2026 NHL Draft Scouting Report on Alberts Šmits After Being Selected by the Rangers
The New York Rangers made a decision at the draft that will have ramifications for a decade-plus, drafting Latvian defenseman Alberts Šmits with the fifth-overall selection in the 2026 NHL Draft.
This is not like the 2017 Draft, where the Rangers went completely off the board by drafting Lias Andersson seventh overall. But they did stray away from a consensus that placed fellow defensemen Chase Reid and Carson Carels ahead of the pack.
It's a bold decision by a franchise that hasn't exactly earned the trust of its fanbase when it comes to drafting. Let's break down Šmits' scouting report by its parts and see why the Rangers may have felt he specifically was a fit for their needs at fifth overall.
Offense
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I have my share of skepticism that Šmits will continue the offensive trajectory suggested by the data.
The baseline counting numbers for Šmits look very good. His six goals and seven assists in 38 Liiga (top Finnish league) games put him right on par with some stellar NHL defenseman of past and present, including Joni Pitkanen and Miro Heiskanen, and those six goals are the most by a draft-eligible defenseman in Liiga since the early 80s. Many point-adherent statistical models favor Šmits. If you're a 6'3" defenseman putting up points in a top pro league, the math is going to offer you a favorable projection.
The Rangers added data analyst Dave MacPherson to the amateur scouting staff a few years ago, and while I can't speak to his specific influence on the Šmits selection, it would be little surprise if the data discussion at the roundtable buttressed the team's opinion of Smits.
Let's start with the good. The 6'3" Smits is a powerful skater. This bears out in a few scenarios. First, his pivots and punch turns are excellent. It comes in handy most on puck retrievals in the defensive zone. He can skate hard after pucks, stop with force, and then change direction to lose the lead forechecker. He also gallops through open ice with the puck and uses his reach to push the puck in front of his body to allow for a sprinting pace. He also has just enough lateral agility and puck control to move around defenders in open ice. The best thing Šmits does offensively is carry pucks from one end of the rink to the other. And if his team is in transition, he poses as a threat, usually beating his check up the ice and creating a numbers advantage on rushes.
What happens next is less certain. While Šmits doesn't panic under pressure, he doesn't show the quick thinking or puck skill to make a play upon entry into the offensive zone. Too often, he skates himself into dead ends. The best-case scenario is often a chip-and-chase scenario where he sets his team up for a forecheck and scrum for possession along the walls. This is effective, but when we're talking about a top-five selection, you do hope the defenseman can establish possession more cleanly as well.
Within the offensive zone, Šmits remains more of a battering ram than a chessmaster. His shot is vicious. He's not unlocking defenses with commanding play from the point, but he doesn't panic with the puck either and will maintain possession. He is aggressive and will pinch to create overloads in battles down low or move down the walls to prevent zone exits.
The lack of vision in the offensive zone hurts him and can also lead to poor decision-making in the defensive zone. He makes an impulsive decision with the puck. My scouting notes show far too many instances of him making dangerous blind passes that get picked off, leaving his team vulnerable after setting up breakouts.
It is important to remember that he was an 18-year-old going up against structured pros. Šmits displayed much more offensive creativity at the junior level, and his physical toolbox is wild. There are reasons to believe he can incorporate more soft skills over his next few years of development.
Ultimately, I think Šmits can become an offensive defenseman of sorts, replicating much of what former Ranger K'Andre Miller provided. Pure speed and a heavy shot may be enough to get him to 40-point consistency by tilting the ice in his team's favor, with brute-force offense and top speed that make him a threat off the rush.
Defense
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The separation of "offense" and "defense" as mutually exclusive categories is a fable that I am enabling here for purposes of cleaner writing, but the two often go hand-in-hand.
One of Šmits' best defensive traits is one I already mentioned: his puck retrievals. Mentioning the offensive advantage was putting the cart before the horse. The initial advantage is that teams have an extremely difficult time establishing a forecheck when dumping pucks to Smits' side of the ice. Rangers fans have grown used to watching the team get stuck defending because it was overloaded with defensemen who couldn't execute zone exits cleanly. The best defense is often preventing the opposition from gaining offensive zone time in the first place.
Šmits also uses his speed and reach to prevent O-zone time within the neutral zone. When the opposition throws pucks off glass or floats them out of the defensive zone, he is quick to win them back, recycle possession, and send his team back on the forecheck. He is also an aggressive patroller from the blue line and kills a lot of attempted passes through neutral ice. His speed allows him to play this aggressive style, as teams that try to counter his aggression with dump-and-chases again fall victim to his recovery speed, as he wins his races on retrievals. It's all interconnecting.
Within the defensive zone, there's a lot to like and a lot to be optimistic about. He will improve on. Šmits is an aggressive defender. He is able to get to the weak side quickly with his range. This makes him a great fit for Mike Sullivan's overload systems and any penalty-kill unit. He battles hard in front of the net and already makes life fairly miserable for any forward trying to carry into interior spaces or create a screen above the crease, but Šmits has untapped potential in this regard. He can and should become a little more mean consistently. He has a chance to become one of the NHL's premier bullies in a good way.
