- Jukurit coach Jonne Virtanen is not expecting Alberts Smits back in Mikkeli this season
- The No. 5 pick is signed in Finland through 2028, but the Rangers have no obligation to send him back
- Read below for what Chris Drury has said about the 18-year-old’s timeline
Jukurit is not planning around Alberts Smits this season.
Jukurit head coach Jonne Virtanen was asked whether he expects the Latvian defenseman back in Mikkeli for the 2026-27 Liiga season, and he did not hedge when he answered Ilta-Sanomat’s Ville Touru.
“I’m not expecting him. I believe the Rangers will play him in the NHL already.”
The league’s Finnish account framed the move the same way back in June:
New York took Smits fifth overall on June 26 and signed him to a three-year entry-level contract three weeks later. His Jukurit deal runs through 2028, which is why the loan question keeps coming up in Finland.
That contract does not give Mikkeli much of a claim. NHL teams are not required to return a first-round pick to a European club, and the likelier landing spot if Smits does not stick on Broadway is the AHL.
Nine NHL games or fewer this season and his entry-level deal slides a year, so the Rangers have room to look at him without burning anything.
He was already on the ice in Greenburgh days after the draft, skating in the second wave wearing No. 63:
Smits put up six goals and 13 points in 38 Liiga games as an 18-year-old, then closed the year on loan with Red Bull Munich in Germany’s DEL. Latvia also used him at the 2026 Winter Olympics and the World Championship.
Rangers GM Chris Drury has been far more careful with the timeline than Virtanen. Mollie Walker of the New York Post relayed what Drury said about the resume that got Smits picked at No. 5:
Drury was also asked how hard New York would push the teenager, and he told NHL.com’s Dan Rosen the club is not in a rush.
“We’re going to do right by him and the long-term health and well-being of him as a Ranger. This is not a sprint for him.”
Roster math is the other obstacle. New York carried a full group of veteran defensemen on one-way deals into the summer and added more depth on top of it, so a third pairing job is the realistic ceiling for a rookie in September.
Training camp opens next month, and Virtanen has already made his guess about how the Smits decision lands.
