A year and a half ago, the Winnipeg Jets decided it was in their best interest to pay Nate Schmidt to not play for them. So, they bought out his contract and sent him to free agency.
One year later, he became a Stanley Cup champion. Seven months after that, he’s established himself as one half of the Utah Mammoth’s most stable defense pairing.
And the Jets are still paying him $1.6 million.
Schmidt credits his revival to a shift in mindset, acknowledging that the little things matter.
“You do things the right way, off the ice, on the ice, you might not get rewarded that day or that week, (but) it’s going to happen,” Schmidt told the Deseret News. “Things will work for you over time if you do the right thing. ... ”Those little things start to add up, start to multiply. It’s something that, last year, helped me a ton, too."
“Smitty’s a great story,” said Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice, who coached Schmidt and the Panthers on their Stanley Cup-winning voyage last year. “I mean, he came into the season, he had been a healthy scratch the year before, and worked at it. By the time our regular season ended, he was a much-improved player. ... He was very fast. He was dynamic. ... He made everybody laugh while he was doing it.”
Schmidt’s steadiness was highlighted on Saturday when he tallied four points, including the game-winning goal, en route to a 6-3 routing of the Seattle Kraken. But even in games where he doesn’t produce offensively, he provides a boost the team never knew it needed.
“He always has a positive attitude,” said Mammoth head coach André Tourigny. “He’s been there, done that, so he remembers some situations that happened in the past and he brings that veteran leadership experience.
“What you see is what you get. He’s no different behind the curtain or when the heat is on or whatever. He is what he is, so that’s well-appreciated.”
Schmidt ultimately gets the credit for the way he plays, but his teammates are part of his success — namely, his defense partner, John Marino. The two didn’t know each other until this season, but seeing them gel together on the ice, you wouldn’t know it.
“They push each other in their own way,” Tourigny said. “They see the game, they understand the game, they want to please each other. They want to do extra for each other. And I think that builds up.”
Schmidt and Marino are yin and yang. Marino is a man of few words, and Schmidt might be the most talkative player in the NHL. On the ice, those personalities complement each other.
“I think it’s a good trade-off,” Marino said. “He brings up the energy, for sure. Maybe I bring him down a little if he gets too excited. I think it’s a good dynamic, honestly. We can meet somewhere in the middle with that.”
Off the ice, Schmidt and his wife, Allie, have loved being in Utah. Utah has a reputation as a good family state, and the Schmidts have experienced that firsthand.
“It’s been fantastic, honestly. There’s so much for us to do,” he said, with one eye on the reporter and the other on 2-year-old Harvey, who came to visit his dad at the rink that day. “... (Utah) really checks a lot of things off for us as a family, being able to do all the family activities that we do every day, which is a lot. That’s the fun part.”
He does wish he could participate in some of the local activities that every NHL player contract prohibits (they aren’t allowed to ski, snowboard, snowmobile, ride horses, etc.), but he has liked that the mild winter has allowed them to spend more time outside.
Harvey, who kept the guys entertained by high-fiving them as they left the ice, was waiting to get a haircut from the team’s barber — and, of course, a smoothie from the lounge as a reward.
Schmidt appreciates that his kids can watch him play in the NHL.
“It was amazing,” he said after his four-point game against the Kraken. “I saw them up there and I got to wave to my boy and my girl. It means a lot. You know, I used to kind of give guys grief when I was younger, like, ‘Come on, you see them every day.’ But it’s just, for them to be able to see me at the rink, it’s memories that maybe they won’t remember, but I certainly will.”
