Speaker 1: The Utah Hockey Club continues to stay in the fight.
Speaker 2: It's going to be.
Speaker 1: Tough when you look at the numbers to make that
Speaker 1: wild card spot, but it's not over yet. And our
Speaker 1: next guest joins is on a weekly basis to inform us,
Speaker 1: enlighten us, and illuminate us in the world of professional
Speaker 1: hockey is the great Neil Smith on a Thursday.
Speaker 2: Neil, Happy Thursday, Sir, how are you?
Speaker 3: Thank you? Thank you to make me sound a lot
Speaker 3: brighter than I am, that's for sure, But I like
Speaker 3: that commercially, you just had them with the Irish voice,
Speaker 3: squid that it was an irishman for something. Anyways, I
Speaker 3: thought that I shouldn't let you know that I like that.
Speaker 3: But Smith, I got to start off with a little
Speaker 3: tribute to your father and I got some very bad
Speaker 3: news this week. I don't know if you were he
Speaker 3: was able to tell you about the passing of Stanley Chaffy,
Speaker 3: who's so instrumental in us with the Knick success and
Speaker 3: the Rangers success back in the nineties and just a
Speaker 3: wonderful guy, and he passed away at eighty four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: We did have a little family thread going on with that,
Speaker 1: and I wonder if you would coaborate my father's thoughts
Speaker 1: that in my dad's time of the Garden, he said
Speaker 1: Stanley Jaffey was his favorite boss during his entire time.
Speaker 2: Would you cooberate that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would. I think that if it weren't for him,
Speaker 3: we wouldn't have won the Stanley Cup, and probably the
Speaker 3: Knicks wouldn't have gone to Game seven against Houston that
Speaker 3: same year. He was very much behind the teams and
Speaker 3: very much allowed Dave and I to do what we
Speaker 3: had to do to make the teams great. And you
Speaker 3: know it was his support was vital during an era
Speaker 3: when they kept changing ownership of the Garden and you
Speaker 3: had to get somebody that was supportive, and he certainly was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a shame when the final ownership change
Speaker 1: took place and that dude is still in charge. But
Speaker 1: that's a different topic for a different day, Neil, we
Speaker 1: will leave that there. So let me just ask you
Speaker 1: right off the top here. I mean, it's still tight,
Speaker 1: Minnesota's pulled away a little bit Calgary Vancouver on seventy one.
Speaker 1: Utah Hockey Club with win last night, is on sixty
Speaker 1: nine points along with the Blues, but as we as
Speaker 1: we roll down the stretch, is it's still realistic to
Speaker 1: believe that this could actually happen, that the Utah Hockey
Speaker 1: Club could qualify as a wildcard team in the NHL
Speaker 1: Stanley Cup playoffs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're very much still They're not the favorites to
Speaker 3: get into the to those wild card spots because I
Speaker 3: think that's more Vancouver and Calgary. But they do have
Speaker 3: a chance. And we were talking about it today and
Speaker 3: if you you know, you can say that to get
Speaker 3: to the ninety two points or whatever it's going to
Speaker 3: take to make the playoffs, you've got to play at
Speaker 3: a seven hundred average or a six hundred average or something.
Speaker 3: But you know, if if a team can get on
Speaker 3: a winning streak, either the Blues or the hockey club,
Speaker 3: to get on a winning streak, they can jump over teams.
Speaker 3: But it's going to take a winning streak. It's not
Speaker 3: gonna you're not going to be able to win one
Speaker 3: lose one with one lose one. That won't work. And
Speaker 3: when you play teams, and I said this last week
Speaker 3: when you weren't on, you've got to get the two
Speaker 3: points and don't leave any on the table for the
Speaker 3: other team. In other words, you don't win in over time,
Speaker 3: you don't win in a shoot up, try to win
Speaker 3: in regulation, and of course if that's not possible, then
Speaker 3: go ahead and win any other ones. But it's important
Speaker 3: that you get the points and that you don't leave
Speaker 3: any for other teams.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you if you just had to
Speaker 1: guess again, Minnesota seems to have separated themselves for the
Speaker 1: first wildcard spot, but the second wildcard spot, Calgary, Vancouver,
Speaker 1: Saint Louis, and Utah are all in the mix for
Speaker 1: that second wild card. So who would you kind of
Speaker 1: handicaps the favorite as of now, Neil.
