The Arizona Coyotes know a thing or two about loyalty. Their loyalty to their starting goaltender is sure going to be tested this season.

Mike Smith has hit a particularly rough patch. He has been pulled mid-game twice in his past three starts. He's allowed 32 goals this year, second most in the league to only Sergei Bobrovsky. His season save percentage is threatening to sink below .900 this year. And after he went 14-42-5 last season with a 3.16 GAA and a .904 save percentage, he has not been good for a while now.

Which leads inevitably to an important question: is it time for the Arizona Coyotes to move on from Smith?

Moving Mike Smith via trade seems highly unlikely, at best. Apart from his numbers being extremely bad, Smith has a no-movement clause this season and a no-trade clause through 2018-19. Basically, the only way Mike Smith gets dealt is with his say-so.

Additionally, Smith's contract is both long-term and expensive; he will count for $5.67 million against the salary cap through 2018-19. Additionally, he will make $24 million in actual salary over the remaining four seasons of his deal. So Smith has a pricey contract no matter which metric you choose to look at.

That leaves one option really: a buy-out. Here's what it would cost to buy out Smith:

Since many of you asked, here's the buyout on Smith's contract, from Hockey's Cap. (s/t to @RFlores91). #Coyotes pic.twitter.com/yNVjxOWPiM — Brendan Porter (@brendanporter) November 8, 2015

That's no small amount of money to pay a player to not play for you. It's made even worse by the fact that the Coyotes are doing exactly that with Mike Ribeiro through 2019-20. If the Coyotes did buy out Mike Smith, they would have paid $27.64 million in actual salary on just two buyouts.

Understandably, those numbers leave Coyotes fans sharply divided on whether or not buying out Mike Smith is really worth it.

Alright #Coyotes fans, is it worth buying out Smith's contract if it means paying him $16M for 8 years to not play? — Brendan Porter (@brendanporter) November 8, 2015

The biggest problem with Smith's situation is that it is far harder for the Coyotes to minimize the effects of Smith's struggles on the team's performance. Players like Mike Richards, Brad Richards, Vincent Lecavalier, and Stephen Weiss could be given severely reduced minutes to allow younger, more productive players like Tyler Toffoli, Derek Stepan, and Tomas Tatar more time to play.

Arizona can't really do that at the goaltender position, where they only carry two netminders. They could give Anders Lindback more minutes, which would be a temporary solution. But that would still require Smith to play, and more importantly, take up a roster spot in place of someone like Louis Domingue or some other goaltender prospect.

That's what makes Smith's position so frustrating. The Coyotes can either wait for him to improve, wait until his NMC lapses and demote him, or buy him out. So far, the Coyotes seem to be locked in to option #1.

But how long can they afford to wait?

Thoughts