When the longest-serving Edmonton Oilers’ captain Jason Smith was here in June for Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final against Florida, he was saluted lustily by the adoring home crowd as he waved from a suite at Rogers Place.
He never thought he would be back a month later. But there he was Thursday, introduced as the new WHL Oil Kings’ junior head coach, replacing Luke Pierce, whose contract wasn’t renewed after the rebuilding team lost to Prince Albert in seven games of the first playoff round this spring.
It’s not his first rodeo as a junior coach; he was head man in Kelowna, where he’s living now, for three seasons(2016-2019) and also had a stint as ex-Oiler Mark Lamb’s right-hand man on the bench in Prince George for one year before joining Philadelphia Flyers organization as an assistant to Ian Laperriere on their AHL farm team at Lehigh Valley, Pa. for four years.
But now Smith, who was a fierce, no-holds-barred defenceman through his 542 Oilers games and 45 more in the playoffs — with one of the highest pain thresholds of any player — is back in the city where he captained from 2001-2007. He wore the C in their 2006 Cup final against Carolina.
Completing the circle for the man who’ll always be known as Gator.
“I’m extremely excited to come here to a place where I have comfort, where I know people in the city away from the rink,” said Smith, who had his former Oiler coach Craig MacTavish and 2006 playoff hero Fernando Pisani in the crowd at his press conference at Rogers Place, a building he never played in (Rexall Place was his stomping grounds) but he knows from his days as a WHL junior coach.
(L-R) Edmonton Oilers Fernando Pisani, Jussi Markkanen and Jason Smith celebrate their 4-0 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals at Rexall Place in Edmonton, Alta., on Saturday June 17, 2006.
He was happy working for the Flyers organization, looking after their minor-league D corps, sending Cam York and Egor Zamula to the bigs, but when they moved on from Laperriere this summer and named assistant John Snowden head man, Smith wanted a change of scenery, and the Oil Kings came calling.
“I decided it was time for a change for myself…a new challenge, a new change in life (as a coach). It’s exciting to be back west. I’m looking to help these young players grow and win games,” said Smith, who was traded to the Flyers on July 1, 2007, along with Joffrey Lupul for Joni Pitkanen and Geoff Sanderson and immediately became Philly’s captain for a season before finishing his 1,008-game NHL career in Ottawa with the Senators.
Even though Smith was a long way removed from the Dub, coaching pro in Pennsylvania, he wasn’t totally divorced from the junior league.
“I still had the app on my phone to check in on scores, and I had friends working in the league still. I just love hockey. I’m sure I’ll still follow the American League. Keeping your finger on the pulse of hockey is important,” said Smith, who will be keeping both assistants Kyle Chipchura and Devan Praught on his junior staff.
Coaching pros is clearly different than coaching teenagers, of course.
“The maturity level of the kids is different when you’re talking 15- and 16-year-olds, and maybe you’ve got a 20-year-old who’s almost a young man, also players are from different hockey backgrounds from small towns or hockey academies,” said Smith, who learned that maturity lesson in Kelowna.
“There’s different ways to talk to these players to get your message across. Some guys are able to pick things up quickly by watching video, others are more old-school where you can draw some xs and os and they can pick it up. And others, you maybe to take them onto the ice and move them around like chess pieces in a slow-motion pace. That’s what I learned the first time around.”
What’s his coaching style?
“The D-zone is the hard zone to play in,” said Smith, spoken like a former blueliner. “I like to use the O-zone as the fun zone, especially in junior hockey. Getting to the fun zone is where everybody wants to play, where they love to shoot the puck and make plays but if you lose the puck, the hard work is getting it back.”
Oil Kings’ GM Kirt Hill let Pierce go in late April after the tough loss to Prince Albert and had a long process to get a new man behind the bench, dealing with several pro-experienced candidates, including Memorial Cup coach winner and former Flyers assistant coach Rocky Thompson.
He didn’t get the ball rolling on Smith, 51, until a couple of weeks ago, and here he is.
“When I look back at the hockey world, there’s been a lot of change at the NHL and AHL level and in our league with the coaching carousel. We talked to a lot of people along the way about our team and the culture in Edmonton. Jason and I started talking in the middle of July,” said Hill.
“The thing that stood out for me was his culture building. His coaching experience speaks for itself. He’s coached in the Western Hockey League, the National Hockey League (assistant in Ottawa), the AHL. He’s an alumni of the WHL and NHL, from coaching and playing. I couldn’t be more excited to have him here today,” said Hill.
Pierce took over from Brad Lauer after the Oil Kings’ 2022 run to the Memorial Cup tournament, moving up from assistant. He was a fine head man for three years as they went through a painful rebuild. But while Hill appreciated Pierce’s hard work and his expertise, he felt his team needed a change behind the bench.
“I felt if we were making the next step in the journey to get back to the championship, we had a team that needed to be pushed a little bit more,” said Hill, admitting that bringing back the Oiler captain, whose name could be up on the Wall of Fame at Rogers Place some day, is a good story, too.
“This could create a bit of a buzz,” he said.
If any of the current Oil Kings players want to affirm how valuable their new boss was in this town ,they can walk a few feet down the hallway between the NHL and junior dressing rooms to see the Oiler team photos lining the wall. He’s in the front row of that 2006 team picture, along with MacTavish.
“I won’t be telling any old hockey stories about me…that’s for sure,” said Smith, who wants to live in the here and now, not 20 years ago, even if he can probably bring some of his competitive on-ice attributes to his kids where he’s currently second to Darnell Nurse in career Oiler hits (1,256 in those 533 games) behind Darnell Nurse, where his signature move was a shoved hand high to the rushing attacker’s chest or under their chin for a knock-down.
And, as we said, he never met a game he didn’t want to play in, healthy or hurt. He was held together with bailing wire and duct tape to play here, shrugging off his medical issues. In Philly, in the Eastern final in 2008 against Pittsburgh, he had a bad shoulder and a dislocated collarbone, and after putting on his gear needed a shot of painkiller to the damaged areas, just before going onto the ice.
“They said if I had trouble breathing, to let the trainer know,” said Smith.
“I just wanted to play…I always wanted to play.”
Now, he’ll be coaching kids once again.
“Looking over this roster, it’s an exciting group to walk into,” he said.
This ‘n that: Chipchura, who is also head of player development for the Oil Kings, will be part of Team White’s Canadian U17 World Hockey Challenge coaching staff for the tournament in Nova Scotia in late October… Smith played against Oil Kings’ second-round Seattle Kraken NHL draft D Blake Fiddler’s dad Vern for many years… Fiddler is currently playing for USA’s World Junior Showcase team at the international (Sweden, Finland, Canada) tournament in Minnesota. One of his teammates is 2025 Oilers draft forward Aidan Park, who is going to U of Michigan in the fall. The tournament is an audition for all countries for their 2026 U20 World Championship squads.
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