Brendan Smith’s first full season with the Rangers has not gone as expected. After being a top-four option down the stretch and in the playoffs, he has been a healthy scratch for four straight games and six times already this season. That’s not good for someone that the team committed four years and $17.4MM to back in June. Neither side has to be thrilled with how things have gone so far making it fair to wonder if there could already be buyer’s or seller’s remorse from New York or Smith.
Larry Brooks of the New York Post spoke with Smith’s agent, Anton Thun, who made it clear that the Rangers’ defender has no regret about signing despite the lack of playing time: “I’m not sure who’s the buyer and who’s the seller in this case, but there are no regrets at all from Smitty. And while I don’t want to speak for the Rangers, I talk to Jeff (Gorton) pretty regularly and I’ve never gotten that impression from him. This is where he wanted to be and this is where he wants to be.”
Other news and notes from the East:
- The Devils are expected to activate winger Kyle Palmieri off injured reserve in advance of Thursday’s game against Edmonton, North Jersey’s Andrew Gross reports. He could possibly take the place of center Pavel Zacha in the lineup as the 20-year-old skated as the 13th forward in practice. While New Jersey will need to make a move to bring Palmieri back, they have yet to place Marcus Johansson (concussion) on IR so that should open up a roster spot without affecting any of their currently-healthy players.
- The Sabres could get defenseman Josh Gorges back this weekend, notes Bill Hoppe of the Olean Times Herald. The veteran has missed the last eight games due to a lower-body injury and Buffalo could certainly use some healthy bodies on their injury-riddled back end. Fellow rearguard Nathan Beaulieu is also making progress on his lower-body issue although there’s no timetable for his return. Meanwhile, blueliner Matt Tennyson is listed as day-to-day with an ankle injury.
This is how Brendan Smith’s time went when he was with Detroit. There just wasn’t any consistency to his game. Mike Babcock sat him & Jeff Blashill did the same. Now, the New York Rangers have to deal with him. Good luck trying to trade him, if that’s the case because this is the second team that has had to deal with his inconsistencies & the rest of the league has also caught on.
I’d like to see B. Smith ply forward.
Another reason why his signing was a terrible move. The last thing the Rangers needed was to sign another all-defense-no-offense (Girardi and Staal) defenseman to a big money contract. I was never a fan of the trade for him in the first place, and definitely didn’t like resigning him. The guy is, at best, a third pair defenseman on a good team yet the Rangers gave him top four defenseman money. If the Rangers were desperate for a defensemen then the deal could’ve been at least acceptable at the time, but they already had McDonagh, Skjei, Staal, and Holden with rumors that Shattenkirk’s preferred destination was the Rangers. So there really was no reason to give him a big deal. The deal looks especially stupid considering the money/cap they saved when they bought out Girardi basically went right back into a less consistent, left handed Girardi anyway. I get that the team is trying to put a contending team around Lundqvist, but the Rangers are killing themselves by constantly making these types of decisions.
Once AGAIN, Gorton has mismanaged the teams assets!
They went to training camp with 11(!) legit NHL ready defenseman , and 1 top six Center.
Smith was arguably our second best defenseman in last years playoff (Skeji), so I liked resigning him, BUT, then Gorton went to camp with McD, Skeji, Staal, Holden, Kampfer, Shattenkirk, Pionk, Graves, Smith, DeAngelo and Bereglazov .
Just pure stupidity …..
Hal, this sounds like how the Red Wings hand out bad contracts. Smith never showed any consistency in Detroit or in the AHL. When the Rangers signed him to his contract, I was shocked & I remember saying that this sounded like the type of contract that Ken Holland likes to hand out. Detroit traded him because he just never played the NHL type of game. Brendan Smith, for the most part works hard but cannot apply that to the best league in the world. Good luck trying to watch how the Rangers front office does things because their Detroit counterparts handle things the same way.