The Sheet with Jeff Marek - On the Sheet: Troy Smith

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Troy Smith joins Jeff Marek to tell a legendary Danbury Trashers story, provide some insight on what it was like to coach for and against McDavid, explain how Auston Matthews is always open, and break down why the Winnipeg Jets are getting beaten so easily in transition.--------------------------------------------Connect with us on ⬇️Daily FaceoffX: https://x.com/DailyFaceoffInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailyfaceoff/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dailyfaceoff/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dailyfaceoff?lang=enWebsite: https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/The SheetX: https://x.com/thesheethockeyInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesheethockey/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thesheethockeyDaily Faceoff Merch:https://nationgear.ca/collections/daily-faceoff Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it.

Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. In the meantime, we'll bring on our future guests of the show here today. He is Troy Smith. He is a former head coach of the Kitchener Rangers and the Saginaw Spirit of the OHL. His social media feed, check him out on IG.

That's where I do most of my living for Smitty. Hockey IQ is the feed. Some fascinating breakdowns. I think a lot of this is aimed at players and coaches as well. And he's here to share some insight and some great stories as well. Please welcome On The Sheet with Troy Smith. How are you today, Smitty? I'm great, Jeff.

How about you? Thanks for having me on. The pleasure is all mine. Welcome on the sheet with Troy Smith. How are you today, Smitty? I'm great, Jeff. How about you? Thanks for having me on. The pleasure is all mine. Now, before we get to the videos, before we get to your time with Danbury and the Trashers, did you see the recent news about Michael Misa today? I actually just heard it as I was listening to your intro. And based on the rule book, you actually got off easy. And I'll use Saginaw as the example.

The year, I think they were in the conference finals, Ivan Prosvitov, after a big save or a game, I can't remember, smashed the puck into the crowd and 10 games in the middle of playoffs. But obviously it's the teddy bear toss, which I'm sure there was no harm, but the rules are the rules and tough one for Mesa.

Tough one for Mesa, tough one for Saginaw. I mean, listen, the Kitchener Rangers, I mean, when you were there, certainly as well, Kitchener Rangers always have a proud tradition of teddy bear toss games. I think they were the first team in the OHL to do the teddy bear toss.

In the Western Hockey League, these nights are legend, and they're spreading. Hershey Bears do a great one for all the obvious reasons. What's a teddy bear toss game like for a coach? Horrible. Absolutely awful. And I'll tell you this, this is the truth.

The win is just getting a goal. And the sooner you can get the goal, as a coach, you're happy. Nobody ever wants to get shut out. It's obviously a great thrill when you see all the Bears go out and everything goes for a great cause, but it is not the most fun as a coach. It's almost like a playoff game because you know it's going to make the media if you don't score goals.

So the earlier the better, but I think the latest we went in was, I want to say it was the third period. So there was a game, Smitty. but I think the latest we went in was, I want to say it was the third period. There, I, so there was a game Smitty, Portland, winter Hawks, Vancouver giants that went into overtime.

And this is when Portland had taken a downturn and Vancouver was really good. It was zero, zero games in Portland. And it goes to OT at Bagels. Portland scores. But if Vancouver would have scored, like that would have been it. You can find it online.

The place pops a cork out of a champagne bottle. Like I don't know what you would do with the Bears if the other team would have scored and it would have been 1-0 and you had to go home with the Bears or you just throw them on the ice at the end. I don't know. I don't know. Anyway. Okay.

So there's the teddy bear toss fun. Let me ask you before we get to these videos and you brought a video for us. Tell us the story. You played for Danbury one year and we've all seen the documentary about how crazy it was. But every time I've talked to you about it,

you've always made the point they could have done five or six of these documentaries. There are so many stories. Every player who ever played for Danbury has a story. Can you tell us the story with as much color as you can for the podcast audience, the story of Frankie by a Lois legendary tough guy and his one game with Danbury yeah absolutely so he played six games total I was there for one of them and that year he hadn't played for us and to kind of

backtrack and give everybody an idea as to how I knew who he was and things like that there was a player Sean McCosh who lived with me uh steelhawks way way back and in 1998 i went to joe lewis arena with jesse bowler east who was a flyers prospect at the time we went to the phantoms dressing room it was during the 98 olympic break so they had uh i don't know if it's adirondack or grand rapids doesn't matter but i knew who frank was because of that so fast forward to 2006 i'm playing for the infamous Danbury Trashers. And you are right. There's a version of stories that probably could never be told and need to be told at a bar or some type of setting like that.

