Brad Smith

Bradley Allan Smith (born April 13, 1958) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player who played 222 games over nine National Hockey League seasons with the Vancouver Canucks, Atlanta Flames, Calgary Flames, Detroit Red Wings, and Toronto Maple Leafs.

Described as a heady, defensive forward known for his physical play in William Houston's book, The Rise and Fall of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Smith led his hometown Windsor Spitfires in scoring with 37 goals and 90 points during his rookie OHA season, 1976–77.

The following year, he was traded to the Sudbury Wolves for Wes Jarvis.

He was also a member of the Central Hockey League's Adams Cup winning Dallas Blackhawks, 1978–79.

Registering 80 goals and 172 points in 136 OHA games, Smith was selected by Vancouver 57th overall in the 1978 NHL Entry Draft.

During his first intrasquad game, he scored twice and got into a fight with Dennis Kearns.

Sent to the CHL's Dallas Blackhawks where he scored 17 times in 60 games in 1978–79, Smith earned a two-game call-up to the parent club.

The following year, 1979–80, Smith spent 19 games with Vancouver, scoring his first NHL goal against the Colorado Rockies on December 14, 1979, tying the game at 3-3 (as noted in a Vancouver Sun report by Arv Olson the following day).

Minutes later, Smith set up the game-winning goal.

Smith also played for Vancouver in the 1979-80 Super Series, in which nine NHL teams played a series of games against the top two Soviet clubs.

In the opening game of the international series on December 26, 1979, Smith led the Canucks to a 6–2 victory, scoring twice within 17 seconds (both slapshots) against HC Moscow Dynamo goaltender, Vladimir Myshkin (who shut out the NHL All-Stars the previous year to win the 1979 Challenge Cup for the Soviet national team before winning Olympic Gold in 1984).

It was the only game the Dynamo lost against the four NHL teams faced.

As reported by Canadian Press the following day and published in The Leader Post, Smith's outburst is thus described.

"Smith scored his first goal...when he was allowed to skate in from the corner and blast a rising 30-footer over Myshkin's shoulder," CP reported.

"Just 17 seconds later, Smith broke in on a two-on-one with Gary Lupul and blistered a 35-footer into the far corner."

On February 8, 1980, Smith and Don Lever were traded to Atlanta for Darcy Rota and Ivan Boldirev, as reported in The Montreal Gazette the following day.

Smith played four games for Atlanta before the team relocated for the 1980–81 season, where he became an original member of the Calgary Flames.

On December 27, 1980, Smith scored the game-winning goal on a two-on-nothing, give-and-go breakaway with fellow journeyman Alex McKendry to beat Philadelphia 2–1, as the Associated Press noted in reports published the following day.

In all, Smith scored seven goals over 45 games with Calgary before he was sent down to the Birmingham Bulls of the CHL.

There, he registered 11 points in 10 games before the Bulls folded abruptly on February 20, 1981.

Eight days later, Smith was on the move again, this time to Detroit, where he was traded for Rick Vasko, scoring 5 goals in 20 games for his highest NHL season total of 12.

Splitting the next four years between Detroit and its farm team, Smith was named an American Hockey League All-Star after registering 72 points with the Adirondack Red Wings in 1984–85.

Playing the final game of the season with Detroit, Smith scored, then suited up for the playoffs, setting up a goal by John Ogrodnick and fighting Al Secord.

"Though he spent much of last season in the minors," wrote The Toronto Star's Wayne Parish on Nov 6, 1985, "he was magnificent in playing every single Red Wing playoff game."

After five years in the Detroit organization, The Windsor Star's Jim McKay reported on July 6, 1985, that Smith had turned down a one-year contract offer to test the free-agent market.

Signed instead by Toronto for two years, "Motor City Smitty", as he was nicknamed by then Leafs' Radio Man Bill Waters, enjoyed his most productive years on hockey's biggest stage, Maple Leaf Gardens.

During the 1985–86 season, Smith registered a career NHL high 17 assists to go along with his five goals over 42 games.

As reported by Rick Fraser of The Toronto Star on March 19, 1986, Smith was nominated for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, awarded annually to the NHL player best exemplifying perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to the game.

He also had an excellent playoff showing, scoring twice (one of which involved a lesson in geometry as he shot from the corner, banking the puck off St. Louis Blues goaltender Greg Millen's pads and into the net for Toronto's only goal in the game seven Norris Final 2–1 loss) and adding an assist in six post-season games.

In game two of that second-round series, Smith chased an errant puck and Blues' defenceman Lee Norwood into the corner, taking Norwood hard into the boards.

Norwood responded by sucker punching Smith from behind, and essentially poking Smith in the eye with the thumb of his glove.

As Smith felt for blood, looking at his hand, Norwood punched Smith from behind again.

The gratuitous clip made Late Night with David Letterman and today remains something of a cult classic on YouTube.

More importantly, Toronto scored the tying goal on the ensuing power play, then the winner, and got back into the series.

Smith's shiner, meanwhile, became the local rallying point on the front page of The Toronto Sun, while Hockey Night in Canada began coverage of game three with a live close-up of Smith's eye under the harsh studio lights.

Historically, the incident is seen as a key momentum shift in what would now turn into a seven-game series.

Coached in Toronto by Dan Maloney and John Brophy respectively, Smith's skills were best utilized with the Maple Leafs, where his key role was to "change the pace of the game".

The Toronto Star's Frank Orr deemed Smith "an adrenalin player" while Brophy saw Smith as "a whirling dervish" who could stray from a disciplined checking role at the flip of a switch, leaving his wing, generally skating all over the ice, and playing what Brophy termed a "helter-skelter" style designed to throw the opposition's systems into chaos—an infuriating trait that would eventually get Smith's name on the Stanley Cup.

Smith's nephew, Hunter, was drafted by the Calgary Flames in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft.

After retiring Smith became a scout, and since 2016 has been the Director of Scouting for the Colorado Avalanche.