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