the confidence our team is feeling now, defensively, especially.
"When your goalie gives you a performance like that it's pretty hard to lose. You really want to get that one for him. You feel miserable when they tied it there late and he didn't get the shutout, but just an impressive performance again.
"He's been great every game he's been in."
Smith owns a 8-5-0 record and sports a 2.32 goals against average and .931 save percentage since his change of address.
He's been among the busiest of goaltenders over that time.
"The start is everything,'' team goaltending coach Jordan Sigalet told Your Flames Authority George Johnson, "He had a couple pre-season games where he might not have been his best and some people were jumping on him early, thinking 'It's going to be the same in goal. We're going to get off to a bad start.'
"For him to come in, silence the critics and prove he's an elite goalie who can play at that level consistently - it's just a game-here or a game-there thing - is what we needed from him.
"It's given our team a chance to slowly get better in front of him."