The Dallas Stars announced their opening night roster for the 2017-18 season on Tuesday, including one surprise at forward: Gemel Smith.
Dallas Stars forward Gemel Smith is 23 years old and has just six National Hockey League points in 17 games, competing in very few meaningful competitions. While Smith hasn’t had the most friendly ice time allotments and deployments, a prospect that sits at a relatively old age should be more successful at the higher level.
In most cases, of course.
An exception applies to Smith, the 104th overall selection in the 2012 Entry Draft out of Owen Sound (OHL). Smith was forever an afterthought to those in the pro hockey rankings, despite twice being the third-highest scorer with the Attack. When the Toronto native signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Dallas Stars in June of 2014, it was after a borderline awful Memorial Cup performance for the London Knights: no points, -2, 10 penalty minutes.
Smith played his first pro season with the Texas Stars in 2014-15, coming out of the gate strong as an AHL rookie with 27 points in 68 games. But Smith, then 20, was still on the fringe side, suiting up in zero of the Stars’ three postseason games against Rockford. A season after, Smith’s career trajectory seemingly hit rock bottom: the left-shooting forward was demoted to the ECHL’s Idaho Steelheads.
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This is why Smith doesn’t apply to the standards of prospect excellence. Smith, by definition, was never an NHL-caliber prospect, especially in a system with loads of them cooking up for Dallas. On account of that, you might be wondering, how did someone with stats that fall well out of impressive when taken out of a context earn a spot on a stacked NHL team?
How did a fringe AHLer that saw time in Boise just two seasons prior make the leap to the Dallas Stars? How did a guy that failed to make a postseason appearance for the AHL team in his rookie year make one of the most promising NHL rosters? How did a 5’10” guy make a club coached by a man obsessed with physicality?
Smith had to take the long road in training camp, including hard, up-tempo drills that featured Smith playing with a variety of players. In addition, Smith had to suit up in Ken Hitchcock’s experimental Future Prospects Scrimmage, playing a grueling 75-minute, officiated game. He was anything but a solid NHL forward, but training camp made him one, and certainly made him look like one to the Stars’ coaching staff.
It’s simple. Gemel Smith capitalized on training camp time to impress the hell out of everyone in the organization, and he never looked out of place doing it. “I slap myself in the face each morning when I wake up to make sure I’m really here,” Smith told NHL.com last season – even he didn’t expect this.
Dallas Stars
I’ve always been high on Smith, but that feeling isn’t often a shared one, which makes Smith’s emergence even more inspiring and spectacular. Smith took advantage of a training camp try-out format to net himself an NHL job by virtue of looking at things the way training camp is meant for. Training camp is essentially the only time all year long during which a system’s entire prospect pool is on level footing.
When you have, for example, one guy in the AHL, one in Finland, one in the NCAA, and one in Canadian Major Junior, you can’t evaluate all of your prospects at once. Dallas Stars training camp is the great equalizer for a number of reasons, and for a number of guys. Smith was one of those bubble players that was scratching and clawing his way into an NHL job, and boy, did he ever.
Almost all of the Stars’ top prospects were on the same ice, running the same drills, listening to the same voices. Gemel Smith rose above the competition and won the 12th forward spot for Dallas Stars opening night on October 6th, we can safely assume. Hitchcock is gong to want to play him.
Smith’s skillset is wonderful: a strong, steady upper-body for a guy with a lack of size, an exceptional passer with killer on-ice vision, and speed to burn at all times. His acceleration is astoundingly good, and Smith can drive past anyone. Dallas Stars fans will be amazed by this guy and his potential, seen by few until now.
To conclude…
At 7:13pm on October 3rd, 2017, a tweet graced my otherwise yawn-inducing Twitter timeline. It was from Gemel Smith himself, hours after the announcement of his spot on the Stars roster. From Smith, the content came small and short: two emojis, one of fire and another of a hustling, running man – however, the tweet Smith quoted told the story.
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“Never settle, because the day you settle could be the day you lose your grip on greatness.” Nothing describes Smith more: two emojis over an inspirational quote. Subtly and quiet, Smith set a tone on Twitter, just like he does on the ice.