Listen up on October eighteenth from five to seven overtime cards and Sandy will host one of the star players on Utah's newest NHL team, the Utah Hockey Club, Center Logan Cooley, will be there signing autographs for all of his fans. Be there October eighteenth and buy your tickets to the signing at overtime cards and collectibles.
It is timed out to talk some hockey. Excited for this.
He's going to join us on a weekly basis all year long now that the hockey season is upon us. Former general manager of the New York Rangers. My man has won a Stanley Cup. It's great to catch up with Neil Smith once again on the drive. Neil Happy Wednesday, sir?
How are you happy Wednesday? Well, I'm okay, except you know, I live in South Carolina and we took the brunt of that hellene that just went through and hit you know, western North Carolina, and it hit Greenville, South Carolina, and we've been without power since since Friday. So you know, a lot of people think I'm in the dark all the time, but I'm definitely dark. Now.
Tell okay, I gotta know what's it been like to be in the eye of that storm. I mean, obviously I'm keeping up with the news cycle. Super sad. I think the last death con was like one hundred and fifty or something. So what's it been like, Deil, what's it like down there?
It was horrible during the storm. I mean, there was so much rain. We're in a mountainous area, so we don't there was no chance of flooding us, but there it was just a lot of down trees. And then when you go around these communities, and I particularly it's said when you go into a poor part of the community and see homes that have been hit by trees and power lines down, and you know that the people that live there probably don't have home owarers insurance and
probably don't have the money to fix the home. So that's what's really tough. And hopefully SEEMA can help those folks out because it's really sad.
Goodness, gracious, well, I'm glad you're safe, and I appreciate your time today, and I'm excited to have you on as a consistent guest to help all of us out her. Yeah, for sure, to help out all of us out here kind of learn this game. Is we are now Hockey Town, USA, and I want to start just generally speaking, Neil, what
is the preseason in the NHL? What are the points of emphasis in the preseason As a guy that was a roster constructor that ran teams, is it a combination of trying to understand who your young players are, kind of helping the vets fit in what ultimately is the preseason four mainly in pro hockey, it.
Actually is to give those players that are on the borderline of making it see how they can do within that major league setting of playing in some games. Albeit a lot of veterans aren't playing in those games. But you know, if you've got your player number twenty four to twenty five, you know just would be desentiment number eight, number nine, goaltender number three or four that you want
to see how close are they to playing? And the preseason is you know, people are playing at full out in preseason, as you can see by the number of injuries that have happened around the league. So that's what you're really trying to judge. You know, pretty much going into the training camp who your team's going to be. There might be a couple of spots open, but even then you know you're talking two or three at the most.
So so far, Neil, the Utah Hockey Club has looked really good in the preseason. Four one in zero should fan well, fans should be excited because we're getting hockey, period. But in your experience, does a successful preseason oftentimes tell a story about what you can see during the regular season or is there really not much there?
You know what, You've never really been able to judge it based on that. But the only thing is I will say, Spence, is that every hockey game you go into you want to win it. And even as a GM president, I mean I didn't like to sit through us losing a game, even when it was preseason, and even when we didn't have a lot of our regulars in the lineup. You just you never want to see your team lose. So starting four and one in preseason is never a bad thing. It can only be it
can only be positive. It may not be a complete picture of how the rest of the season's going to go. But I might add that the fans in Utah got to be excited because of the improvements that Doug Armstrong and sorry not Doug Armstrong, He's in Saint Louis that Bill Armstrong and his crew did this summer. I think they made some great improvements to the team. And you know, as I had told you in previous shows, I thought that the Arizona Coyotes were right on the cusp of
being a wild card contender. So I think these acquisitions they've made have pushed them up. Plus the stability of being in Utah this year, knowing that's where they're going to be, there's not going to be any rumors about moving the team somewhere else like there was for them last year. So I'm looking for really good things to come out of the Utah team this year.
Let me ask you about a couple of players here.
You referenced some of the additions that were made, and since you and I last spoke, Bill Armstrong in the front office brings in Mikel Sergachev there on that back line. He's a young defenseman but has already won a couple of Cups. And before the offseason you referenced that you thought that they might try to add to the defensive side, and certainly Mikhel Sergachev is a player that is now he's their highest paid defenseman. Again, twenty six years old.
He's been really impressive in preseason. What should our Utah hockey listener fans know about Mikel Sergachev.
You know, he's a winner. He's one of those two Stanley Cups in Tampa. He's a guy that I was surprised that they traded. He did get injured twice last year and for lengthy times. That doesn't mean that he's fragile or anything like that. That just means that you hope that that injury doesn't get it, you know, hurt again. But he's he's a very ultra competitive guy and he and he's a really good NHL defenseman. I mean you're talking, you know, a top four defenseman at the worst. He's
a top four guy. So that's a great acquisition and that's going to definitely strengthen Utah's defense.
