CHICAGO — The frustration was certainly building within Brendan Smith, and if this kept up, it was eventually going to boil over. But the Rangers’ veteran defenseman doesn’t have to wait much longer. He is set to return to the lineup for Friday’s road match against the Blue Jackets after six-game stretch as a healthy scratch.
It might not have been such a big deal had Smith not signed a four-year, $17.4 million deal this summer just days before he could have reached unrestricted free agency. After he came over last season in a deadline trade from the Red Wings, Smith had shown an edge to his game the Blueshirts coveted enough to offer him a contract with a $4.35 million annual salary-cap hit. The 28-year-old was then slated to be in the Blueshirts’ top four, and yet his performance had led to coach Alain Vigneault deciding to dress him in only 11 of the team’s first 19 games.
“It’s definitely hard to stay positive,” Smith said after the team’s practice Thursday, when he was paired with Marc Staal. “But it’s how you bring it, it’s how your attitude [is] every day. If you’re grouchy or grumpy, you’re bringing down other people too. I tried not to do that.Thought I did a good job of staying positive.”
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Smith is set to bump Steven Kampfer from the lineup after he and Staal had a very difficult night against the Blackhawks on Wednesday at United Center, a 6-3 loss that ended the Blueshirts’ six-game winning streak. That team-wide success got the season back on solid ground, but it’s also what kept Smith from the lineup. He had not quite built up enough capital with Vigneault to stay in.
“Logically, some guys have more money in the bank than others,” Vigneault said. “Everybody has to show me something, he’s not the only one. Everyone has to come out and play well, that’s what we expect as a group.”
This was the longest time Smith has sat out in his seven-year career, and it wasn’t made any easier by constantly having to answer the questions about it. But he understood that was part of the process, especially after signing a new deal.
“There are a lot of ups and downs when it comes to being sat out,” Smith said. “Yeah, you have to try to stay positive and make sure you’re getting better every day because [if not], then you’re going to find yourself in a hole and I didn’t want to do that. I’m going to try to get that rust off real quick at the start and then play my game.”
The Rangers could use a little more grit in the lineup, especially after their shockingly sudden defensive collapse early in the third period against the Blackhawks cost them the game and their winning streak. It was perpetrated by them forgetting to protect the area in front of Henrik Lundqvist’s net, something they did well during the streak and is a staple of Smith’s game.
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But what had undercut his own individual performance early in the season was very similar to what undid the team — when things were going badly, they all tried to do too much. So now that Smith was finally getting another chance to play, he didn’t want to overdo it.
“That’s the hardest thing to do,” Smith said. “Whenever you’ve sat, even for whatever the period [of time] has been, you want to prove yourself you should be there on a day-to-day basis. But you have to play your own game. So there is that happy medium.
“For myself, I think I’ve been around the league long enough that I’ve seen it and I understand it. I know when I’m playing my best is when I’m letting the game come to me and I’m being aggressive and I’m making good reads and helping us break out the puck.I think that’s one of my best qualities.So I think that’s what I’m going to try to do and not try to force things.”