This is Neil Smith, former president and GM of the New York Rangers and the New York Islanders. Join me and my co host Vic Morn for our podcast NHL Wrap Around for all the important news and views around the NHL.
The Utah Hockey Club went up to Edmonton last night and they got their breaks blown off seven to one. Edmonton gets the win. The hockey club tryna stay alive in that wildcard race. So let's bring in the man that educates, entertains, informs when it comes to the world of professional hockey, the Great Neil Smith. On a Wednesday afternoon, Neil, Happy Wednesday, sir, How are.
You happy Wednesday?
Do you?
And happy belated Saint Patrick's Day from Monday?
Yes, indeed, Saint Patrick's Day Monday.
And Neil, in case you didn't know, birthday for your guy over here, my birthday, Saint Patrick's day.
Oh that's my sister's birthday. Well look at that. That's great. Happy birthday. I know you are, you know, twenty six now?
Oh goodness goodness, Neil.
I'm a rapidly but you know, like, I'm not that old, So I always feel bad when I say that I'm old, But I just turned forty seven.
Oh my, well, you're a youngster. You're a youngster. You got a long way to go to catch me.
Well, I appreciate it.
It's but Neil, I'm old enough now to realize that just like physical pain is probably part of the deal, right, you just get up and the hip perts or whatever.
It's just kind of the deal, right, That's.
Just part of that's just part of the aging system, is that everything seems to start working less sufficiently as we go along.
Yes, indeed, hey, before we get into kind of the nuts and bolts of what happened last night and where we're at with our local hockey club, I've just got a question about Connor McDavid. And I know that people that really know hockey know that who Connor McDavid. You know who Connor McDavid is and what he is in the ecosystem.
Of pro hockey.
But I was telling my producer reporter during the break, like, even if you don't know a sport, you always know the guy that's different, right, And there's just something I don't know if it's just his speed, I don't know if it's just his skill.
There there's something about Connor McDavid.
It sets him apart from the best players every time I watch him play.
What makes him as special as he is, I.
Think it's his speed, a it's his fact that he's six over six ft, he's about six foot three. He can do things at a higher rate of speed than some people could do it in his shoes on. You know, he can do things on the ice at a very high rate of speed that people they can't just can't imagine. So I think that he embodies what people love about hockey, and that is the speed, the physicality, and the skill.
And I think that he's able to He's certainly not a physical player in the sense of throwing out big body checks, but he can take whatever physical play you want to play on him. And I think that that's why you always notice ninety seven. If you go down Edmonton game, there's no way you're leaving without having seen and noticed ninety seven on the eights.
They had one play last night. They had a power play opportunity. And I honestly don't know how often hockey teams run like set plays the way basketball teams do, like a one four flat, a pick and roll, or you know, whatever it is. But it was very intentional to get Connor McDavid the puck as he had momentum, and the rest of the guys looked like they were just flat footed. I mean, it was pretty remarkable. What's
your take on Edmonton overall as a team. I mean, obviously we're prisoner of the moment because they just stomped the hockey club seven to one. But I was very impressed with what I saw last night from the Edmonton Oilers.
Well you'd have to be, because there was a beatdown. But Edmonton is a very inconsistent team. You really don't know what you're going to get from one night to the next. They have the ability to do what they did last night, and they also have the ability to turn around and lose to a bottom feed or team because they're for whatever reason, and last night. Here's the impressive thing about last night, and it happened to be Utah. It could have been anybody. Anybody in that building last
night was going to get beat. The impressive thing for Edmondson was seven goals, fourteen assists probably on those seven goals or however many, and Leon dry title the leading scorer in the NHL goals wise, didn't get a point. So that means they had contributions from all kinds of people those to get those seven goals, but none of them were Leon dry Sitle. Usually you'll go to you'll watch an Oiler game and dry Title will get one or two. I thought he might get his fiftieth last
night in Salt Lake. I'm sorry, in Edmonton against Utah, but he wasn't able to do it. But just think how stacked is your team when your best scorer doesn't get a point and you win seven to one.
Yeah, that is impressive.
I wonder so coach Tourney pulled the Melka after Correll game up three goals and went with Jackson Stauberd didn't do any better.
He gave up four.
But last night was Correll's twelfth straight start in goal, and that's a career high. Connor Ingram away from the team dealing with some personal things, as we discussed last year, do you think you could draw a straight line? I mean, I just thought it was kind of ironic as the broadcast was outlining that Vimelka had never started twelve straight before. Then suddenly the game starts and he just he was up against it. There wasn't much he could do. Do
you think it's a fatigue thing? Is that a concern now that there are other kind of first choice guys on the sidelines. That Vimelka looked as tired as he did last.