So, you know, we talked about some of these players before, but I just kind of want to run run down the list here to help our hockey fan listeners kind of understand what this team is all about.
And it doesn't surprise you at all.
The Clayton Keller, even the preseason, is the leading scorer with a couple of goals and he also is leading with four assists sex total points. He is not a new player at all, but it looks like he is on his way to start him in this league. What should our listeners know about Clayton Keller?
What he should know about him is that he is a He is a great offensive talent. He's going to be probably the best, if not then very close to the best offensive player you've got. He enjoys scoring goals, he enjoys racking up points. I think on Knights, when he doesn't get a point, he's not happy with himself and he's not happy with his game. That doesn't mean that he puts his points ahead of the team winning. I don't mean that at all. But you need a
Clayton Keller on your team. You need that go to offensive guy that on a night when your team's not going great, that he comes up with his points, his goals and pushes you into a w and maybe he really didn't deserve it. So he is looking towards starting, he is looking towards being an all star in the league. And again I think he's just a great young player.
Bill in the front office made a couple of other acquisitions, so let's get into some other names here.
John Marino is another.
I mean, Sergyev was kind of like the offseason prize, but what should our listeners know about another new player?
And John Marino a veteran defenseman and a guy that's going to add to the of the depth of your defense. He's not going to be Sergachev, He's not going to be a highlight reel guy for sure, but he's going to be somebody that's been in the NHL quite a long time and is going to be able to really bolster the defense so that you it's going to be a police defense is going to be a part of the game in Utah that you're going to have a
lot of confidence in. You're going to go into games thinking, well, there's no way that they're just that we're going to be messing up defensively and getting scored on every night because we're not very good defensively. You are going to be good defensively for sure, because you've got a good defensive cores in Utah. To start this whole franchise with.
So Ian Cole, It's interesting because I wanted to get your take on this. This is a young team, right, but Ultimately, you do want to and the Jazz are doing this. They're bringing Patty Mills and some other vets, but the Jazz, you know, ultimately are relying on their young players to carry them towards the future. Sure, even called thirty five years old, what do you make of that signing having kind of a grown.
Up in the room.
I think he's just that they're trying to stabilize the room. You know, it's the young guys that are going to add the energy and then and they're going to add the foot speed and they're going to chase pucks. And it's going to be the older guys though, that particularly in the room, that have experience and that can play still obviously that they're still good NHL players, but they're not.
They don't have the foot speed that the younger guys do they They they maybe get more tired on back to back and and two and two three games and four nights in that situation, then at a thirty five year old is going to get more tired than a twenty one year old for sure, But they're going to
stabilize those young guys. When the young guys get too excited, get too off the you know, jumping off the deep end, they're gonna say, wha whaaa, wait a minute here, And that's why you need those older guys, those guys that can settle the younger guys down.
What is realistic to expect from some of these young draft picks right out of the gates. It's different in pro hockey than it is in the NBA when if you're drafted in the lottery, if you're drafted, drafted in the top five, you're expected to play right away, and you're paid like you're gonna play right away, generally speaking, because I know you've been without power. What would you tell our hockey fan listeners out here what to expect from the young players? How much do we expect them
to play right away? What does the development process look like and such?
Well, then, one thing you don't want to do with a young player if he's not ready, don't put him in the lineup and think that, well, he'll get ready while he's in the lineup, because that doesn't happen. You want to send him back to junior or you want to, you know, in a case of when he's over eligible to play in the miners, to go into the minor leagues and not jump into the NHL too soon, because
this is like spense. If you put a young guy in the NHL too early, it would be like taking a tenth grader and saying, Okay, we want to put you into Harvard and just we think you're ready for Harvard, and you know, the kid's a tenth grader. He's not ready for Harvard yet. Now, some brilliant tenth graders, they might be able to get by as a freshman at Harvard, but most can't. They need a couple more years. And
that's the same thing in the NHL. And you can really hurt the development of a player if you go if you put him in too early. So I think everybody's just got to be patient with the young the eighteen year olds, and don't expect that many are going to play in the NHL right away. There's going to be as you know, Celebrini's going to play for San Jose this year. Unfortunately he got hurt against Utah, but he's going to play in the NHL this year and
probably be one of San Jose's very best players. But that's, you know, a very high franchise pick on a very poor team and that's something totally different than Utah.
Utahd used their sixth pick on Teage again again, will excuse me. And you know his dad, Jerome, who obviously a Hall of Famer, what do you make of I know you haven't seen him play very much, and chances are he's not going to play a lot. He did play the other night, had an assist. But what would you tell our listeners about kind of this family tree, this pedigree between Jerome and his son teg You know.
