Reunited And It Feels So Good

How do you adjust to playing for a brand-new expansion team in a city that has never had major professional sports?
To quote The Beatles, you do it with a little help from your friends.
Reilly Smith, acquired from the Florida Panthers the day of the Expansion Draft, will have no shortage of old friends in Vegas. One of his former head coaches in Florida, Gerard Gallant, is now his head coach in Vegas. In addition, assistant coach Mike Kelly coached Smith both with the Boston Bruins and with the Panthers. He'll also have former teammates like Jonathan Marchessault and Cody Eakin by his side.
That's comforting to a 26-year-old moving to an expansion team in the prime of his career.

"It's awesome," Smith told VegasGoldenKnights.com. "I think that's one thing that I'm very fortunate to have is those familiar faces, because I'm sure there are a few guys that are coming into this Vegas franchise not knowing too many people at all, so I'm very fortunate that I have that opportunity.
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"It's a very exciting experience at the same time, because you're going to be the first person to do something new for a great franchise, so I think everyone is looking at it in that type of excitement. It's going to be fun when we get everything started."
Smith has every reason to be excited about reuniting with Gallant. Under his tutelage, Smith had one of the best seasons of his career for Florida in 2015-16, scoring 25 goals, a career high.
"I had increased minutes from my previous seasons in Boston, also playing penalty kill, that helped a lot too, just getting those extra minutes, those extra touches helped," Smith said of his 2015-16 campaign. "Specifically playing under Gerard, to go off that, he did give me an opportunity to play different aspects that I hadn't played in Boston and Dallas previously."

The numbers don't lie. Playing under Gallant that season, Smith saw his average ice time per game jump up by more than three minutes. He was also used fairly evenly across all situations and areas of the ice.
On top of that, Gallant's coaching style is a big reason why Smith is so excited to reunite with him. As many players say, including Smith, Gallant is truly a player's coach.
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"I think he kind of embodies the motto that it's a players-first league and everything kind of revolves around that," Smith said. "I know particularly last year in the Florida Panthers organization, there was a lot of change and things going on and I know one of the main messages that he always put forth was that whatever goes on outside, make sure you guys are a tight-knit group inside and play for each other. That was one thing that he definitely tried to convey to the team and try to get us to rally behind."
Smith has become a versatile forward as his career developed, from learning the power play under Kelly in Boston to flourishing on the penalty kill under Gallant and Kelly in Florida. With (mostly) new teammates and a new city, Smith said he is ready to take on any role necessary to make his team, and Vegas, proud.
"It's a great test and I'm really looking forward to it," he said. "I think we're going to set the expectations of what kind of team we're going to be and it'll all start when everyone gets down to Vegas and starts training camp.
"I think every person that's going to put on that jersey is going to try to represent it as best as they can. That's an exciting thing, and I want to try to help out the team as much as I can. If it's offensively, defensively, I'm going to be there and I'm going to be doing the best I can."