[1] Smail finished his career with the Minnesota North Stars, Quebec Nordiques and Ottawa Senators, but never achieved the success he had in Winnipeg.
After Smail's NHL career was over, he played three seasons in Britain for the Fife Flyers and Cardiff Devils before retiring.
Smail was one of five plaintiffs along with Dave Forbes, Rick Middleton, Brad Park and Ulf Nilsson in Forbes v. Eagleson, a class action lawsuit filed in 1995 on behalf of about 1,000 NHL players who were employed by NHL teams between 1972 and 1991 against Alan Eagleson, the league and its member clubs.
The players alleged that the NHL and its teams violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by colluding with Eagleson to enable him to embezzle from the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) and that the four-year statute of limitations in civil racketeering cases began when Eagleson was indicted in 1994.
The lawsuit was dismissed on August 27, 1998 in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by Thomas Newman O'Neill Jr. who ruled that the statute of limitations expired because it had begun in 1991 when the players were made aware of the allegations against Eagleson.