The New York Rangers have their 2026 roster set, and the headline is impossible to miss: Alberts Smits made the team.
That’s the cleanest win in a camp that otherwise brought a fair amount of tension. The Rangers will open with 13 forwards, 8 defensemen and 2 goalies, and while the group looks stronger overall, one decision in particular has already become the flashpoint - Dylan Garand was waived so Joonas Korpisalo could stay. That move has plenty of people scratching their heads.
On the forward side, there wasn’t much drama once camp settled in. The top three lines were largely expected, with Alexis Lafreniere, Mika Zibanejad and Gabe Perreault together, followed by JT Miller, Pavel Dorofeyev and Oliver Bjorkstrand, then Will Cuylle, Noah Laba and Eeli Tolvanen.
The injury to Adam Sykora also simplified the picture. He was already trending toward the AHL because Tye Kartye required waivers and Sykora did not, and now the timeline to return pushes that question further down the road.
By January, the roster needs may look different anyway.
The only real forward gripe was Matt Rempe, and even that comes with a caveat. He didn’t have a great camp, and Liam Greentree and Cole Beaudoin both outplayed him.
Still, neither of those players fits the fourth-line role, and neither would really benefit from it. Rempe looks like the kind of player who can handle 20-30 games while spending the rest of the time in the press box.
Jaro Chmelar should get most of the games and will battle Kartye for a bigger role if injuries open the door. Rempe’s ability to play center helped him too.
So if Rempe is the main complaint up front, that group can still be called a successful camp.
The defense is where things get crowded, but also where the brightest surprise arrived. Smits has looked exactly like the Rangers hoped, and maybe better.
He’s been calm with the puck, steady defensively and sharp in his decisions with and without the puck. If Marcus Pettersson and Sean Durzi can hold down the second pair, Smits has the look of a stabilizing third-pair defender to start the season.
The team likes him enough that his play has complicated the roster, forcing New York to carry eight defensemen until a trade happens or an injury changes the picture.
That push from Smits bumped Matthew Robertson to 7D and Scott Morrow to 8D, and Morrow’s spot is one to watch. Braden Schneider is starting to take the kind of heat from fans that Ryan Lindgren used to get in his final season, with the same basic concern: he’s blocking younger players from more meaningful ice time.
Lindgren was standing in the way of K’Andre Miller on the top pair, and now Schneider is the obstacle for Morrow, who was part of the K’Andre Miller trade. Schneider didn’t have a strong preseason, and Mike Sullivan has said he wants his game to rise to Smits’ level.
Maybe that happens eventually, but right now the better bet is that Morrow needs the ice time. The only concern with him is that he’s a high event player, something NHL coaches tend to dislike in depth roles.
There’s also the Vincent Iorio question once he comes off season opening IR. If the Rangers keep him, does that mean Morrow gets waived? That’s a decision that would draw plenty of anger.
And then there’s the backup goalie spot, which is the real controversy.
On paper, it can be waved off as “just” the backup job. But the issue is bigger than that.
The Rangers chose to keep a known bad backup goalie who hasn’t posted a .900 save percentage since Covid was still fresh in everyone’s mind, and they did it by waiving a promising prospect in Dylan Garand. The argument that Garand “need some work” doesn’t change the basic point: he’s hard to imagine being worse than Korpisalo, and New York is trying to compete.
Garand would have likely started 25-30 NHL games. The question is simple - was it worth risking a solid asset for nothing just to keep a sub-.900 SV% goalie?
There is at least some logic behind the timing. Had Garand been waived earlier, he probably would have been claimed.
Now, with most teams already set in goal, the market may be tighter. Any claiming team would have to keep Garand on the NHL roster, which means clearing a goalie spot.
Many of those spots are already occupied by goalies who would require waivers, and the deadline to place players on waivers for roster compliance was yesterday. That makes a claim harder for teams already at the 23-player limit, since they’d need to make a trade quickly.
Still, some teams do have room. Winnipeg is one that comes to mind.
Whether Garand clears won’t be known until later this afternoon. Even if the Rangers get away with it, though, the process is still the problem.
Bad process deserves to be called out, claim or no claim.
In Other News...
New Look Rangers Face One Brutal Reality In The Playoff Race
Chris Drury spent the offseason trying to give the Rangers a noticeably different look, and the overhaul is hard to miss. New arrivals such as Oliver Bjorkstrand, Eeli Tolvanen, Sean Durzi, Marcus Pettersson, Alberts Smits and Joonas Korpisalo are meant to raise the floor after a frustrating finish near the bottom of the Eastern Conference, giving New York more balance and more options as it tries to climb back into relevance.
The problem is that improvement in the standings is only half the battle in the Metropolitan Division, where the race for playoff spots is likely to be unforgiving again. The Rangers should be better than they were a year ago, but the gap between looking improved and actually getting back into the postseason is still a real one, and it is the sort of margin that can turn even a busy summer into only the first step of a much harder climb. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers New Look Gets An Early Test In Boston
The Rangers new season opens quickly and with a little bit of edge, as they head into TD Garden on Tuesday night to face the Bruins in the first game of the 2026-27 NHL regular season. New York is carrying eight new players on its opening-night roster, a sign that this group is already being asked to look and feel different from the one that finished last spring.
Among the fresh faces is 18-year-old Alberts Smits, whose NHL debut adds an extra layer of interest to a roster still taking shape. The night also brings a milestone for Mike Sullivan, who will coach his 1,000th NHL game in Boston, giving an already familiar Original Six backdrop a little more weight as the Rangers get their first real test of the year. [Read more 🡒]
Rangers Just Got An Early Blue-Line Boost From An Unexpected Rookie
Alberts mits arrived in camp with plenty of attention after the Rangers took him fifth overall in the 2026 NHL Draft, but he has quickly turned that into a real role on the opening-night roster for the 2026-27 season. The young defenseman made a strong enough impression in training camp and preseason play to earn a place on the third pairing, giving New York an early look at one of its most intriguing blue-line additions.
What makes the move notable is how fast the plan changed for a player many figured would need more seasoning elsewhere before settling into NHL duty. Instead, mits stayed with the main group through camp, and Mike Sullivan made it clear the rookie had done enough to belong. For a Rangers defense looking for reliability and upside, that kind of early breakthrough is the sort of development that can quietly shape the first stretch of the season. [Read more 🡒]