Unfortunately, Anaheim's game-winning tally came after the netminder was penalized for a delay of game. Only seven seconds following that penalty, a short drop pass from Jakob Silfverberg, back to the net, to captain Ryan Getzlaf, then zipped across to Rickard Rackell: 2-1 Ducks at 2:17 of the third period.
The Flames, despite a late powerplay chance, could draw no closer.
"That happens when you play the puck,'' said coach Glen Gulutzan. "It's a penalty.
"You've got to kill it.
"I said after the first 'Our goalie's going, let's go.'"
"I was trying to rim it around the boards, the puck flipped up on my blade and went over the glass,'' added Smith.
"The margin for error on the defensive side is slim right now. We have enough players in this locker room to put the puck in the net. Sometimes it's about getting the gritty ones. It's not always a pretty goal that wins you hockey games."
The loss sends Calgary home with a point in this back-to-back California junket.
"I think we were intimidated in the first,'' said Gulutzan. "Until we got our feet under us in the second we weren't ready to compete in a hard game.
"We had a great second period but this isn't a let's-play-one-in-three league.
"Its the same old story: If we're not going to win the speciality teams, we're not going to go far. Every night if we're leaking a powerplay goal or our powerplay doesn't score at an opportune time …
"Just check the numbers. If you don't win the specialty-teams game, you're not going anywhere. Until that straightens out, until we get more confidence or whatever it is under our belt …
"It's a lack of execution. We had a powerplay with minutes left. We need to generate and we didn't."
Kept in by their goaltender's brilliant through the opening 20, the Flames began to creep more and more into the game as the second period wore on, and were rewarded with the tying strike, Micheal Ferland rooting around to slot home the rebound of Matt Bartkowski's initial effort, at 11:55.
Given the front-end of the back-to-back off, Smith was nothing short of mammoth through the first period.
A bright spot in the first, however, was Matthew Tkachuk pushing to spark his team by duking it out and holding his against Ryan Kesler.
"Chucky thought he was going to bite the head off the snake, fully invested from the get-go,'' said Gulutzan. "But the rest of our group, no."
Smith, though, simply refused to buckle under the barrage and single-handedly kept his group within hailing distance.
Inside three minutes, he made an incredible stop, spread-eagling on his stomach and jabbing his left pad out to deny licketysplit Andrew Cogliano swinging diagonally across the face of the crease.
He'd flick that same pad out again, memorably, to spit back a Logan Shaw backhander that seemed labelled for the low corner, and cooly flagged down a Cam Fowler slapshot.
The lone Duck to beat him would be Fowler following up to cash a rebound at 3:38.
Anaheim appeared to have vaulted further with 1.2 seconds left in the first and enjoying a powerplay but video review adjudged that Ryan Kesler had kicked the puck in.