Night, you know, certainly could be it, because you know, that's tough to keep playing night after night in the National Hockey League, in today's NHL, where you're playing almost every other day on average, So you know, it could be that. It could be a combination of him being tired and Edmondson also being at the top of their game last night. You know, he played two days earlier in Vancouver. They fly over to Edmonton get ready for that game. Now they've got one day off and they're
going to be two more night against Buffalo. And that's just the way the NHL works. But it's hard when you're running one goalie all the time. And you know, Jackson Stauber is a fine young guy, but he's you know, is he ready for the show? You know, I don't know. He wasn't up. The only reason he's up is because Connor Ingram has had to take his leave of the absence,
so we'll see. I mean, Vanilka is a good goalie may have had an off night, or maybe coach Torney thought that he was having an off night, so better to rest him and get him out of there. A lot of coaches too, you know, they think they're down four nothing to Edmonton, and they say, look, we're not winning this game. So I'm taking my guy out to give him a rest. Let him wait for the Buffalo game now. And you see that happen a lot.
So where we find ourselves now?
And I don't know, Like I was talking to a couple of guys with the hockey club, the work on the broadcast side, and a gentleman who's producing games, who used to produce the Arizona Coyotes games, and he's been around the NHL for about twenty years, and this was about a week and a half ago, and I said, you think.
They're gonna make it?
He said, I don't think most people understand how hard it is to make up even three or four points over the final fifteen to sixteen games.
And he painted kind of a bleak.
Picture as far as the hockey club qualifying for the wild card. Neil, and where we're at now is a four point gap with fourteen games left to play have stranger things happened, certainly, But what's the Neil Smith, I guess I'll say, like handicap. The chances of us seeing playoff hockey here in Utah this year.
I don't think they're very good because your friend was absolutely right. You've got to jump so many teams and you've got to put together a string of wins, and even then you might gain two points up Because here's the thing that people have to understand. Well, it looks like you're only, you know, four points back of Vancouver
and Saint Louis, who are tied. Everybody's playing every night, and everybody's getting points here and there, or teams in between you and that wild card spot are getting teams top points. Last night, a horrible thing for the Utah Hockey Club happened. Everybody thought that Calgary would go down to the Rangers. Calgary had gotten killed in Toronto the night before. They got in at three am. They put
their backup goalie in and they beat the Rangers. The Rangers had only four of their forwards had shots on net last night, so they put in a horrible effort. Calgary comes away with the two points. Stuff like that really hurts Utah's chance to jump over teams. Now, if they put together a string of five or six games and then go back to five hundred after that, you know,
then they're you know, they got a real shot. But they at this point to hurdle over these teams who are playing every night, because what will happen is you'll win a game, say the Buffalo, and then you look back at the standings and you'll say, oh my god, we're still four points behind. Well the reason for that is because Vancouver went in and beat Saint Louis on the same night as you beat Buffalo, so they got two more points. You've got two more points. You're still
the same number behind. So it's very difficult. You've got to put together a string of wins to make up some ground.
And only fourteen games left.
I mean, there's not a lot of opportunities now to make up the ground.
Good, Neil good.
Let me give you the optimist side of this. They play only eight games out of those fourteen, Eight of them are against non playoff teams, teams that currently sit in outside the playoffs eight out of their fourteen, meaning only six of the fourteen are the battling playoff teams. They played Tampa Bay twice, once in Utah, once in Tampa, they play Florida, they play La King's, Winnipeg and Dallas. That's the playoff teams that they've got to play against.
They got to make sure that when they get the chance, like with Buffalo, who's one of the weak sisters last in the East, they got to take advantage of that. And they have to beat Buffalo on Thursday night to make up some ground that we've been talking about.
So if we just kind of exist in reality and we just admit that it's going to be tough while maintaining a little bit of hope, because that's what being a sports fan is. What would you say about what this year has meant to the club being in a new market, and what would you say to the fans about the future of where we could find ourselves based off of the way that Bill Armstrong and his staff have put together this roster.
Well, what I think is really optimistic and good or positive for this hockey club is that they've gotten to a new market, they've gotten settled in, they've got a fan base, they've got a beautiful arena. They're going to change the name, or even leaving it the same will be changing it, if you know what I mean, because it's still that's still something exciting that's out there that's going to happen in the offseason. They got a lot of good young talent. They're an up and coming organization.
They do have a coverboard that has quite a bit of assets in it. So I think that you're seeing a team. But we've talked about this from the first day that's on the verge of getting into that group of playoff teams. And once you break into that, then somebody's trying to knock you to get you out and let them get in, and that's really hard as you can see. But I think they've made megas depths since they've gotten to Utah compared to where they were at
in Arizona. With Arizona, there wasn't a lot of hope, There wasn't a lot of money to be spent on free agents. There was Bill Armstrong was basically operating with one arm handcuffed. Now he's not. He's got a good owner, he's got a good fan base, he's got people that want hockey in that city, unlike Arizona. So I think You're miles ahead of where you were last year.
