Luc Smith has added scoring spark, veteran experience as Spokane Chiefs push for playoff spot

That Luc Smith grew up skating and playing hockey is not uncommon.

He’s Canadian, after all, and grew up just outside Edmonton, one of the sport’s hotbeds.

“It’s a big deal,” Smith said of hockey there.

But Smith’s affinity for ice was made that much easier because he had only to step outside and the ice was right there, either on a lake adjacent to his family’s 13 acres or on the ever-growing number of rinks his family installed each winter.

“Anytime I wanted to go to the rink I didn’t have to walk anywhere,” Smith said. “I just laced my skates up in the house and walked out to the backyard. It was fun.”

At 21 years old, Smith is the oldest member of the Spokane Chiefs, and if he counts skating as a 2-year-old as playing hockey, then he is a year away from beginning his third decade of lacing up skates and playing the sport he loves.

The Chiefs – who play host to Red Deer on Tuesday night at the Arena – sure seem happy to have him.

Smith became a staple of the Chiefs’ power-play unit as soon as he was acquired in November, and that unit’s success has been crucial for Spokane as it pushes toward the Western Hockey League playoffs.

“He has that little scoring touch and can put the puck in the back of the net when we need it,” said Riley Woods, who was also Smith’s teammate two season ago in Regina. “Also he’s physical, and that’s what we needed up front as well.”

Smith is surely that. Listed at 6-foot-4, 210 pounds, the right-shot centerman is the second-tallest forward on the team (Jack Finley is listed at 6-foot-5). He is also most often found right next to the net on the power play, where he has scored nine of his 15 goals in his 27 games with the Chiefs.

He first honed that shot on a series of backyard rinks. The first was a 10-foot square of ice, and each year they got bigger until the Smiths were installing and maintaining a 100-by-40 foot sheet that was big enough to host pick-up games, he said.

But Edmonton gets about 48 inches of snow a year, and across a 4,000 square-foot rink, that led to a lot of shoveling, so the Smiths did the sensible thing. They moved the rink indoors.

To the loft of their barn.

“Those lofts are meant to hold hay bales to the roof. We figured three or four inches of water was about the same as hay bales stacked to the roof,” Smith said. “It was perfect. It wasn’t massive but it was enough that I could work on my shot.”

The shot Smith perfected in the loft has been key for the Chiefs down the stretch, especially with the man advantage.

Smith’s 13 power-play goals overall (he had four with Kamloops) rank fourth in the WHL and are three more than his teammate Woods. They spearhead the scoring for the league’s best power-play unit (29 percent).

“One of those things we’ve been focusing on is quick puck movement, and we’re also always two plays ahead,” Smith said. “The power play works good because we all know what everybody is thinking. We know what their next play is.”

Smith isn’t a captain or assistant for the Chiefs, but his leadership is evident to Woods.

“Even though he’s not wearing a letter, he’s always in our leadership meetings,” Woods said. “He’s an older guy, he’s experienced in the league and he knows what it takes to win.”

Selected by Regina in the third round of the 2013 WHL draft, Smith played 68 games as a rookie with the Pats in 2014-15, recording seven points.

He played another season and a half with Regina before he was traded to Kamloops, and last season he had 21 goals and 23 assists in 62 games.

The Chiefs gave up forward Jeff Faith – necessary because WHL teams can only have three 20-year-olds on their roster – and their third-round and sixth-round picks in the 2020 bantam draft to acquire Smith on Nov. 26.

Smith maintained his scoring pace from Kamloops (19 points in 22 games) when he joined Spokane (23 in 27).

The Chiefs are trying to hold onto the No. 3 seed in the U.S. Division, five points ahead of Tri-City, while also aiming to catch Portland, eight points ahead. The Chiefs have 16 games left; the Winterhawks have 13.

Smith is happy to be part of the Chiefs’ chase in his last season in the WHL. This summer, he’ll head “back to the farm” and find work. After that?

“I want to keep playing hockey,” he said.