“It’s sort of a battle of attrition at this point,” Hartford Wolf Pack interim head coach Steve Smith stated with the Wolf Pack coming off a 2-1 victory on Feb. 21 at home despite a depleted roster. The team has been decimated by injuries all season and the recent stretch hasn’t done them any favors as they started a triple-header on Wednesday night, a game where Anton Blidh and Riley Nash left in the third period and didn’t return to action.
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Despite the lack of skaters available, the Wolf Pack keep winning. They have a 26-16-5 record which is the fourth-best in the Atlantic Division and their recent victory was a testament to their ability to grind out victories. They finished the game with 10 forwards and allowed the defense to control the game.
The season at large is also a testament to the great coaching the Wolf Pack have behind their bench with Smith leading the team. Average teams will unravel because of injuries and good teams can remain competitive despite them. The Wolf Pack haven’t been great lately with a 4-4 record in February but Smith has kept them in every game and more importantly, helped develop the prospects from the American Hockey League (AHL) for the New York Rangers.
Filling in for Knoblauch
The Wolf Pack entered the season with a head coach primed for NHL success. It was only a matter of time before a team hired Kris Knoblauch and on Nov. 12, the Edmonton Oilers made him their head coach after firing Jay Woodcroft. Knoblauch hasn’t looked back as he’s not only turned the Oilers into one of the best teams in the NHL, with a 33-18-2 record, but he’s also put himself in the Jack Adams Award conversation.
The Oilers’ offense was never in question in the Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl era, but the defense was. Knoblauch fixed it as the team now plays a gap-sound style that limits effective shots on the net. The Oilers allow only 2.94 goals per game and are on pace to allow fewer than three goals per game for the first time since the 2020-21 season. It goes without saying that Knoblauch is a tough act to follow.
“He’s been put in a tough situation right away having to take over as head coach,” Jake Leschyshyn noted about Smith after the victory over the Bridgeport Islanders. It seemed like it would be impossible to find someone who could fill in for Knoblauch and this season in particular has done the team no favors with the tough schedule and the pileup of injuries. Yet the Wolf Pack managed to do just that ← they promoted Smith behind the bench and he’s picked up where Knoblauch left off.
Smith’s team has a lot of similarities to the ones Knoblauch ices. They play a balanced, two-way game, and with a structure that forces the opposition to earn their goals. It also helps that his background and experience at the AHL and NHL levels have molded him into one of the top coaches at the development level.
Smith’s Knowledge of the Game
Smith is one of the journeyman head coaches with multiple stops at all levels of the game. He played in the NHL for 16 seasons as a defenseman on the Chicago Blackhawks, Calgary Flames, and the Oilers in an era that oddly suits the modern game. His background is on the defense but he played in the 1980s alongside Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, and high-flying, fast-paced offenses that would average five goals per game in a season.
On top of his playing career, Smith was an assistant for 12 seasons in the NHL before he joined the Wolf Pack in 2021. He was promoted behind the bench earlier in the season and the years of experience have shown. It took a long time for Smith to finally become a head coach but in his first stop, he’s proving worthy of the job.
It’s noticeable how much he knows about hockey based on how the Wolf Pack prepare for each opponent. Against the Islanders, a team that doesn’t have a great offense but has displayed great goaltending in recent weeks, he had the team play a slower, hard-hitting, and grind-it-out game. For the first shift, he played the fourth line, largely because the Islanders did the same thing but also to set the tone for what type of game was about to be played. “You have to pay a price to score those goals and they’re not gonna make them easy and their defensive structure is always good,” he explained as The Wolf Pack beat them 2-1 and similarly, defeated the in-state rivals 2-1 on Feb. 17 in another defensive battle.
The contrast was the Feb. 2 victory over the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins. They got out to an early lead and allowed their offense to overwhelm the opposition, scoring five goals in the 5-4 overtime win. Smith understands the opposition and the situation at hand and along with that, his mindset has helped the Wolf Pack, especially this season.
“He keeps the same mindset of having to win every night,” Leschyshyn remarked as the Wolf Pack battled through injuries but kept piling up the wins. Smith has his team prepared every night and ready to take the next big step in their hockey careers.
Wolf Pack Providing the Rangers With NHL-Ready Talent
The New York Rangers, like the Wolf Pack, have dealt with a surplus of injuries and they’ve had to call up many of their top prospects. The recent stretch has been no expectation with both Artemi Panarin and Jimmy Vesey being day-to-day with injuries, forcing them to call up Brennan Othmann, who has 14 goals including the game-winner on Feb. 21 over the Islanders. The Wolf Pack have asked a handful of players to step up this season and for the most part, they’ve looked ready for the NHL and have delivered.
Matt Rempe was the prospect in the spotlight recently as he squared up against New York Islanders veteran Matt Martin in his first shift at the NHL level. Martin is one of the best fighters in the game and the 6-foot-7, 241-pound Rempe went toe-to-toe with him. However, he’s just one of the many Wolf Pack skaters who has impressed for a Rangers squad that is in first place in the Metropolitan Division. Journeyman forward Jonny Brodzinski was one of the top skaters on the AHL team but has established himself as a depth forward on the Rangers and the team gave him a two-year contract extension because of it.
The fact prospects are ready to make the jump is a credit to Smith and the Wolf Pack coaching staff. Even with a revolving door of players, the goal is to have the young players prepared for the NHL game and he’s done that. The team plays two-way hockey and is asked to forecheck. In the offensive zone, they make effective passes and create plenty of scoring chances that reflect a team that has practiced them.
Smith’s ability to develop the Wolf Pack makes him an intriguing coach for plenty of NHL teams to hire, especially rebuilding teams. In a season where head coaches have been replaced at an extraordinary rate, he could be the next coach to receive the call. While Smith is on the older side at 60, he’s made a strong case to become an NHL coach someday. For now, it’s about taking it day by day for him and the Wolf Pack, and with the team in the middle of a triple header, it’s understandable why. It’s a tough stretch for this team but he’s the type of head coach anyone would want to have behind the bench.