{"id":470625,"date":"2025-11-24T14:31:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T19:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=470625"},"modified":"2025-11-24T14:33:03","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T19:33:03","slug":"journeyman-nhl-defenceman-continues-career-with-columbus-blue-jackets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/11\/24\/journeyman-nhl-defenceman-continues-career-with-columbus-blue-jackets\/","title":{"rendered":"Journeyman NHL Defenceman Continues Career with Columbus Blue Jackets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Journeyman NHL defenceman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/smithbr05.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-11-24_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brendan Smith<\/a> is on the move again, as he signs a one-year, two-way contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets. This was after spending the 2024-25 campaign with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2025\/10\/28\/dallas-stars-sign-player-big-contract-extension\/\" target=\"_self\">Dallas Stars.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">NEWS: <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/CBJ?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#CBJ<\/a> have signed D Brendan Smith to a one-year, two-way NHL\/AHL contract for the 2025-26 season.<a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/KMSD0Ok18q\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/KMSD0Ok18q<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; CBJ Public Relations (@BlueJacketsPR) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BlueJacketsPR\/status\/1993032723326550431?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 24, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Brendan Smith Signs with Columbus Blue Jackets<\/h3>\n<p>Brendan Smith is older and one of the more respected veteran players in the league, but he can still contribute. Unfortunately, it just didn&#8217;t work out in Dallas. Last year in Dallas, trade deadline acquisition <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/cecico01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-11-24_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cody Ceci<\/a> and rising prospect <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/bichsli01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-11-24_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Lian Bichsel<\/a> eventually replaced Smith and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/d\/dumbama01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-11-24_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Dumba<\/a> in the lineup. Thus, relegating the two veterans to healthy scratches and depth roles.<\/p>\n<p>Smith appeared in just 32 games for the Stars in 2024-25. He tallied six points (one goal and five assists). This was his lowest total since a five-point 2022-23 campaign with the New Jersey Devils. The hope was that Smith will add some versatility on the blueline as a physical, veteran player, with more offensive skill in his game than most d-men on the roster.<\/p>\n<p>Injuries also gave Smith opportunities at forward, which he has played sparingly throughout his career. Still, a team is in trouble if it needs to rely on the defenceman to consistently fill a forward role.<\/p>\n<h3>What It Means for the Blue Jackets<\/h3>\n<p>Columbus gives Smith another chance to prove he can still play at a competitive level with his career on its last legs. He began his career as a first-round pick with top-pairing potential. In his heyday, he came very close, but now, he fits best as a third-pairing defenceman or even as the seventh in a veteran leadership capacity.<\/p>\n<p>Smith had been playing with Columbus&#8217; AHL affiliate, the Cleveland Monsters. He is up to 11 games on the year. Blue Jacket general manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/w\/waddedo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-11-24_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Don Waddell<\/a> said he would join the team on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Journeyman NHL defenceman Brendan Smith is on the move again, as he signs a one-year, two-way contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets. This was after spending the 2024-25 campaign with the Dallas Stars. NEWS: #CBJ have signed D Brendan Smith to a one-year, two-way NHL\/AHL contract for the 2025-26 season.https:\/\/t.co\/KMSD0Ok18q &mdash; CBJ Public Relations (@BlueJacketsPR) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5167,"featured_media":478500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4547,34,4548],"tags":[850,662],"class_list":["post-470625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bluejackets","category-hockey","category-news","category-nhl","tag-brendan-smith","tag-nhl-free-agency"],"modified_by":"Levi Pike, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470625"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478502,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470625\/revisions\/478502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}