Speaker 3: I would handicap Vancouver as a favorite. That's what most Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what most sites are saying that Vancouver is the
Speaker 3: one that's the favorite to get in. And that goes
Speaker 3: by strength of schedule. The rest of the way. You know,
Speaker 3: teams that they've got to play, how many home games
Speaker 3: they have, how many road games, how many teams above
Speaker 3: five hundred that they have left to play, how many
Speaker 3: blow five hundred and on that strength of schedule and
Speaker 3: on the team, that's who people are giving the edge to.
Speaker 3: But as I said, that all goes out the window.
Speaker 3: If somebody goes on a winning streak, even though you're
Speaker 3: only two points apart. It'll take a winning streak and
Speaker 3: beating teams that people have handicapped you not to beat
Speaker 3: to give you a chance to get in. And crazier
Speaker 3: things have happened, that's for sure.
Speaker 2: So what sort of what sort of experience?
Speaker 1: Because we're doing this a lot with the Jazz here,
Speaker 1: a local NBA team, as they play a lot of
Speaker 1: these really good teams in very close games. It's given
Speaker 1: these young players a lot of good experience because they're
Speaker 1: not going to make the playoffs. And the only way
Speaker 1: for these young players to understand what it's like to
Speaker 1: play against really really good players and really good teams
Speaker 1: in pro basketball not get their doors blown off is
Speaker 1: be able to make these games competitive and even if
Speaker 1: they fall short, they're getting some good experience because they're
Speaker 1: playing teams closely. What sort of experience can a young
Speaker 1: team like the Utah Hockey Club just be able to
Speaker 1: garner being in the fight?
Speaker 2: The coach Torny talks about all the time.
Speaker 1: Being in the race, even if they don't get in
Speaker 1: and if they fall short, what sort of experience can
Speaker 1: be gained in a race like this, Neil.
Speaker 3: I think just what you just said is the experience
Speaker 3: of being in a situation finally where they are going
Speaker 3: right down to the wire to try to get in
Speaker 3: and they're not eliminated in February. If you look at
Speaker 3: the team last year, the same team which was based
Speaker 3: in Arizona, they weren't in the fight right till the
Speaker 3: very end. And I think that that's what the coach
Speaker 3: is talking about, is that stay in the fight, keep fighting.
Speaker 3: If they're going to beat us and go in and
Speaker 3: we're not going to make it, let's not make it.
Speaker 3: Let's not make it on the last weekend, on the
Speaker 3: lot of month ahead of the end of the season.
Speaker 3: If you know what I mean, keep fighting right till
Speaker 3: the very end. And I got to say, Spence, since
Speaker 3: we've been talking, you know, in the summer, this is
Speaker 3: what I envisioned for this team, that they would be
Speaker 3: in and around, knocking on the door to try to
Speaker 3: get into the wild card spot. And they still are
Speaker 3: doing it and they can get in.
Speaker 1: Are you surprised at all, Neil, that the NHL trade
Speaker 1: deadline came and went without the hockey club being very active.
Speaker 2: Does that surprise you at all, or did.
Speaker 1: You anticipate Bill Armstrong to stay in the course regardless
Speaker 1: of where they're at.
Speaker 3: You know, I anticipated that he would trade a couple
Speaker 3: of UFAs, but he re signed guys that were UFAs,
Speaker 3: so that sort of took them off the market. And
Speaker 3: Buffalo did the same thing. And I'm not comparing Buffalo
Speaker 3: in Utah, but Buffalo a non playoff team. They ended
Speaker 3: up signing guys so that they didn't walk away for nothing.
