Nate Schmidt finally got his day with the Stanley Cup. Here’s what he did with it

New Utah Mammoth defenseman Nate Schmidt grew up skating at St. Cloud, Minnesota’s Municipal Athletic Complex, dreaming of someday hoisting the Stanley Cup. On Aug. 25, he brought the Cup there.

It’s tradition for each player on the Stanley Cup-winning team to get a day with the trophy. They can spend that day however they choose, but most do exactly what Schmidt did — bring it home to thank those who helped them get there.

“It had to be here — it had to be here.” Schmidt said in an interview with ABC’s KSTP.com. “There’s too many people that I want to thank and be a part of (it). At the end of the day, it has to come back here.”

Minnesota has produced more NHL players than any other American state, but Schmidt was just the second St. Cloud champion to bring it back to St. Cloud.

People were lined up throughout the arena and out the door to meet Schmidt and take pictures with the Cup.

The NHL estimates that the Cup has visited more than 25 countries and that it’s on the road 300 days each year. When it’s not being toured around the world for various promotional events, it lives in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.

In addition to getting to their day with the Cup, each player receives a championship ring, courtesy of the team, and their name permanently engraved into the trophy. There are currently more than 3,400 different names on it.

Nate Schmidt’s journey

The NHL was never a guaranteed career path for Schmidt, and winning the Stanley Cup was an even loftier goal. He was a good player in high school and the USHL, but he barely saw the ice in his first collegiate season.

While watching a playoff game from the players’ lounge as a healthy scratch that year, he took a picture of the lounge door and set it as his phone background.

“I was like, ‘I never want to sit in here and watch a game ever again,’” he recalled in an interview with The Athletic in 2021.

The two seasons that followed came with greater opportunity. He worked closely with then-associate head coach Mike Guentzel, who now works for the Mammoth as a pro scout.

“He could have said poor me, screw you, I’m going to take my ball and go to a different program,” Guentzel told The Athletic. “The fact that he stuck through it says a lot about Nate.”

Two seasons in the neighborhood of a point per game earned him a contract with the Washington Capitals.

There are plenty of undrafted college players who sign as free agents but never see more than a few games of NHL ice, but that’s not what Schmidt set out to do. He split his time between the Caps and their AHL affiliate, the Hershey Bears, for the first two seasons. After that, he was an NHL regular.

Schmidt really made his mark on the league when the Vegas Golden Knights selected him in their expansion draft. He quickly became renowned for his ear-to-ear smile and his goofy nature — and his play on the ice, too. Before long, he’d earned himself a six-year contract worth $35.7 million.

But as happy as his union with the Golden Knights seemed to be, they have never been afraid to move on from fan favorites. After just one season under his new contract, he was dealt to the Vancouver Canucks for a third-round pick.

Things didn’t work out for him in Vancouver, so they recouped their third-round pick by shipping him to Winnipeg, just six hours from St. Cloud. He spent three seasons there before having the final year of his contract bought out.

Being bought out is a punch to the gut no matter how you spin it, but it may have been better for Schmidt in the long run. He signed a one-year, prove-it deal with the Florida Panthers. He traded a pay cut for a Stanley Cup ring and, perhaps more importantly, the ability to prove that he’s still a capable NHL player.

His 2024-25 play — especially in the playoffs — earned him a contract in Utah, where he’ll make $10.5 million over the next three years.

Nate Schmidt’s role with the Utah Mammoth

While the exact defense pairings have yet to be determined, one part of Schmidt’s role is guaranteed: He’s a vibes guy.

Being one of the younger teams in the league, Utah had a tendency to take things seriously last year. It seemed like as the year went on, it got easier for the younger guys to loosen up.

Schmidt, a noted jokester, will accelerate that process.

“He has a rare thing where, when he’s around, everybody is better,” said Eric Johnson, Schmidt’s high school hockey coach, in an interview with St. Cloud Live. “Everyone plays better, everyone’s attitude is better. It’s not like he’s a big rah-rah (guy), but he’s got so much positive energy.”

He also intends to act as a mentor to the less experienced players, just like veterans Brooks Orpik, Matt Niskanen, John Carlson and Mike Green did for him in Washington.

“There were guys that helped me out a ton when I was younger,” he said. “(They) came in at this role that I’m coming into. And so for me, it’s not so much of just coming in and doing that, it’s having that extra presence.”

“(I) attribute a ton of that success and a ton of that knowledge and wherewithal that I have to those guys that gave it to (me) from the very beginning, and I hope I can deliver the same thing.”

Nate Schmidt finally got his day with the Stanley Cup. Here’s what he did with it

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