I don't know their relationship. I imagine it's good, but I can speak to the character of Jerome again, the captain of the Calgary Flames for so long, and such a leader and fearless and played during a very tough era and and battled it out every night and then turned around and was polite to everybody and signed autographs all night, and I did anything that was asked of him.
And I'm sure that this z apple hasn't fallen far from the tree, meaning Teach is going to be just like his dad, And I'm sure he wants to emulate his dad, and he wants to make his dad proud of him, So I'm sure he's going to come in and have a lot of the same qualities that Jerome had.
How he plays, I don't know whether he be better off well tough to be better offensively than Jerome, really be a different type of player than Jerome, I don't know, but obviously the scouts thought enough of him to take them where they did, and he's certainly got great bloodlines having Jerome mcginnler. There's nobody who can say a bad word about Jerome mcginnler.
Connor Ingram is the goaltender out this way, and I just turned twenty seven, so he is still somewhat young and had a solid year last year. What's your expectation as far as growth year over year from the goaltender out here Connor Ingram?
He's had a really good part of his career. Now he's at the age when you know they should be taking that step into solidifying themselves as a number one goaltender, as a go to guy, as a guy that goes in against all the tougher opponents. He's right there in his age bractal, and he should be able to do that. And he certainly had an impressive year last year, a
year that you know, you and I have talked about it. It was tough to judge a lot of stuff based on last year's Coyotes team because you know, they were playing well, everything was going great, and then all of a sudden, it gets out that they might be moving to Utah, and it seemed like they couldn't. You know, you're playing in the little college arena and all these rumors are swirling around, and it seems like that seemed to take them down. But with Connor Ingram, I think they've definitely
got a number one goalie. How good he becomes is up to him, but he's at that age when he should be able to take that spot and run with it.
So we've seen Dylan Gunther and Logan Cooley playing together. Gunther's a right winger. Logan Cooley, who joined the show this week, is a center. But they're both really young. I want to ask you though, about the decision to sign Dylan Gunther to an eight year contract that's not even allowed in pro basketball. He has played really well in the preseason. Both these two youngsters look really good. How commonplace Neil is an eight year deal in pro hockey.
I'm gonna say something, Unfortunately, it's very common now and when I say unfortun because I just don't believe in giving eight year contract. But having said that, Bill Armstrong and the rest of the GMS are sort of sunk because that's the standard for that type of player, that
age player, that young player. He's coming off his entry level contract, and if he's a guy that you want to hold on to and you want to make sure that he plays his career with the Utah Club, you've got to sign him long term because that's what everybody else is getting. And if you said to him, I really only want to give you a three year contract, then they would say back here, well, we'll just let our contract expire and take our chances when it's going
to expire. So they've sort of got you in that sense. There's thirty two teams. There's not enough great enough great players to go around. So those players that you do have, like Gun there, that you know you want on the team for the for their whole career, you're sort of on bended knee at that point.
If you're the GM, tell us what you know about Andre Tourney.
They call him Bear and he's been kind of a fun character out here to get to know what sort of coach is he what sort of style of play does he like to play?
And what do you know about the head coach out this way, Neil.
I don't know him personally, And again I'm going to say that by judging him by what he had with Arizona in the first few years that he was coaching isn't fair. I think that you can really tell a lot about a coach once they you know, once their team is in a position where they can actually coach them and make a difference. If you don't have the player personnel, you know, you could have a god as
your coach and he can't get into the playoffs. But once you've got the player personnel, then the real skill set of the of the coach comes out. And I think with Andrey, he's got that team now. I think that he had it last year to that certain point. He you know, he's well liked, that's for sure. The players like him. There's there's nothing, there's no problems there. So this will be a good test for him this year in the first year in Utah.
So of course, you know, we like winners out here. We have a pro basketball team that's always been very good. They've never won a championship, but they've been very competitive. Just broadly speaking, Neil, what should expectations be, Should it be okay, this is a playoff team.
Should it be okay?
They should be in the mix at the end for a playoff spot or maybe even something beyond. What are your expectations from a thirty thousand foot view for the Utah Hockey Club this year?
My expectations for them are clearly that they should be in the battle all year to be at least in the wildcard spot. So that means they're battling in those top eight spots all year and to get into that eighth spot at the very least. If they are a team that isn't battling for that eighth spot, I'd be very disappointed. Based upon what they did last year, based upon their acquisitions, I would be very surprised if they weren't.