And then there's still plenty of other stories that can be told publicly. But it was a pretty nondescript night. It was a Tuesday night. We were playing Adirondack, and the reality is that because of some things that Barry Melrose said, and I want to say that Steve Levy did as well. They were the owners of the Adirondack team. Jimmy Galante and AJ really didn't like Adirondack, and they were our closest rival.

They had a great team as well. But I walk into the dressing room just like any other game. And as I'm walking to my stall, all of a sudden I look and I'm in my head and holy shit, it's Frank, the animal. I'm kind of looking around, just completely confused and don't think much of it.

We all start talking in the dressing room what's frank doing here all the whispers in the corner nobody wants frank to hear it because we're all afraid of frank even though i ended up actually being a really nice guy um so we get dressed and and this was really the kicker that caught everybody off guard i don't think anybody knew about it so the way they had to redo that whole rink so you'd take it was about a four or five minute walk you'd have to go down a couple flights of stairs through the auxiliary rink we get on the ice and anybody you know like yourself jeff that's a wrestling fan knows the sound of the undertaker so we get on the ice and it's all your dong dong thinking that's weird that's not our warm-up

music that's nothing like we would normally come out to next thing we know we look down at the far end which is the adirondacks end and and they've got a video screen that's up on the wall that they utilize yeah and all it is is there's three or four it's about three or four minutes long but it's all clips of Frank from the year before, sucker punching guys trying to get away from the referees. Well, we've got the video. Actually, pause for one second, Smitty. We're going to run the video here.

If you could talk over top of it. So this is the video that they played for Frankie Bialowis, Danbury Trashers, as he had one job that day, Smith. And what was that job that he had that day? Well, he didn't get done, but we can talk about that later. But it was literally just to come in and fight an honest, tough guy named Blue Benefield. He was really tough. But you can see this is playing on the board before the game where it's just frank

pounding on guys and it looped for the whole thing and then you see the undertaker eventually it gets to uh like there's a sucker punch all the things that frank had done the year before they just intertwine this and as a player you can imagine what i'm thinking it's it's bad enough that we're literally just saying we brought this guy in to be essentially a madman. And that's a nod to just how popular he was in Philadelphia, where he even had a boxing match, it looks like. So they played this throughout and throughout for the whole warm-up. Think about that, even just the throat slash gesture. It was a different time.

Different time. Not that long ago, though. But as a player skating around, I'm thinking to myself, thank God we got about 19 other guys that are tougher than me, and I won't have to do anything tonight if this gets out of hand. Yeah. But imagine being Blue Benefield. Well, if Zach had been calling Audible here, is there a chance we can we can fast forward this and get it right to the right to the conclusion?

Like, I don't know if this qualifies Smitty as putting a bounty on someone's head, but he was brought in. I think they paid him like three thousand bucks. And there it is right at the end of the video. This one's for you, Blue. Like if you blew benefield then you're seeing this in in warm-up and then during the game blue wanted no part of them no part we started they they to their credit they started blue we start frank the animal and we think okay they're gonna go and it'll be over with and we'll move on but yeah we

play that and that is a bounty let's be honest i'm pretty sure that's what man's head jimmy didn't care right i think jimmy yep i'm pretty confident that jimmy gave richard brosell the president of the united hockey league a check for whatever the amount was and basically just said when i run out of money call me and i'll send another check so he didn't care yeah but the puck drops frank starts trying to push him blue wants nothing to do with it frank's minus two but he goes home with three grand but legendary story because i've never seen anything i don't think you will ever see anything like that again. But it's a story that I was shocked they didn't talk about in the documentary

because really we did put a bounty on a man's head there. There was no doubt about it. You sound like Strother Martin from my little Slapshot movie. Okay, really quickly, I want to get to a couple of players and a couple of your videos at Hockey IQ, which by the way, I know you intend it for players and coaches, but this is like really valuable stuff for fans to try to understand the game and understand what's going on out there. But before we get to the videos, I want to ask about coaching against and also coaching Connor McDavid. When you're coaching in the OHL, you had to game plan against them.

