Rookie Alberts Smits confident in his abilities ahead of opening night — and so are the Rangers
Alberts Smits of the Rangers skates during a preseason game against the Islanders at UBS Arena on Friday. Credit: Errol Anderson
GREENBURGH – There was never a doubt in Alberts Smits’ mind that he would be on the Rangers’ opening-night roster. He always knew he would make the team.
“Yeah, obviously,’’ Smits said Monday, after the Rangers’ final practice before Tuesday’s season opener against the Bruins in Boston. “That's why I came here.’’
That confidence – and the fact that he’s 6-3, and 208 pounds – are the main reasons Smits, 18, was one of the 23 players who traveled with the Rangers to Boston Monday for Tuesday’s game. If he plays in the game, he’ll become the first 18-year-old defenseman ever to play for the Rangers on opening night.
But the thing is, with his size, and his all-business attitude, he doesn’t come across as 18.
“He looks more mature than a kid at 18 or 19 years old,’’ Rangers captain J.T. Miller said. “He looks like he's older than that when he plays. He skates well. He's a big body. He's got bite to his game, you know? He's got a skill set, so he's a heckuva player.’’
The No. 5 overall pick in this summer’s NHL draft, Smits is no wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights rookie. He left home in Latvia at 13 to play in Finland, because he thought it would be better for his hockey development, and in his second year there, at age 14, he jumped from the U-16 division to U-18. He played in the men’s pro league there at 17, and played in two pro leagues last season. He played in the Olympics and World Championships last season for Latvia. He speaks three languages. The guy has been around the world playing hockey. He wasn’t awed by coming to New York for training camp.
“We knew that going into this he was going to have a shot at making the opening-night roster, based on… our experience of watching and playing against him in the Olympics, which is from a from a high-level hockey standpoint as good as it gets,’’ Mike Sullivan, the Rangers and U.S. Olympic coach, said. “He played extremely well there. And so, everything that we watched on film certainly suggested to us that he's a guy that potentially could play in the NHL right away.”
Assuming he plays Tuesday, he’ll be the first 18-year-old to play for the Rangers on opening night since Kaapo Kakko in 2019, and the first 18-year-old defenseman ever to play for them on opening night. Dave Maloney, currently the team’s television analyst, was called up and played four games as an 18-year-old in the 1974-75 season, but he was not with the team on opening night.
However, to Smits, who was voted the Lars-Erik Sjoberg Award, as the most outstanding rookie in training camp, that doesn’t matter.
“I don't really care if you're 18 or 30 or 60,’’ he said. “The job's gonna stay the same. So yeah, I'm just trying to focus on the instructions that the coaches are giving us, and trying to execute as best as I can.”
Smits, who was moved into the main locker room on Friday, after spending all of training camp dressing in an auxiliary room, changed his jersey number from 63 to 12.
“I like 12 better than 63, so I decided to go with that,’’ he said.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
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