Speaker 3: And that's the thing at this time of the year
Speaker 3: is the gms don't want to lose a guy for nothing,
Speaker 3: so they come to the deadline and they say, look,
Speaker 3: we either sign him or we trade them. But we're
Speaker 3: not just going to have him hang in for the
Speaker 3: rest of the regular season and then walk away and
Speaker 3: go somewhere else. We've got to get something for these guys.
Speaker 3: So Bill Armstrong signed a couple of guys and that
Speaker 3: took them off the market.
Speaker 2: Basically, excuse me.
Speaker 1: A story broke this week that Connor Ingram is stepping
Speaker 1: away from the team to take care of his mental
Speaker 1: health and he's entering what's called a player assistant program.
Speaker 2: This happened on Sunday.
Speaker 1: He lost his mother to breast cancer in December, which
Speaker 1: I think was news to.
Speaker 2: A lot of people.
Speaker 1: And you know, not like this is the most important thing,
Speaker 1: but Connor, you know, he's struggling, and now we kind
Speaker 1: of know why.
Speaker 2: Now there's some context and color to this entire thing.
Speaker 1: So tell us about this program, Neil, tell us about
Speaker 1: this Player Assistant program. Most people when they see news
Speaker 1: like this believe and Connor even talked about this, Those
Speaker 1: people believe it was some sort of substance abuse issue
Speaker 1: when a program like this is announced, but it's not.
Speaker 2: He's just taking time off to take care of his
Speaker 2: mental health.
Speaker 1: So tell us about this program and your thoughts on
Speaker 1: the news that broke about Connor.
Speaker 3: Ingram Well, I didn't know about his mother, and that's
Speaker 3: really sad. That's horribly sad, especially for a kid that's
Speaker 3: that you know, it's not I'm sure his mother wasn't
Speaker 3: really very old and too early to go, and so
Speaker 3: that would put anybody into a depression. And you know,
Speaker 3: you don't want to guess at these things and say,
Speaker 3: you know, he's fighting depression. You don't want to say
Speaker 3: it's any substance or alcohol or anything else, because you
Speaker 3: don't know but I would imagine that his you know,
Speaker 3: his mental state hasn't been right to play goal in
Speaker 3: the National Hockey League when he's been hit with his
Speaker 3: grief that he's had to encounter this year, and he
Speaker 3: probably just wants to try to take care of that
Speaker 3: with some counseling and some therapy. And good on him
Speaker 3: to actually say, look, I need to do this. I'm
Speaker 3: not as good an athlete or a person, a husband, father,
Speaker 3: or whatever until I take care of this mental health issue.
Speaker 1: I wonder while we're in this space, because I've never
Speaker 1: talked to you about this before. You know, I am
Speaker 1: a gen xer in my i'll say mid forties. I
Speaker 1: can say that for another like five days. And you know, Neil,
Speaker 1: when I was growing up, we weren't really encouraged to
Speaker 1: talk openly about mental health issues. And I was raised
Speaker 1: by very loving parents, you know, my mother and father.
Speaker 1: I'm not complaining about anything as far as how I
Speaker 1: was raised, but it was never really and I played
Speaker 1: sports up until you know, I was in college before
Speaker 1: I needed to find something else to do with my
Speaker 1: time because being a five to eleven white kid trying
Speaker 1: to guard Andrew Miller was not fun and It was
Speaker 1: never a thing a coach brought up. I had some
Speaker 1: really intense, quite frankly mean coaches I came up, and
Speaker 1: none of them ever really asked.
Speaker 2: Us how we were doing. It was just kind of
Speaker 2: a deal.
Speaker 1: And you ran hockey teams in the NHL in the nineties,
Speaker 1: very successfully winning a Stanley Cup. Was we're points of
Speaker 1: emphasis like this even part of the fabric of your
Speaker 1: job back in the nineties. And what do you make
Speaker 1: of kind of how this stuff has changed a little bit.
