Jackson Smith is one of the more interesting prospects projected to go in the upper half of the first round of the 2025 NHL Draft. The mobile, left-handed defenseman for the WHL’s Tri-City Americans has been ranked as high as sixth overall on some draft rankings, to all the way down to 15th.
Smith is firmly in that second tier of defensemen below projected top pick Matthew Schaefer, along with Barrie Colts’ Kashawn Aitcheson, Seattle Thunderbirds’ Radim Mrtka, and some might loop in Kitchener Rangers’ Cameron Reid into that group too, but he’s most likely the fourth taken out of that four. And all of them bring a different style of play to the game.
For the Philadelphia Flyers, if they want to go with a blueliner at some point in the first round — and potentially trade up from 22nd overall to get whichever one in that second tier drops down — we could totally see them target Smith. The 6-foot-4 defenseman is a very good skater but just needs to get a little bit of work when it comes to hockey sense.
That’s the big and broad read on Smith, but, truly, where is his game at and what does he do well? We decided to turn on one of his games over on the Broad Street Hockey YouTube channel and give our instant reaction to what we’re seeing. And, it was very interesting.
Watch Jackson Smith, shift by shift:
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Overall, there are things to love about Smith and other things that make you cringe in your seat. His skating is impeccable. Extremely mobile in all four directions, can accelerate well from a standing position, either forwards or backwards. His offensive awareness is very good and he can make solid reads to create scoring chances and just generally provide support from the blue line.
But when it comes to high-pressure moments of individual play, Smith can sometimes miss the mark (we saw a few instances of that in the specific game we watched). There is a potential for sloppiness in his game and just being beat to pucks along the boards or closed out completely. He will need to just develop a whole lot of his puck protection game to round out his impact.
It’s almost like you can see exactly why some people rank him so highly, with displays of offense and transitioning the puck very well with some elite skating. But then you can see why others have him going in the middle of the first round because of his mistakes and his attributes he needs to work on to make it in professional hockey.
