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Play It Again - Jan. 20 2023 - Vol. 76 Issue 9 - Jacob Stoller
(JONATHAN KOZUB/MANITOBA MOOSE)
IT WAS NOVEMBER 2020, at the height of COVID-19 restrictions in Canada, and Jeff Malott was going stir crazy. After signing a pro contract with the AHL’s Manitoba Moose following his senior season at Cornell University, Malott had spent nearly seven months training for a 2020-21 campaign that kept getting pushed back. Malott’s older brother, UFC fighter Michael Malott, recalls how Jeff’s frustration mounted into discouragement. “It’s funny now because there were times when he was like, ‘I’m 24, I need to get on with my life and do something. I can’t just be bumming around training,’” Michael said.
Jeff needed ways to occupy his time. So the native of Burlington, Ont., eventually gathered some of his old hockey gear and went to trade it in at a local sports store. It was there that Malott met the store’s owner, Mark Hoppe. The two hit it off right away. As they rummaged through the equipment, Malott explained that – what with on-ice training being sporadic during the pandemic – he had been feeling bored. Hoppe said he was short-staffed and could use help if Malott was interested in working retail. And just like that, Malott began working as a sales associate at Play It Again Sports. “I didn’t think that coming out of college with an Ivy League degree that I’d be working at a Play It Again Sports for 14 bucks an hour,” Malott said. “But you know what, I loved it. It was something to do.”
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Hoppe says Malott was excellent in his nearly three-month stint in retail. “He dealt with all types of customers, from three-year-olds to senior citizens, fantastically,” Hoppe said.
Hoppe was particularly struck by Malott’s work ethic, especially when learning skills he probably wouldn’t need in his future – like sharpening skates. Hoppe requires his employees to take a skate-sharpening test before working on customers, and he says Malott passed it quicker than just about anybody he’s employed. “The other team members loved him,” Hoppe said. “They were upset when he left. It took a few days for them to get over that.”
(JONATHAN KOZUB/MANITOBA MOOSE)
In the now two-plus years since working at Play It Again Sports, Malott has signed two NHL contracts, made his NHL debut for the Winnipeg Jets and established himself as one of the AHL’s best goal-scorers since entering the league. Strangely, Malott was never much of a lamp-lighter in college, registering exactly six goals in each of his four NCAA seasons. “At Cornell, he was tasked to play defensive hockey and match up against the other teams’ top line all the time,” said Jets center Morgan Barron, Malott’s college roommate and teammate. “He was so good at it. It just seemed like that was the way he would contribute at the next level.”
At Cornell, the 6-foot-3 left winger was renowned as the ultimate teammate. “He’s a culture guy, someone you want in your organization,” said Cornell coach Mike Schafer. “Winnipeg did a great job in doing their homework and signing a guy like him.”
Malott, who cracked the NCAA all-academic team in each of his four seasons at Cornell, was voted by his teammates as a team captain in his senior year. That season made for some of his fondest memories in Ithaca, N.Y., with the Big Red ranked first in the country by USA Today at the time the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of the 2019-20 season. “We kinda thought we’d all be back in a couple of weeks and finish things up,” Malott said. “I still feel like there’s no closure on that year.”
While working at Play It Again Sports, Malott told Hoppe about how he and his father, Murray, were planning to build an ice rink in the backyard of their home. Hoppe was quick to offer Malott to borrow anything he needed for it. “Hoppe would just be like, ‘Take whatever equipment you need. Need a shooting pad? Take it. An NHL-quality net? Take it,’” Malott said. “He was the biggest help ever.”
Malott never got to skate on the outdoor rink – joining the ECHL’s Florida Everblades before it was ready – but he still put the equipment to good use. In addition to a synthetic-ice shooting pad and a net, Hoppe gave Malott a give-and-go passing aid that would fire the puck back at him after he passed to it. Malott nailed a quarter of a hockey stick on top of a couple of pucks, building a contraption to stickhandle under. Day after day, Malott queued up a 30- to 45-minute audio playlist and refined his skills in his parents’ driveway. He’d simulate hundreds of different types of shots. Catch-and-releases. Retrieval-and-releases. Quick one-timers. “The area of my game that needed to be improved the most was what I was able to work on the most during that time,” he said.
