Playing out of position is better than playing out of the league.
At least, that’s the thought process for Brendan Smith, the man who has played defense for almost all of his professional career but who has found a niche as a fourth-line winger — a skill that kept him with the Rangers a season ago, and one that has kept him here again rather than being down with AHL Hartford, where he spent the second half of the 2017-18 season.
“Last year was definitely an interesting year, it wasn’t anything I had to deal with before,” Smith said of the change before his team brought a five-game winless streak (0-4-1) into a Garden match against the league-leading Sabres on Thursday night.