There are plenty of moments where his aggression serves him well, but he leaves his team prone at times. In the defensive zone, he will often abandon the interior slot to try to snuff out a puck carrier along the walls. It's a dicey balance that he's trying to strike. With his speed and range, he can sometimes recover when those gambles don't go his way, but at the NHL level, where players think and execute more quickly, he's going to get exposed. To be clear, these are not poison pills in his game. The Rangers have to like the ambition and the best-case scenario he allows for. Now it's about coaching him to pick his spots.
Character/Off-Ice
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I believe Šmits' more subjective character traits played a role in the Rangers' decision to select him. Are you rolling your eyes right now? If so, who could blame you?
Analysis of "character" in hockey is often nebulous. Especially in prospects. How many people at age 17 and 18 are the same person at age 25? It's also very difficult to project how the various externalities will affect a person's maturity or even their fit within a city, with a coaching staff, and in a locker room of 22 other players, etc.
The Rangers, in particular, haven't exactly proven to be mavens of the psychological evaluation in recent history. Many of their previous top picks were justified on the basis of character, only for some of those players not only to not live up to expectations on-ice but even specifically be the sources of tension off-ice.
The team's radical attempt to identify problems and solutions to its own perceived culture problem over the last two years has also completely backfired.
In the case of Šmits, I believe there are legitimate reasons to favor his fit with the Rangers' organization at this moment.
Inexplicably, the Rangers have gone from arguably the top destination in North America to something of an afterthought. The chaotic last couple of seasons in which the Rangers have missed the playoffs in humiliating fashion and ostracized well-liked players within (and outside of) the organization have absolutely hurt their appeal in player recruitment.
Šmits has made it clear that the Rangers are not only a team he is happy to land with, but also the team he was hoping to join.
His personality is a fit for the Rangers' situation. Šmits exudes a dry confidence. He's seemingly unfazed by big competition in big stages. The Latvian moved to Finland at age 15. He began playing pro hockey at age 17. He made a midseason move to Germany. He went up against elite competition at the Olympics. In all of these instances, Šmits not only survived but thrived.
To be clear, I haven't heard of any serious character concerns about other players drafted in slots after the Latvian, but the Rangers have had way too much drama over the last few seasons and enter next season with a lot of lingering tension. There's immense pressure on the organization to get things right, and fans and the media will be extremely unforgiving. It's a rough environment for a teenager with the weight of expectations.
I believe the Rangers see Šmits' demeanor, ability to handle difficult transitions at a young age, and fearlessness in playing his game regardless of who his competition is or what the stage is, and they see someone who is built not only to withstand the general buzzsaw that is New York City, but the specific turbulence this franchise is navigating.
Now Comes the Hard Part
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Would Šmits have been my selection at fifth overall? Probably not.
However, the margins between him, Chase Reid, Carson Carels, and Keaton Verhoeff are as prospects. Ask 10 scouts to arrange those four in order, and you'll likely get 10 different answers. I have heard from a scout at another NHL organization notorious for identifying and developing defense prospects who said his team rated Šmits very highly.
It's not that the Rangers blew the pick here, in my opinion, in the way I felt they have at other times. There are four horses in this race who all have a very good chance of finishing first. He's just not the horse I bet on.
Despite that, the fit here for the Rangers is obvious. They are way too slow on defense. Smits could play on opening night and already be one of the better skaters in the NHL. Straight-line speed, four-way mobility, you name it. His ability to cover ice and his aggressive style are also a strong fit (in theory) for Sullivan's systems, which demand aggressive pinching on 50/50 pucks along the walls, liberal activation low in the offensive zone, and an aggressive stance at the blue line on neutral-zone forechecks.
Šmits has a very high floor and is a virtual lock to become a top-four defenseman. How much more he can become is up to both him and the Rangers. We like to look back at drafts to determine whether teams made the "right" or "wrong" selections, but in reality, players' fates aren't deterministic. A player who thrives in one organization may have busted in different circumstances. The Rangers need to put Šmits in positions to succeed.
They can't rush his development under pressure to provide this is a retool rather than a rebuild, and if he proves not ready for the NHL, then they have to live with that. He needs a lot of hands-on work from smart skills coaches and assistants who can develop him nd identify tactical mistakes respectively.
If the Rangers can get this right, there is absolutely a chance that Smits justifies his selection and becomes something of a unicorn player. A 24-minute defensive play-killer who also leverages his raw tools with developed hockey sense to become an overpowering play-driver and 45-50 point defenseman. Making the decision to draft him is only step one in the process.
Now they have to avoid past mistakes and provide the right scaffolding to help him along the way. Their ability to do so will determine how history views the selection to choose him over the other available prospects.
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