Colin Stephenson: How Rangers rookie Alberts Smits quietly goes about being an NHL pro
Rangers defenseman Alberts Smits sets before a face off against the Los Angeles Kings in the second period of an NHL hockey game at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 26, 2026. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
A month into his NHL career, Rangers rookie Alberts Smits is beginning to feel comfortable.
The 18-year-old defenseman, the Rangers’ first-round pick (No. 5 overall) in this past summer’s NHL Draft, hadn’t smiled much and had been all business after coming over from his native Latvia intent on making the Rangers’ roster out of training camp.
But now that he’s established himself in the lineup — he’s played in all 14 games this season, averaging 14 minutes, 34 seconds per game — maybe he’s relaxed a little. He seems more at ease in interviews and his teammates say he’s loosened up a touch.
“I think he's kind of coming out of his shell a little bit,” captain J.T. Miller said. “He'll be the first to tell you he doesn't project as the most colorful human, but that's OK. I think he's got a great personality.”
From the start of the Rangers’ prospect development camp in the summer, Smits has been hyper-focused on hockey and hasn't spent much time thinking about much else. Now that he’s made the team and established himself as a lineup regular, he’s still not thinking about much else.
What does he do for fun away from the rink? “I don't know, nothing much,” Smits said.
“My life's kind of simple,” he told Newsday. “Just going out to get some good food. That's one thing I do pretty often over here. Just enjoying my own time and peace and quiet.”
Smits lives by himself in an apartment near the team’s practice facility in Greenburgh, and if living alone at such a young age in a foreign country seems daunting or intimidating, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I'm living alone. Just the way I like it,’’ he said. “I’d much rather be by myself. Don't have to like count on anyone else, just making my own decisions, and that's it.”
He said he’s lived alone since he moved from Latvia to Finland at age 13 to better his hockey development. That was tougher. He not only was much younger but didn’t speak Finnish. He spoke a little English, he said.
“A lot of people over there speak English, so that's like second language of the country in Finland,” he said. “But as the years went on, after like 2 1/2 years, I became pretty fluent in Finnish. So I started speaking their language. That made it a lot easier.”
On the ice, he excelled. As a 14-year-old, he played on the U16 team. At 15, he was on the U18 team, and at 16, he was called up to the U20 team. In his draft year, he played in the Finnish pro league and was loaned to a team in Germany when his team didn’t make the playoffs.
So he’s been around.
And while he has yet to score his first NHL point, Smits hasn’t looked out of place at all. Coach Mike Sullivan said he’s coming along just fine.
“When you look at an individual player's development, my experience has been it's never linear,” Sullivan said. “There's ups and downs and ebbs and flows inside of that development growth period, and that's what Smitty's going through. He's had stretches where he's been really good, and then there's been other moments where . . . there have been learning opportunities, and then he captures his game and moves forward. And I think at the end of the day, the most important thing is he's making forward progress.”
Morrow awaits his chance
Scott Morrow, another young defenseman,has yet to play in a game this season.
Because Morrow, who turns 24 on Sunday, had to pass through waivers before he could be assigned to the minor leagues, the Rangers chose to keep him on the roster, and not risk losing a young right-shot defenseman with offensive potential. But with none of their top six defensemen needing to come out of the lineup for an injury, Morrow has yet to crack the lineup, and that cannot be good for his own development.
“Everybody wants to play, and I'm a competitor, and I want to get in,” Morrow told Newsday when asked how hard it has been to not play. “But at the same time, I have to be respectful of the coaches trying to do what's best for the team. And they owe it to everybody in this room to make the decision that they feel is best to help the team win. And I may disagree with it, but at the end of the day, I have to live with it and respect it and be respectful of them and the situation and just work as hard as I can so that when I'm ready, I play well and don't let these guys down.”
Sullivan was asked what the conversations are like between the coaches and Morrow.
“We don't like having any of our players on the sidelines for any length of time,” he said. “It's not in anybody's best interest, especially a young player like Scotty. There are circumstances around it, and he's been great. He's a great pro. He understands it. We've communicated it with him. He works extremely hard to try to keep his game at a level where, when he does get the tap to go in, that he has an opportunity to have success.”
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.
