Sarah McLellan

azcentral sports

Coyotes goalie Mike Smith pulls out an aluminum chair designed for a preschooler, his knees around the same height as the tyke-sized table once he sits, but he doesn’t mind.

This is easier on his back than crawling on the floor playing with mini sticks.

Smith has his 1-year-old son, Nixon, in his lap and across from him is his 4-year-old son, Aksel, who begins to rattle off the names of the players tethered into the bubble hockey set anchoring the table.

Max.

Shane.

Antoine Vermette.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson.

Murphy.

“Who’s your goalie?” Smith asks.

Aksel names Anders Lindback but then corrects himself, calling out Louis Domingue.

“Your dad?” Smith asks hopefully.

“You’re hurt right now,” Aksel says. “It’s Louis Domingue!”

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Smith chuckles.

“All right. Game on.”

Afternoons like this with his sons (Aksel won 3-1) have become the norm since Smith underwent surgery on a core muscle injury in mid-December.

His recovery is closing in on its 11th week, surpassing the eight-to-10-week estimate that accompanied the procedure, and Smith is eager to rejoin his teammates in games.

The rehab process has resembled rush-hour traffic: accelerated progress at the beginning but stop-and-go ever since.

Even so, Smith and the Coyotes are optimistic he’ll make his return next month. He’s with the team on a five-game road trip that wraps Monday in Pittsburgh, appearing on the ice only during morning skates and practices.

And while it’s been difficult to sit out and wrangle the range of emotions a midseason surgery undoubtedly brings to a competitive team player – helplessness, frustration and disappointment – Smith has kept busy with his other main responsibility in life: being a dad.

“To have the support I have, for the kids to keep it light, I’m laughing every day at them because every day it’s something new,” Smith said. “I’m fortunate to have them, that’s for sure.”

Always a goalie

The competition has shifted to the outside of Smith’s north Scottsdale home where hockey nets frame the driveway and a collection of sticks lies among the landscaping.

Smith emerges with a poster cutout of winger Mikkel Boedker’s face and tapes it to the crossbar of one of the goals.

For Halloween, Smith and his wife, Brigitte, dressed as profile pictures of Boedker and Ekman-Larsson from the dating app Tinder, and they’re still getting use out of the costumes.

“Aksel wanted a goalie the other day, and obviously I didn’t want to be goalie with an orange hockey ball,” Smith says. “I’ve had enough growing up with my own brother.”

Aksel wires a shot off of Boedker’s forehead, and a game ensues. Nixon rides through the action on a scooter, and then Smith’s middle child – 3-year-old Ajax – emerges in goalie equipment.

“My older brother, when I was younger, was like, ‘OK, you’re goalie,’” Smith recalls. “I’m like, ‘No, I don’t want to be goalie.’ He’s like, ‘I’m older. You’re goalie.’

“I see the same thing with him. Now Ajax is like, ‘I’m goalie.’”

Smith’s career obviously evolved from one-on-one contests with his brother, Brad.

While playing junior in the Ontario Hockey League as a 19-year-old, Smith was drafted in the fifth round by the Stars in 2001.

He spent four seasons in the minors before finally cracking the Stars’ roster. But after only a season-and-a-half in Dallas, Smith was traded to the Lightning in 2008.

A change of scenery didn’t exactly open up more opportunity for Smith, who was at one point demoted to the American Hockey League in 2011.

Later that year, the Coyotes scooped him out of free agency and he revitalized his career.

Smith posted his best season yet, ranking among league leaders in goals-against average (2.21) and save percentage (.930) while leading the Coyotes to a spot in the 2012 Western Conference finals – the franchise’s most successful season to date.

Smith was rewarded with a six-year, $34 million contract in 2013 but has yet to recapture the proficiency he displayed in 2011-12 with this injury his latest hiccup.

“It just got to the point I was unable to compete at the highest level I could,” said Smith, who had hernia surgery 10 years ago. “That was frustrating for me, and it was starting to affect the way I played. Obviously, when you don’t play as well as you’re capable of playing because you’re being held back a little bit, that’s when I had to make a decision. It’s better to get it fixed now and come back stronger and put it in the past and move forward.”

Healing time

This injury doesn’t have a conception date; it was caused by the natural wear-and-tear brought on by the position, but Smith started to feel the deterioration before this season started.

He had been able to manage it, doing off-ice work to get his body ready to compete, but eventually it began to show itself on the ice when it affected Smith’s ability to leave his crease to play the puck behind the net – a trademark of his style.

While he doesn’t offer the injury as an excuse, Smith believes it prevented him from playing up to his potential.