And then you coach them at the U17s as well. Like, what are some of the things that you can recall from a young Connor McDavid? First of all, unbelievable person. He's a phenomenal first class guy. I think the biggest thing when you coach him, I remember at U17, it's a very condensed schedule. So coaches tend to overcoach a lot and show a lot of video in those tournaments. And I can remember watching him during the video sessions, and he wouldn't not be looking, but you could see his foot tapping,

which is usually a tail that somebody's for. And I remember asking him after one of the video sessions, do you really not like videos? It's okay. Like, are you watching he goes yeah yeah i'm watching and sure enough though you get on the ice and he'd always be in the exact right spot and uh you know to be that close to him on the good side of it he just dominated that tournament he was next level and coaching against them not quite as enjoyable. I'll be honest. We played Erie eight times a year, the two years that I was head coach in Kitchener.

And he made us look bad pretty much every night. You know, there was a lot of perceived broken ankles. The one thing about McDavid that I don't think people realize is his ability to gain speed as he's basically skating forward, but crossing over. So kind of, you know, goes one way, goes the other is better than anybody that I've ever seen. And I remember the one game we did a pre-scout and they had a face off where essentially they won it to Connor. He skated around the net and then i believe it was to bring it to the back door no wonder we didn't have a great record against the otters during that time and so before the game mike van ryan uh draws it up we're ready for it we're prepared

puck drops sure enough they run the same thing where connor grabs it goes around the net and basically we just said to the guys, just stand in front. Put your sticks down. Get in the way. Don't go chase him. If you go chase him, he's going to find somebody else. He still found him ranking on the back door. And he's just a special player.

I don't think it takes anybody with any sort of hockey background to see just how special he is. But I would argue that one of his biggest things is not just spatial awareness but when you watch him his ability to separate and this is what i was talking about with entries his ability to separate his upper half from his lower half is unbelievable and what i mean by that for those that are listening that can't see it is his legs can be going one way and his body's going a completely different way and the ability to do that at top speed really separates a lot of players but in terms of the best in the NHL Connor McDavid's that person

if you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your push.

Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Bye, Longshot. All day, every day. Okay, I want to get to a couple of your videos here. The Winnipeg Jets have now lost four games in a row. How?

Because we all know this. teams will game plan and find out tendencies and then game planning against and now it's up to scott or neil to try to figure out okay teams are expecting this now what do i do in response there's one thing very specifically that you've isolated about winnipeg's game that teams like the dallas, for example, even National Predators, have been able to isolate and exploit. Walk us through this one. Yeah, so first of all, I think I touched a nerve putting that on Twitter. I had quite a number of excuses from Jets fans, so I apologize. I was just trying to point something out and really trying to educate coaches and players.

But essentially what it is, is their defensemen were pinching on every single breakout so whether or not generally speaking for the most part when the team has full control and nick if you can just pause it by by chance um when a team has full control usually the d back off you're going to skate forwards and gap up but you can see on the video that the defenseman comes right down so you can let it roll now. And what was happening was basically in this game, which was, I think, November 23rd, Nashville is just going to let that puck go by. And you see in the video where those players were ready to go, the other players,

so the centerman and the net front forward and the weak side forward, were already ready to get up ice and essentially bypass that pressure. And when you bypass the pressure like that, a lot of times it's going to end up in an odd man rush because the forwards are too low trying to create offense. And that's really what happened. You see it once here. This is in the first period that we're watching of the Nashville game

where it's obvious that this is what they've talked about. They just reverse pinch or counter pinch, which what that means is the winger skates out and basically lifts the defenseman's stick or creates a battle where that puck can get past them. Let the puck, you know, it's funny too because when the Pittsburgh Penguins won their last two Stanley Cups, I was talking to one of the Penguins defensemen and he's like, this,

this is how, this is how we won. We just said on, on, on every exit, our defensemen would drop down, even just to hold up, just to hold up the winger,

even a little bit, our wingers would regroup the turnover would happen. And we'd be right back into the, into the zone. Like that was, it's funny too. Cause you look at that last goal, the game winning goal,

I think might've been Hornquist, the game against Nashville for the Stanley Cup. It's the exact play. And like all the Penguins defenders, like just get in there and just slow them down. Just interfere, stick in, tiny things like that. And this defenseman I was talking to said, nobody figured it out. We did it for two years and won two Stanley Cups. We just kept the puck in their zone.

Not bad. And that's, that's really the game. It's just a whole bunch of little battles all over the ice, right? Yeah. One of the things that I think a lot of people are curious about when it comes to goal scorers is how they get open. And I want to get to Austin Matthews here, but I want to tell a really quick story. Brett Hull used to always have the great quote, the great line, sometimes the best way to be in the play is to be out of the play.