Speaker 3: Well, the whole society has changed for the better and
Speaker 3: become more open about and and recognizing that mental health
Speaker 3: is health. It's not h it's not made up. It
Speaker 3: is It's just the same as any kind of other disease.
Speaker 3: If you have a mental health issue, you have a
Speaker 3: type of disease that has to be uh fixed. And
Speaker 3: so I think in our day in the nineties, we
Speaker 3: had a psychotherapist. I'm not sure if he was clinically
Speaker 3: a certified or not, but we had a person that,
Speaker 3: you know, talk to the players from time to time
Speaker 3: just how they were doing, and was around the team
Speaker 3: a lot. So but it wasn't to the extent it
Speaker 3: is now where I'm sure that the player can go
Speaker 3: and say, look, I'm struggling because of this or this,
Speaker 3: and you know, I need some help, and the team
Speaker 3: would accommodate that, just as an employer would accommodate hopefully
Speaker 3: if one of their employees came to them and said,
Speaker 3: I'm really struggling at my job because I've got x
Speaker 3: YZ going on.
Speaker 1: I wonder one more question here. It feels like once
Speaker 1: upon a time there may have been a fear for
Speaker 1: a player to say, yes, I need a break, because
Speaker 1: he could lose his job. I wonder if that's anything
Speaker 1: that you ever saw, whether it was mental health or
Speaker 1: just injuries, players like, no, I can't take a break.
Speaker 1: I have a family, I need this job. I don't
Speaker 1: want some young upstart taking my gig.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I got to get another contract. I'm trying
Speaker 3: to play for another contract. I'll play hurt, I'll play
Speaker 3: in Greece. I mean in the old days of the
Speaker 3: let's say, when the players played in the sixties and
Speaker 3: the seventies, I mean, they didn't even go home when
Speaker 3: their child, when their wife was giving childbirth. They had
Speaker 3: to stay on the road with the team. You know.
Speaker 3: Now it's the common thing the players leave when they're
Speaker 3: going to have the birth of a child. So it's
Speaker 3: very much that players will play through things. But with
Speaker 3: concussions and so on, the leagues have all become more
Speaker 3: ultra conscious of head injuries which lead to mental issues,
Speaker 3: because if you get a concussion, you know you're going
Speaker 3: to have various mental issues during the time that it's healing,
Speaker 3: and clubs have become more aware of this.
Speaker 1: So what this does do, and again I don't want
Speaker 1: to diminish you know, Connor's bravery and we all wish
Speaker 1: him well and hope he's back soon. Now there's no
Speaker 1: debate about who the first choice goalie is. It is Mialka,
Speaker 1: who statistically is had a better year than Connor. And
Speaker 1: we've talked about it all year long. So what sort
Speaker 1: of dynamic does that bring? Is it just again, you know,
Speaker 1: good wishes to Connor, But knowing that Mamilka is the
Speaker 1: guy now, is that something that could maybe free him
Speaker 1: up when he knows the job is his no.
Speaker 3: Matter what, Oh I think, so I think he'll play better.
Speaker 3: The normal NHL team has a set number one in
Speaker 3: a set backup and they certainly have that now with
Speaker 3: Jackson Stober being the backup and of Vmilica being clearly
Speaker 3: number one, and Vimilica was rewarded with a new contract
Speaker 3: to by Bill Armstrong, so he showed him that he
Speaker 3: is definitely number one, and that's another player they took
Speaker 3: off the UFA market by giving him a new contract.
Speaker 3: So he said, a good year. Connor struggled this year,
Speaker 3: as we all know, but now maybe we know one
Speaker 3: of the reasons why he struggled, and that's with his
Speaker 3: personal situation.
Speaker 1: All right, Neil, kind of a broad picture, you know,
Speaker 1: big picture, broader question about the league right now, because
Speaker 1: I haven't talked to you since that March seventh trade deadline, which.
Speaker 2: Was last week.