After starting the season 3-0 with an eye-popping .981 save percentage in stopping 104 of 106 shots, Smith was up-and-down and lost four straight before pausing to have surgery.

Overall, he’s 10-9-1 with a 3.06 goals-against average and .901 save percentage.

“I just got to the point where I couldn’t deal with it anymore,” he said.

Smith flew to Philadelphia Dec. 14 with Coyotes assistant athletic trainer Mike Ermatinger to visit with William C. Meyers, a doctor who specializes in core muscle injuries, and was on the operating table the next day.

When he arrived home Dec. 17, Smith was limited for about two weeks but he started to rehab immediately.

He usually wakes up around 7:30 a.m., is out of the house by 8:30 and arrives at Gila River Arena at 9 to get on the ice before his teammates.

Smith skated for the first time since the surgery Jan. 1 and made his first practice appearance Feb. 11.

During home games, he works out with the training staff while the team plays.

“You feel like you get a lot better at the start of the process because you go from not being able to sit up straight to not being able to get out of bed to be able to walk to be able to move properly,” Smith said. “And then you get to be going on the ice where you’re like, ‘OK, I’m ready.’ And then you’re like, ‘No, I’m not. There’s still a long ways to go here.’

“That’s been definitely the most frustrating part with the whole deal. Once you get back on the ice, you’re like, ‘Hey, I’m back on the ice. I should be ready to go.’ It doesn’t always work out that way.”

All about family

It’s almost time for swim lessons at the neighborhood pool, so the entire Smith family piles into the “buggy,” a black Polaris Ranger.

They cruise down the cactus-lined road, eventually pulling into a parking stall before Aksel and Ajax take off down a gravel path toward the entrance while Nixon trails behind.

On game days when he’s playing, it’d be impossible for Smith to chauffeur the kids to activities like this since he has to prepare: morning skate, lunch and then a nap before driving to Gila River Arena.

Even on practice days, Smith might not have much free time.

But these are the types of duties Smith has been able to assume since he’s been out of commission.

He’s made grocery-store runs, picked up Aksel and Ajax from preschool and taken Aksel to hockey and baseball practices.

“I think I’m in the running for Dad of the Year now,” Smith said.

His kids have become accustomed to his daily presence; Aksel was “pretty freaked out” when Smith recently accompanied the team on a one-game road trip to San Jose.

But like Smith, Brigitte is excited for her husband to return to action.

“He’s such a good dad,” she said. “When he comes home, it’s all about us and the kids. So that’s been nice. That’s the one thing you can take out of it. But at the same time, I really can’t wait for him to be back on the road and do his own thing and be with the guys on the team. He wants to do his part, so I feel that, too.”

While he’s still been visible, Smith has missed the camaraderie that grows when being around a team on a regular basis.

He’s watched every game, but he doesn’t offer up his observations since he wasn’t on the ice. Instead, he’s tried to interject praise and encouragement.

Despite a rough showing on their current road trip, a slide that has their playoff aspirations flickering, the Coyotes have managed to stay competitive without Smith.

But after losses, the fear that arose when Smith first considered the surgery reappears – the possibility the team falls out of contention before he’s able to return.

“That’s the hardest part about being injured,” he said. “When the team’s not doing as well, you feel like you’re kind of letting the team down by being out of the lineup.”

Even if the Coyotes’ playoff hopes officially expire before Smith returns, the surgery has healed Smith’s nagging issue and that’s important for the future.

Under contract for three more seasons, the 33-year-old is still considered by the Coyotes to be their No. 1 option in net – a title Smith intends to uphold.

“I want to come back, and I want to hit the ground running,” he said. “I feel like after I get over this, there’s nothing holding me back. I’ll be ready to prove that I can still be a top goalie in this league, and I feel like I can.”

As he sits on a blue-cushioned lawn chair watching Ajax bob in the water between the hands of a swim instructor, his eyes behind Ray-Ban sunglasses and a ball cap taming the curls he’s passed down to his sons, Smith acknowledges that the sport isn’t his first priority anymore.

But it’s become all the more meaningful to him because he’s been able to experience it with his other team in life, his family.

“This is the most important thing now, obviously my kids and my wife, when before when I was single, it was hockey, hockey, hockey,” Smith said. “It’s a lot different now. I still love what I do. I’m blessed and fortunate to be able to play in the NHL. It’s a dream come true.

“But to be able to do it and share it with my family, it’s that much more of a dream that I never thought I could have.”

Reach the reporter at sarah.mclellan@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8276. Follow her at twitter.com/azc_mclellan.