2024 NHL Draft player profile: Tarin Smith, Everett Silvertips

He may be squeezing in as many skates and training sessions as he can in the lead-up to the NHL Entry Draft, but Tarin Smith still has chores to do.

His family is busy harrowing, seeding and picking rocks on their grain farm near Porcupine Plain, Sask.

In the background of the hustle and bustle of spring work sits a large dugout- a reservoir that collected surface water runoff.

That’s where Smith’s hockey dream began.

“We would always wipe off the snow and skate around it all day, every day,” the 18-year-old recalled.

That meant the whole family- Smith’s grandfather, parents and sister have all played hockey throughout their lives.

Now, they’re all eagerly anticipating hearing Tarin’s name called at the draft this weekend- something that seemed unfathomable at the start of the season.

Smith entered his first full season with the Everett Silvertips after missing almost an entire year of hockey after undergoing shoulder surgery as a 16-year-old.

“Only having the eight games in my 16-year-old season, I kind of had to prove myself to the coaches and kind of show them what I was made of,” Smith explained. “Just coming into camp confident, knowing I have the abilities, and just showing off that I can do it.”

Everett knew they were getting some raw talent in the 6-foot-1, 176-pound blueliner.

The organization selected him with the 20th overall pick in the first round of the 2021 WHL Prospects Draft and called him up for a handful of games that season.

But there were certainly questions surrounding his abilities for both his team and NHL scouts.

“I don’t even know if I should say that he flew under the radar,” Silvertips Assistant Coach Mike Field said. “At the start of the year, people weren’t sure if he was a prospect. He had to figure out and get back to his game after missing all that time and then once he did, that’s when everybody started to take note.”

Smith shocked his coaches with the strides he made in the season while establishing himself as a composed force on the blueline.

He ended up tallying eight goals and 36 assists for 44 points and a +26 rating in his first full season with the Silvertips, leading all WHL rookie defencemen in goals, assists, points and plus-minus.

Smith also iced nine multi-point matches over the campaign, including a pair of three-assist efforts against Kamloops and Spokane in January.

“He’s got poise and just some things that you just can’t teach,” Field added. “He has that knack where you can hold on to a puck for an extra half a second, where other guys might panic, and because he doesn’t have that panic threshold, that seam opens up and he’s able to make that play.

“He started to get better defensive habits, better stick habits. Then all of a sudden he started adding in this physicality to his game and playing the body and and being a force that way. That really just opened everything else up for him that kind of comes naturally on the offensive side.”

Smith also got his first real taste of WHL playoff action, adding a goal, four assists and a +5 rating in eight contests.

“The adrenaline you get when you’re first stepping onto the ice and how good it feels to win in the playoffs, not much beats that,” Smith added. “It was really fun hockey. The postseason is a total different animal. All the hitting, how intense the games are, going back and forth. It was really cool. I think it was a super good experience to get under my belt to play against teams like that.”

He also got another nice surprise while he was on a bus to the 2024 NHL Scouting Combine when fellow top prospect Berkly Catton (Spokane Chiefs) broke the news that Smith had been named to the CHL All-Rookie Team.

NHL Central Scouting initially ranked Smith 54th among North American skaters in its midterm rankings but has now increased Smith’s ranking to 38th in its final listing.

Smith met with 15 NHL squads at the combine and will have his family with him in Las Vegas as he waits to see which club will call his name.

When it happens, he’ll be thinking of those winter ice times on the dugout at the farm- and the people who inspired him to keep pushing.

“My dad, seeing how hard that guy works on the farm just to put food on the table and let me play the sport I love,” Smith said. I grew up watching him work so hard, waking up early mornings, working seven days a week, 18-hour days. It’s super inspiring. Same thing with my grandpa. He’s around 75-ish now, and he’s still hard working on the farm all the time, so it’s just super inspiring to see how hard those two work. I feel like that kind of just gives me the drive to work even harder.”

The NHL Entry Draft runs from June 28-29 at the Sphere in Las Vegas.