I did a show on NHL wrap Around, and we did the best off season improvements in the league, and I gave Utah honorable mention. Now we only did four teams and they got honorable mention, meaning they were five or six along with Saint Louis. That's pretty good. There were four obvious ones when you think about Nashville, when you think about New Jersey and Vancouver, but it was Utah actually, and Saint Louis and quite frankly Chicago, who I don't think will make the playoffs, but he's improved
during the offseason. But I think the Utah should really be kicking at the door to be in the playoffs next year.
You brought up Chicago, Neil, You're sorry, sure, sure, sure, yeah, we got you. Since you brought up Chicago, let's dig in because that's the first game. And I still every time I say next week, the Chicago Blackhawks are going to be in town, I just started laughing because I never thought I'd say the sentence. But they're landing here to play Utah Hockey Club in the a nogural game. The home opener tell us about Chicago the first opponent for Utah Hockey Club next week.
Well, they're going to be. You know, Connor Badar is their headliner. They have made a lot of acquisitions during the summer to take themselves from a doormat team to at least a team that's going to give other teams in the league trouble. Uh, They're They're not gonna be an easy w for anybody this season. And and they got a new captain and Nick Calino, who was there last season by the way, with them, and and that's a that's a good pick for them of a captain.
Uh Marazik will probably be in net that first night. I think you're going to see an exciting team. It's not, as I said, it's not gonna be a pushover for Utah that first night. But anytime you can see Connor Badard play, it's it's it's a it's a good night because this guy is a is a tremendous young player. He's very small, but he's like a little buzz saw. He can He's got tremendous skill.
All Right, Neil, before I say you lose, who do you like in the West?
Who are the teams that are Utah Hockey Club fan listeners should be watching out for As far as the cream of the crop out here in the Western Conference, I think the.
National Predators made it and enormous improvements in the offseason. They're an older team, but they don't care. They seem to be wanting to play. They're going for twenty five. They're not going for twenty seven or twenty eight, meaning twenty twenty eight or twenty twenty seven. They're going for twenty twenty five. I think they'll be very good. I think Vancouver made some improvements and they were already good
last year. And of course you're always going to want to make sure that you have tickets to go and see Utah play against Edmondson and you get to see Connor McDavid, you get to see a dry Tidle and Zach Hyman. Those three guys are tremendous along with the rest of their team. I mean they went to Game seven in the finals, so there was a reason for that. But those three teams in the West I think are superior teams.
All right, Neil, before I say you lose, we have a lot of new hockey fans out here. We have a lot of hockey fans out here period. That building has been jam packed for preseason action.
They're looking for content.
You've got a great podcast for our listeners out here.
Where can they go find all your work?
Well, it's called NHL Wrap Around and I host it with my buddy Vick Moron, who's an encyclopedia memory of the NHL. But you can get it on any podcast platform, and we like to ask very interesting questions and have great guests and not be doing what everybody else is doing in the media. We're consider ourselves hockey guys that
are asking other hockey guys about what they think. So I think anybody would find it interesting and you'll learn things that you didn't know before you turned it on, and that's our goal.
Neil, Thank you, sir, Stay safe out there. Thanks so much for the time, and you're really thrilled to have you along.
Two things I got to say to you before you run goe is you got to say that I'm a prophet the way I said that it would be called the Utah Hockey Club. Yes, sir, seventeen years ago, weren't you with me in not seventeen years ago, twenty seven years ago? Weren't you with me in the Miami Arena with your dad when we were playing in the playoffs against the Florida Panthers.
Let's see twenty seven. Yes, I'm good memory. I had forgotten about it.
Wow. And here's a great story for you.
Okay.
I ratted you out to your dad about drinking mountain dew. You were drinking mountain dew, and I said, Deeve, I thought you weren't supposed to have any caffeines. And he said, well, he's drinking that. That's not a that's not coke. I said, Mountain Dew has more caffeine in than any drink you can find. And he went, oh, my goodness, and he pulled you away. So all these years later, I still remember ratting you out on the on the caffeine, Neil.
That was the beginning of a long, slippery slow my friend. But I do you remember that, good memory. I haven't thought about that in a long time, so now I know it was you. It caused the Mountain Dew.
To be ripped away from me.
Yes, it was sorry to say. I gotta admit it. After twenty seven.
Years, All good sir, Thanks so much for the time. Excited to have you on all year long.
Can't wait to be on next time.
The great Neil Smith, general manager of the Rangers. He's going to a former general manager of the Rangers, the chief scout for the Red Wings. He's gonna join us all year long. I bet my dad wishes it was still Mountain Dew. I'm just gonna leave that there. Did you hear that story.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Yeah, I was routed out for drinking mountain dew when I was like sixteen or seventeen years old.
Back in the day.
I never knew was Neil Smith who told my dad so funny, I think, just at the beginning of so many letdowns from my pops.
Love you dad, all right.
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