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His Cornell teammates remember Malott working on similar game-like scenarios after practices. “He’d work on his shot in awkward positions,” said Bakersfield Condors defenseman Yanni Kaldis, another of Malott’s college roommates. “Shots where the pass may not be perfect, but you need to get it off as quickly as possible.”
And as it would turn out, Malott’s first career AHL goal came from an awkward angle. In Manitoba’s fourth game of the 2020-21 season, against the Toronto Marlies, Malott – who had been in and out of the lineup early on – corralled the puck at the top right of the faceoff circle, rifled a shot and scored through the narrowest of openings above the goalie’s shoulder. That goal was the catalyst for Malott’s breakout rookie campaign. A few games later, he got an opportunity on the first line alongside David Gustafsson and Nathan Todd. It was there he ended up spending the majority of the year. After scoring a team-high 14 goals that season, the Jets signed Malott to an entry-level contract. “Potential like that is something you can’t turn your back on,” Kaldis said.
Heading into his second year as a pro, Malott was a prime regression candidate for 2021-22. With NHL taxi squads eliminated, the AHL’s talent level went way up, and there was every reason to believe he could fade into the background. But Malott kept chugging along, potting 23 goals and again finishing as Manitoba’s leading goal-scorer. During 2021-22, Malott’s scoring evolved still further. He dominated the home-plate area, leveraging his physical attributes to become an imposing power forward.
(JONATHAN KOZUB/MANITOBA MOOSE)
Throughout that season, Malott’s sound fundamentals left his teammates in awe. “Kind of like a center in basketball, he’s able to use his butt to create space for himself,” said former Moose teammate and current San Jose Sharks right winger Michael Eyssimont.
Malott evolved into one of Manitoba’s leaders that year, carrying over the type of impact he had within Cornell’s dressing room to that of the Jets’ AHL affiliate. “I couldn’t think of a better guy to have in the locker room to help some of the young prospects when they’re first starting in the AHL,” Barron said.
Having seen the impact Malott had on his staff, Hoppe isn’t surprised that Malott is a well-respected teammate. “He’s easy to talk with, and he’s relatable,” Hoppe said. “He’s not a higher-than-thou (type). He showed it when he came to work with us when he could have just been sitting at home doing nothing or just focusing on his trade of hockey.”
On top of being lauded for being a caring and friendly teammate, Malott is known to be quite the jester. He’ll do anything to make his teammates laugh. A prime example of that went viral at the end of a game against the Chicago Wolves in February 2022. After burying the shootout winner, Malott walked right off the ice and down the tunnel – executing the ultimate clutch celebration after winning the game for Manitoba. “As much as that celebration went viral and he got a little bit of fame or glory from it, he didn’t care about that,” Barron said. “He wanted to entertain the guys and keep everybody happy. That’s the guy he is.”
With Winnipeg signing Malott to a two-year pact this past off-season, there’s no doubt the Jets organization is as fond of the person Malott is as they are of the player. And this season, where it’s easy to overlook a Jeff Malott on the Jets’ depth chart, he’s continued to elevate his game – evolving as one of Manitoba’s most trusted penalty-killers.
“He’s the type of kid who knows what he has to be to try to break into the NHL,” said Moose coach Mark Morrison. “And that’s on the defensive side of the puck. He’s got to be strong on the walls and a good penalty-killer. But I think if you talk to coaches around the NHL, players in those types of roles, third- or fourth-liners and penalty-killers, they need to provide offense, too. So, if you look at his well-rounded game, he’s getting there.”
At the end of the day, the story of Jeff Malott boils down to a player repeatedly seizing the moment. And staying focused. “That just kind of shows you how much of hockey is mental and how much of hockey is about confidence and opportunity,” said Montreal Canadiens defenseman and former Moose teammate Johnathan Kovacevic. “That’s all credit to him, to stick with it. He’s always had those abilities, but in the last couple of years, he’s really stepped into his own and grown his game tremendously.”
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