Alberts Šmits arrived at Rangers training camp with the kind of confidence that usually comes from a player who already knows what’s coming. The 18-year-old defenseman said he expected to crack the opening-night roster, and he didn’t hide it.
“Yeah, obviously,” Šmits said of whether he expected to make the team. “That’s why I came here.”
Now the fifth-overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft has turned that expectation into reality. New York selected Šmits with the idea that he was the most pro-ready defenseman in the class, and he backed that billing by winning a job with the big club.
“That’s a step I wanted to take over the last years, and over the summer, and now that I have accomplished making the team, it does not stop there,” Šmits said. “I think it’s just the start of a long journey.”
From the start of camp, the Rangers treated him like a real contender, not a long shot. Mike Sullivan kept Šmits with the main NHL group for the full run of training camp, and the young defenseman responded by showing he could handle the pace and pressure against NHL competition.
Over the past two weeks, Šmits has mostly worked on the third pair with Braden Schneider. He also appeared in three of the Rangers’ four preseason games, including one where he logged more than 23 minutes.
What looked like a likely American Hockey League assignment with the Hartford Wolf Pack before camp has shifted completely. Šmits’ play changed the conversation, and Sullivan made it clear he saw enough to trust the teenager on the roster.
“He’s made the team, he’s made the opening roster because he’s deserving,” Sullivan said of Šmits. “We feel based on where he’s at, we don’t think he’s overwhelmed.
We think he belongs. The reason we think he belongs is through his play.
“The size and strength of him as a player at this point, the path that he’s taken to get here and playing the game against men, for all of those reasons, we think he’s deserving of being here… He played extremely well throughout the course of training camp, played well in the exhibition games. We think he’s deserving.”
The Rangers are set to open the 2026-27 season with eight defensemen, with Matthew Robertson and Scott Morrow listed as the extras.
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