Speaker 1: Yea, of all the moves that were made, and there
Speaker 1: were a ton, which one did you like the most?
Speaker 2: Which one left you scratching your head?
Speaker 3: Well, the one that made me scratch my head and
Speaker 3: probably every other part of me was the Carolina trading
Speaker 3: for Ranton and then not knowing whether they could sign him,
Speaker 3: and then not being able to sign him, and then
Speaker 3: turning around and trading him to Dallas, and it ended
Speaker 3: up that they lost Jack Drury and Marty Neckish to
Speaker 3: Colorado and got back Taylor Hall, and a bunch of picks.
Speaker 3: So that made me really wonder, like, what are you doing.
Speaker 3: You're supposed to know you could sign these guys before
Speaker 3: you trade for them. That's the common that's common operations
Speaker 3: to do it that way. The other one that I
Speaker 3: was startled by was I didn't think that Boston would
Speaker 3: ever trade their captain, Brad marsha On, and when they
Speaker 3: couldn't come to a deal with him, they ended up
Speaker 3: trading him to Florida, which has been Boston's nemesis the
Speaker 3: last few years. And Brad Marshaw now plays with two
Speaker 3: guys that terrorized each other in Sam Bennett and Matt
Speaker 3: Kachuck on Florida will now play with Brad marsha On
Speaker 3: on the same team. So you're going to have three
Speaker 3: very irritating guys now on the Florida Panthers. They had two,
Speaker 3: but now you're going to have the third one in
Speaker 3: Marshaan does a good job of that as well.
Speaker 1: So after the deadline, Vegas believes Florida and Dallas are
Speaker 1: the top Stanley Cup contenders.
Speaker 2: Now do you agree with that?
Speaker 3: I think Florida is a top contender. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: that Dallas is because they got Randman. I think they're
Speaker 3: really good. I would say Winnipeg is the team that
Speaker 3: I would put my two cents on because they've done
Speaker 3: it all year long. I'm not sure when you go
Speaker 3: out in the trade deadline and you get a big fish,
Speaker 3: that the big fish can get into the school and
Speaker 3: swim with the other fish right away, because it's a
Speaker 3: big change in the in the dynamic of the big
Speaker 3: change the dynamic of the team when you put a
Speaker 3: guy in that lineup that takes that much ice time.
Speaker 1: All right, my friend, where can all of our listeners go?
Speaker 1: Get that good podcast to yours.
Speaker 3: Any any podcast platform and YouTube and any anywhere and
Speaker 3: give us a listen. We had Paul Maurice on this
Speaker 3: week that was really funny. Actually he was on on
Speaker 3: the day of the deadline. You got to hear this story, Spence,
Speaker 3: because is a great one. So we're talking to Paul Maurice,
Speaker 3: the coach of the Florida Panthers, and we said to him,
Speaker 3: are you sure you want to do it today because
Speaker 3: it's a trade. They're like, no, no, no, it's fine,
Speaker 3: it's fine. We get into the interview and we're about
Speaker 3: half an hour in and he says, guys, I'll be
Speaker 3: right back. I just got to go for a few
Speaker 3: minutes here, you know what today is, and we sure
Speaker 3: go go. He goes away for five or ten minutes,
Speaker 3: comes back, finishes up. He went away to get informed
Speaker 3: that they were trading for Brad marsha on. So that
Speaker 3: that was really fun. But that's a good interview. Listen
Speaker 3: to listen to that one on NHL wrapper.
Speaker 2: Oh man, that is wild. Neil.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time, my friend. Have a great week
Speaker 1: and we will travel to you next week.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all my best spends. Thank you, all right.
Speaker 1: The great Neil Smith, general manager of the New York
Speaker 1: Rangers in the nineties, joins us on a weekly basis
Speaker 1: to help us understand the landscape of pro hockey now
Speaker 1: that we are a hockey town. The Utah Hockey Club
Speaker 1: back in action tomorrow, taking on Seattle