Now, one of the great things that Brett Hall was always able to do was be able to get out of everyone's attention and then back into a scoring position, and then Adam Oates would find him and the puck would be in the back of the net. But that line always stuck with me. Sometimes the best way to be in the play is to be out of the play and almost hiding on the ice. how does austin matthews do it and just to your point there's a lot of players that get lost and one of the clips at the end of this is him skating behind

the net but joe pavelski was a master at that when he played as well he was excellent at that but really it's amazing i think the status status 75% of Matthews goals are five on five are not powerful. Some of them could be empty netters. But it's an insane stat that he can score that much when there's so little room on the ice. So my little nephew loves Austin Matthews drew so I started watching what he does. it's really amazing um when you watch the clip the big thing is and we used to have a line we'll watch this clip first it's a clip on an entry where it's amazing to me that nobody on chicago realizes that the most lethal goal scorer on the ice is behind them but he gets away from traffic so to your point point, Jeff, he's getting himself lost in that regard

where he just slows down, is patient, waits for it. Watching here now, we can keep it going. The Boston clip shows a really good example of it as well here where it's on an entry and they just leave him, but he knows where to go. And we'll see here on the replay here, after the puck's moved, rather than just drifting off to a corner, those that aren't able to watch this right now, you'll see he just goes right to the front of the net,

and he's in prime scoring position, but he's just so sneaky getting behind people. Watching here, this is really the thing that he does the most. He's always facing the puck we used to have a line in junior about if you got eyes in the back of your head join the circus because you'll make a lot more money matthews realizes that and look how he just he's always pivoting and seeing where the puck is and that's that's a really hard habit for players to develop but as you watch these clips it's obviously key to what Matthews does.

Like right here, most players would turn their back and start heading towards the net. He continually faces the puck. And by doing that, he's able to find that open ice. And there he is. That's from last year, but he's wide open in the home plate, which is the area in front of the net, what I would call the area in front of the net.

But it's all because he's looking at the puck, right? Facing the puck, sees how the play is going to develop. And even there, he just slows down and waits for Domi to get him the puck, waits for that lane, and obviously he's got a lethal release. But for young players or coaches, you can see here he doesn't stick handle it. For young players or coaches, that's what I would watch with Matthews is just what he's doing away from the puck. So right there he's covered.

We talked about this. He gets lost behind the net. But again, he's already looking to where he can go, so he knows what he wants to do with it before he gets the puck. Gets it, moves it past, jumps past to the net, and he's wide open. So really for me, that's the key with Matthews. It's his ability to just view the play by always facing the puck. He never turns his back on it.

So you spot shadowed something that I think is really salient for a lot of players, young players specifically. No dust. There's no dusting of the puck before he shoots. A lot of players will grab the puck and they'll load and load and load and load. All you're doinging of the puck before he shoots. A lot of players will grab the puck and they'll load and load and load and load. And all you're doing is allowing the goaltender time to get set, to get square, defense to read, all of it. He gets it, it's gone. You have a thought on that one for Matthews and for your other players? And that's the thing at the major

junior level that would drive coaches nuts because as the talent pool gets smaller and smaller, so does your time and space. And the game is really quite simple. Defensively, you want to eliminate it. Offensively, you want to create it. Offensively, there's never going to be a lot of it. So players need to learn. And I think the problem is, you know, let's call it Instagram hockey, Jeff, where they see, you know, and it's all great stuff. I don't want to say that it's not, but they see the highlight clips of people. Yeah.

They're handling around pucks and they think that that's actually effective in a game and it's not. And really that's to go to my Instagram. That's what I'm trying to teach kids is most kids have can skate most kids are extremely skilled but the difference maker now is your compete level effort work ethic but then iq ability to read it so that's really so last night i was driving my kid home from practice and i was uh i was talking to colby cohen who's's one half of the morning show here at Daily Faceoff, Morning Cup of Hockey. And we were talking about kids and skaters. And you're right.

And I always marvel at this whenever I go to a game these days, whether it's junior or whatever level. I always ask myself, where did the bad skaters go? Because no one's a bad skater anymore. Everyone has that sort of baseline of skating. Because if you can't skate, you can't play. Once upon a time, I was like, yeah, he can't skate, but look at that shot. Oh, you can't skate, you can't play. Once upon a time, I was like, yeah, he can't skate, but look at that shot. Oh, he can't skate, but he's tough.

