SALT LAKE CITY — Talk about a busy nine months for Nate Schmidt.
Won a Stanley Cup. Signed a contract with the Utah Mammoth. His wife Allie gave birth to their second child, daughter Daisy, shortly after he hoisted the Cup.
Now, the Original Misfit is one of the elder statesmen on an exciting young team — one that has a 2-1 series lead over the Vegas Golden Knights heading into Game 4 at Delta Center on Monday.
OK, maybe “elder statesman” is a tad much for the 34-year-old defenseman.
“That’s cold,” Schmidt said, laughing, after Mammoth practice Sunday in Sandy, Utah.
Schmidt will contest, however, it’s been fun to be a part of this kind of locker room.
Always the vibrant personality, even Schmidt gets a boost being around the younger guys.
“It kind of makes me feel younger, though,” he said. “Even though I feel like I’m younger than some of the young guys.”
A veteran presence
There are things that come with the territory of being a veteran, like Schmidt being a “mediator” in certain situations more than he’d like.
But it was part of what drew Schmidt to sign a three-year, $10.5 million contract with the Mammoth on July 1, three weeks after winning his first championship with the Florida Panthers.
Schmidt was the first player to receive the Cup from Florida captain Aleksander Barkov after they defeated the Edmonton Oilers in six games for their second straight championship.
“He arrived with credibility,” Mammoth coach Andre Tourigny said.
Schmidt felt Utah was ready to become a playoff team. Joining a team with a ton of speed appealed to fast-skating Schmidt. But once he got here, he realized the players here — like center Logan Cooley and winger Dylan Guenther — were ready.
The Mammoth, in their second year in Utah since relocating from Arizona, earned the first wild card in the Western Conference.
“It’s fun seeing guys elevate this time of year when games get big and you start to see the elevated gameplay,” Schmidt said. “You just see what these guys have done as they’ve gotten up the ladder here and gotten a few more impactful games.”
The winding road
Schmidt was one of the most beloved players in Knights history when selected in the 2017 expansion draft from the Washington Capitals. He became a top-pairing defenseman on the team that reached the Stanley Cup Final in its first year.
That play earned him a six-year, $35.7 million contract in October 2018. Two years later, he was traded to the Vancouver Canucks.
On top of being in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was traded to Winnipeg nine months after moving to Vancouver.
The Jets bought out the last year of his contract on June 30, 2024. He signed with the Panthers three days later on a one-year, prove-it deal.
Schmidt turned into one of Florida’s most important players during their run to a second straight Stanley Cup. He had 12 points and was a plus-9 in 23 playoff games.
He called that time “going back to the basics.” Florida coach Paul Maurice gave him a list of intangibles to stick to. If he did that, he would be successful.
“It kind of just simplified the game way down for me,” Schmidt said. “From there, you realize you could be impactful doing these things really well. You don’t have to do much.
“That’s something that I can say I’ve handled myself over the last year. I can be physical. I can do my boxouts. I can get offense when I can. But if you do those small things well, it ends up building.”
‘You need to fail’
Schmidt isn’t the only one with a championship background on the Mammoth. But it’s not just about the pedigree in Tourigny’s eyes.
They’ve all failed at some point.
“To succeed, you need to fail often or most of the time,” Tourigny said. “They know where are the traps, where you can’t go and what you have to be careful of.
“It’s great to have guys who have had success. It’s great those guys had challenges or failures where they learn a lot from it. Now, they can guide the guys in the room, off the ice, on the ice, on the bench. All those intangibles. They’ve had tremendous value to our team.”
Schmidt said Game 3, a 4-2 win for the Mammoth in their first home playoff game, can be a “learned trait.”
The Knights had the game’s first six shots. The tide flipped on Mackenzie Weegar’s goal on Utah’s second shot of the game.
“I said this to the guys: ‘There’s nowhere to go at that point. There’s no hiding places. You can’t do anything besides you either weather it, or you let it pound you,’” Schmidt said.
That’s part of the playoff experience Schmidt is bestowing on his younger teammates.
“This is the playoffs,” he said. “I think that’s what our guys are going to get out of this. I’ve loved our journey so far.”
Contact Danny Webster at dwebster@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DannyWebster21 on X.
Up next
Who: Golden Knights at Mammoth
What: Game 4, first round (Mammoth lead 2-1)
When: 6:30 p.m. Monday
Where: Delta Center, Salt Lake City
TV: ESPN, KMCC-34
Radio: KFLG 94.7 FM/KKGK 1340 AM
Line: Knights -120; total 6
