DJ Smith

DJ Smith
Date of birth	May 13, 1977
place of birth	Windsor , Ontario , Canada
size	185 cm
Weight	93 kg
position	defender
Shot hand	Left
Draft
NHL Entry Draft	1995 , 2nd round, 41st position New York Islanders
Career stations
1994-1996	Windsor Spitfires
1996-2002	Toronto Maple Leafs St. John's Maple Leafs
2002-2004	Colorado Avalanche Hershey Bears

Denis "DJ" Smith (born May 13, 1977 in Windsor , Ontario ) is a former Canadian ice hockey player and current coach . During his active career he played 45 games for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Colorado Avalanche in the National Hockey League , but was mostly used for their farm teams in the American Hockey League . Since May 2019 he has been the head coach of the Ottawa Senators in the NHL.

Career

As a player

DJ Smith spent his junior years with the Windsor Bulldogs in the Western Ontario Hockey League before moving to the Windsor Spitfires in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL), the highest-ranking youth league in his home province, for the 1994/95 season . At the Spitfires he established himself as a physically robust defender, so he recorded in the two following seasons each over 200 penalty minutes and was selected in parallel in the 1995 NHL Entry Draft in 41st position by the New York Islanders . The Islanders, however, gave the rights to him together with Wendel Clark and Mathieu Schneider to the Toronto Maple Leafs in March 1996 and received Darby Hendrickson , Sean Haggerty , Kenny Jönsson and a first-round vote in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft . The Canadian made his professional debut with the St. John's Maple Leafs , the Toronto farm team , in the American Hockey League (AHL). In addition, he was considered in 1997 in the Second All-Star Team of the OHL.

During the 1996/97 season Smith played his first eight games for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the National Hockey League (NHL), but he did not manage to establish himself there in the following years. Except for another three missions in the 1999/00 season, he was only in St. John's in the AHL on the ice. Finally, in March 2002, he and Marty Wilford joined the Nashville Predators , who transferred Marc Moro to the Canadian metropolis. On the same day, however, the defender was sent on to the Colorado Avalanche , while Nashville received a vote for the ninth round of the 2002 NHL Entry Draft . The following season 2002/03 marked the only one in his career, in which he was mainly used in the NHL, so he played 34 games for the Avalanche. In total, however, he was again mainly used in the AHL, with the Hershey Bears , in whose jersey he suffered a knee injury in January 2004, which should mean the end of his active career in the sequence. In total, Smith had played 45 NHL and 410 AHL games.

As a trainer

At the beginning of his coaching career, Smith returned to the Windsor Spitfires and worked there as an assistant coach from 2004 to 2012. Within the Ontario Hockey League, he moved to the 2012/13 season to the Oshawa Generals , where he took over the position of head coach for the first time. In his sophomore year in Oshawa, he received the Matt Leyden Trophy as the OHL's best coach and was also elected to the league's First All-Star Team . The sporting success came the following year, leading the team to the OHL championship in the form of the J. Ross Robertson Cup and, a little later, to winning the 2015 Memorial Cup . He gained international experience during his time with the Generals as assistant to Dale Hunter , with whom he led the U18 national team of Canada to the gold medal at the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament 2013 .

Then Smith returned to the professional field, so he was hired as an assistant to head coach Mike Babcock at the Toronto Maple Leafs, his previous employer. He held that role for four years before being introduced as the new head coach of the Ottawa Senators in May 2019 . At this point he became the second youngest of the 31 NHL coaches behind Jeremy Colliton of the Chicago Blackhawks .

Achievements and Awards

As a player

• 1997 OHL Second All-Star Team

As a trainer

2013 OHL Third All-Star Team 2013 gold medal at the Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament (as assistant coach) 2014 Matt Leyden Trophy

2014 OHL First All-Star Team 2015 J. Ross Robertson Cup win with the Oshawa Generals 2015 Memorial Cup win with the Oshawa Generals

Career statistics

				Regular season							Playoffs
season	team	league		Sp	T	V	Pt	+/-	SM		Sp	T	V	Pt	+/-	SM
1994/95	Windsor Spitfires	OHL		61	4th	13	17th		201		10	1	3	4th		41
1995/96	Windsor Spitfires	OHL		64	14th	45	59		260		7th	1	7th	8th		23
1995/96	St. John's Maple Leafs	AHL		1	0	0	0	-1	0		-	-	-	-	-	-
1996/97	Windsor Spitfires	OHL		63	15th	52	67		190		5	1	7th	8th		11
1996/97	St. John's Maple Leafs	AHL		-	-	-	-	-	-		1	0	0	0	± 0	0
1996/97	Toronto Maple Leafs	NHL		8th	0	1	1	-5	7th		-	-	-	-	-	-
1997/98	St. John's Maple Leafs	AHL		65	4th	11	15th	-2	237		4th	0	0	0	± 0	4th
1998/99	St. John's Maple Leafs	AHL		79	7th	28	35	+6	216		5	0	1	1	-3	0
1999/00	St. John's Maple Leafs	AHL		74	6th	22nd	28	± 0	197		-	-	-	-	-	-
1999/00	Toronto Maple Leafs	NHL		3	0	0	0	-1	5		-	-	-	-	-	-
2000/01	St. John's Maple Leafs	AHL		59	7th	12	19th	+4	106		4th	0	0	0	-3	11
2001/02	St. John's Maple Leafs	AHL		59	6th	10	16	-5	152		-	-	-	-	-	-
2001/02	Hershey Bears	AHL		14th	0	3	3	+7	33		8th	1	0	1	-2	33
2002/03	Hershey Bears	AHL		2	0	0	0	-3	4th		-	-	-	-	-	-
2002/03	Colorado Avalanche	NHL		34	1	0	1	+2	55		-	-	-	-	-	-
2003/04	Hershey Bears	AHL		35	7th	7th	14th	-1	71		-	-	-	-	-	-
OHL total				188	33	110	143		651		22nd	3	17th	20th		75
AHL total				388	37	93	130	+5	1016		22nd	1	1	2	-8th	48
NHL overall				45	1	1	2	-4	67		-	-	-	-	-	-

( Legend for player statistics: Sp or GP = games played; T or G = goals scored; V or A = assists scored ; Pkt or Pts = scorer points scored ; SM or PIM = penalty minutes received ; +/− = plus / minus balance; PP = overpaid goals scored ; SH = underpaid goals scored ; GW = winning goals scored; ¹  play-downs / relegation )

Web links

• DJ Smith at eliteprospects.com (English)
• DJ Smith at legendsofhockey.net (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ottawa Senators name DJ Smith as head coach. nhl.com, May 23, 2019, accessed on June 22, 2019 .