It doesn't matter unless you can skate anymore. It's all about what else you bring to the game. I want to get the final thought on Tom Wilson here in a couple of seconds. But really quickly, from a teaching point of view, what's the one area that young hockey players, because the skills are all there, what do they struggle with the most? I could go on for days about that, but I would say the biggest thing is players, and I'm stealing this from Steve Stahos, who gave me this line, and I think he stole this from Craig McTavish, I think is what he told me.

Greatness borrows, genius steals. Pardon me we go genius go for it yeah and as coaches we always talked about our yeah r and d which was research and duplicate not research and design but and craig's line was your stick has to have a heartbeat. And if you watch most minor hockey players, it's little details where using that stick effectively. And we talked about it in terms of the shots. If you got a good stick, maybe you're going to get that stick in the lane to block more shots. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or shots. something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Maybe you get that stick in the lane to just avoid a pass coming through. Presenting your stick in an area where you want it so the passer knows where to put it i think

that's the easiest thing and the simplest thing it's not as much an iq thing as it is a habit but it's such a weapon so when you're on the ice your stick has to have a heartbeat i got about two minutes left with you uh make the case for tom wilson doesn't sound like he's going to be on team canada but should he be on team canada Canada? I'm going to put my Tom Wilson fan favorite hat on. I don't know who you take off, but I really believe that Tom Wilson should be on Team Canada or would be a great asset. The reason why I say that is coaching against them.

I was afraid for our defensemen going back for that puck, knowing that they were going to get hit. And when you watch Tom Wilson, he's won a Stanley Cup. He's having a great season. He's a leader. But I think the biggest thing is, is that if you're on the other team and you're skating around for a warm-up, you're not thinking about Crosby. You're not thinking about McDavid.

You're thinking about what is Tom Wilson going to do tonight? And I think there's extreme value in that in terms of he's a distraction. And I don't want to say it's fear, but it is based on the way he plays. And on top of that, he can play, in my opinion, he can play in every situation. He's a great team guy. The last time that I believe he wore a Canada sweater, it was actually a brilliant play. You can find it on YouTube as well, where he got tripped up,

fell into the net. Previous in the tournament, he hurt his wrist. He says his wrist was actually hurt. I think he just played it up for the ref, knowing that he probably wasn't our best shootout player. Goes to the bench. We're able to put Matthew Campagna out, who scores an Instagram hockey goal.

Here it is. Here it is right here. Look at this one. That's a beaut. Yeah. Beauty. Totally Instagram hockey. I love it.

It was, you know, but Tom's ability to understand that it was four, three in the game with, I think about five or six minutes left. And his ability to think is underrated. And I'll give you one last story. Just his intensity. He brings everybody else you one last story, just his intensity. He brings everybody else's level up. I'm really fortunate that, you know, I run some skates for Matt Nickel and Tom, Willie trains with Matt in the summer.

And as a coach, I have to do nothing. And I told the juniors after when the, so I ran the pros, the juniors came on after. I told the juniors because it was true. During one of the practice, Tom was kind of, Willie was kind of giving it to me. He said, all right, Smitty, let's go. We got to move.

We got to move. And he's pushing that pace. And the juniors were a little bit lax. I said to them, guys, you're going to go to the pro level. A guy like Tom Wilson, he's yelling at me in the last practice to get things going in a good way. That's the type of intensity you need. And I think that intensity and that impact he makes physically on the game

is the reason why he should be a part of that team. Smitty, you're the best. Where can people find you online, pal? They can find me at HockeyIQCan, so as in Canada, on Instagram. And then on Twitter, it's D Troy Smith. Awesome. Check out these videos and learn the game that you love. We've got to have you back.

I know you've got a million more videos and a million more Danbury Trashers stories as well. So park some time for us in the future, my friend. I will. I appreciate it, Jeff. Thanks for having me. I'm not against those methods, but it's me, myself, and others. It's going to be fixed in my mind. I do want to break it I do not need it It's enough, I don't care Just one time's losing I've been on the dance the way I'm wrong If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered.

Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes. New father, new routines, new locations. What matters is that you have something there to adapt with you, whether you need a challenge or rest. And Peloton has everything you need, whenever you need it. Find your push. Find your power.

Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.