Blue Jackets' Brendan Smith undergoes meniscus surgery, might miss rest of season

The Columbus Blue Jackets announced that defenseman Brendan Smith underwent successful surgery on Tuesday to repair a torn meniscus in his right knee. He’s been given a three-to-four-month return timeline, potentially ending his season.

Columbus’ final game of the regular season is on April 14. They have five games between then and April 6, which would be the three-month mark since Smith’s surgery, so in the most optimistic scenario, he’d be available for the final few games. In the overwhelmingly likely event that the Jackets don’t make the playoffs, those will be his only opportunities to add to a limited games played total for 2025-26.

Smith, 36, went unsigned all summer after spending 2024-25 as an extra defenseman for the Stars. He landed a professional tryout from Columbus in August but didn’t land an NHL contract out of training camp, instead agreeing to a deal with the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters. In late November, with the Jackets needing to add a body from Cleveland amid Erik Gudbranson‘s injury troubles, they opted to sign Smith to a two-way deal instead of recalling someone already under contract.

The 15-year vet stuck on the Jackets’ bottom pairing from the very beginning of his recall before suffering the meniscus tear against the Senators on Dec. 29. In 15 games, he scored two assists with a -1 rating while averaging just 11:05 of ice time per game.

He largely did his job as a low-event stopgap at 5-on-5. Columbus only allowed 28.0 shots against per 60 minutes with Smith on the ice, the best figure among their seven qualified D, but they also only generated 22.16, the worst figure by a significant margin. All told, they were out-chanced 72-49 with Smith on the ice at even strength.

The news of Smith’s surgery won’t cause much of a domino effect. He had already been placed on IR, and they filled in his vacated spot on the depth chart by signing Egor Zamula to a one-year, $1M deal on Tuesday.

Smith will head into unrestricted free agency next summer. With such a limited resume for 2025-26 and undergoing a significant surgery this late in his career, retirement is far from being out of the question.