Neil, before I said you loose, I know you got to get going today. I wanted you to settle a debate that I was having with my brothers, actually, who are hockey hockey guys in a way that you know, I just never have been entirely. I enjoyed the sport, loved growing up, going to ranger games and all that.
We were talking about the Four Nations, and you know.
We were talking about the tournament because it was such a pleasant surprise for so many people that didn't think it was going to be anything all that entertaining. If Russia is allowed in, are they the best hockey country or is it still Canada.
You know, I'm Canadian, so of course I'm going to think that it's Canada. But I think that Russia produces a ton of great hockey players, and on any given year it could go either way. I think that the I think that the only way you know who truly is the world's best team is when you have a
full complement of countries in it, which includes Russia. But I don't want to see them in as long as they're going in and trying to take over other countries and do what they've been doing in the last two years. I just don't think that we should we should ignore that. I think that we should, you know, say, okay, in our little world of hockey. You know, if you're going to do that, you're not part of our world. So but they are a tremendous breeding ground for hockey players Neil work.
Can our listeners go find the podcast before I set you loose.
Anywhere anywhere on any platform. NHL wrapped around. We had Paul Maurice, Stanley Cup winning coach on a couple of weeks ago, and we're coming down the stretch here and we're looking at everything as as closely as we can. I give you everything we can of tidbits on the NHL. But do you know who I'm going to dinner with tonight?
Who's that?
Your father? Oh?
Very nice, very nice, very nice.
Where are you guys going to go in the city at Wolfgang Steakhouse? And Amy k will be there and ken Unos will be there. Oh, I don't know all those names. So that it's going to be a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to that.
Oh, and you're going to Wolfgangs he likes you more than like he likes me. He takes me to check fil A when we go to dinner. So enjoy your state deal. But please tell him hello, and tell everybody high and have a good time.
Okay, thanks buddy, see you soon.
The Great Neil Smith Utah Key Club. Yeah, they got dog walked last night. Like I was telling Porter, I was gonna watch that Carolina San Diego state game, and after Carolina ran away with him, I'm like, all right,
let's check out the hockey club. And I turned it over in time to see Edmonton put three on Vamelica in the first period, and then coach Torney pulled Vmelka and decided to try his hand at the starboard kid as Connor Ingram was still on the sidelines, and all due respect to uh to Starburn, it didn't go better for him at all. Jackson Starboro allowed four goals after Lamelca allowed three, and it's just gonna be tough, you know. Ultimately, I would love to see it happened. Playoff hockey rules.
If you've never seen Stanley Cup playoff hockey, you should check it out.
It's a lot of fun.
Connor McDavid, what is the what's the equivalent of a Connor McDavid in another sport, Like if somebody doesn't know the game of basketball, they could turn on a Warriors game and tell that Steph is just different based off the way he makes shots. I was just watching that game last night, and I don't grind on hockey tape every night, but every time McDavid got the puck with a full head of steam, it's like that dude is different.
It's it's hard number one. I'm to be clear, not Neil Smith. I haven't won a Stanley Cup, so my expertise not yet.
Not.
Yes, you never know who the Smith Entertainment Group might hire as the hockey team keeps going on.
But no, are you throwing your name in the ring if Bill Armstrong moves on, you want to be the GM why not?
Why not?
But the name you brought up with Steph Curry And while he is like a similar we talked about the term gravity in sports and he has that it's it's not as much on the scoring side as it is creating.
Right.
You You look at Wayne Gretzky and I think if you take out like all of Wayne Gretzky's goals, he still is like second all time in scoring with all the assists that he creates, and Connor McDavid has more of that than he does, say Alexandrovetchkin, who just puts shots in the back of the net over and over
and over and over again. So it's really interesting to watch because he he creates for his teammates as he is at You know, every player has a little bit of it, but the way he does it, you're just seeing open shots for other guys, and that is something that I don't know how to compare that in the NBA ranks, like Lebron ish like a guy that has the scoring title but also kind of is more of a passer. That's that's you know, he's not sixty nine
to sixty, but that's kind of the name. I look at a Magic Johnson and lebron a guy that puts up a bunch of points and somehow has the gravity to bring in the players around him. Luka Doncic, if you're looking at kind of a new era, new new age.
Guy, it was wildly impressive.
Now the hockey club has a uphill climb at this point, as I referenced, fourteen games left to try to make up a four point gap. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it is coming up on Thursday. So tomorrow Buffalos in town. Three game homestand for the hockey club, it's Buffalo, it's Tampa Bay and then Detroit. Then a three game road trip following a following that, it's a four game homestand then they're going to finish off with three on the road at Dallas AD Nashville and.
At the Saint Louis Blues.
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