That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. What's he good for? You all say he's being played in a defensive role but what does that even mean? He's not hanging out in our crease all game. I see him on the O side of the opposing blue line. I see him making passes to forwards, I even see him taking shots and getting open for passes. Some plays he makes are decent. But he has 0 points. He doesn't score when he has the opportunity to. His pass recipients don't score. What does that mean? That Babcock is telling him he better not show up in the points column or else? Is he missing the net on purpose so he has more time to play defense? He plays 18 minutes a night. So he doesn't have PP time, big deal. A lot of people score points at even strength. Why can't he?
Nobody else on the defence scores besides Kronwall. If you're going to critique Smith for not producing why not bring up Kindl, DeKeyser or Quincey? As I've pointed out before every defenceman besides Kronwall & Ericsson average below 2 GF/60 ES TOI, if you take out DeKeyser then the remaining players are all below 1.3 GF/60.
Smith may not score himself but he has hit a couple of posts this year & has looked ok when shooting the puck. You seriously can't blame him for his teammates not burying the puck, once he has made a pass he has no control over what they do with it. Smith's 4 most common linemates this year are: Quincey, Cleary, Andersson & Bertuzzi. Combined those 4 players have 6 ES points, I'm not sure how Smith is going to be able to produce any significant ES numbers playing with them.
He's terrible defensively, I don't think anyone around here would argue that. So he needs a redeeming quality. If he has to learn NHL quality defense starting from scratch all while producing 0 points and allowing 3 breakaways per game against, then I have no patience for him. If he allows 3 breakaways per game while slowly improving and burying some slapshots once in a while, then I'll give him some more time.
I'd venture to say that Smith isn't the worst defensive player on the Wings. I'd say thus far he's been better than Lashoff & around the same as Quincey. He has the 2nd most hits on the team, 3rd most takeaways & he's tied for the 2nd most giveaways. I'd like to see him play better but he's still young, if he's making the same mistakes next year & the year after that it'll be time to start worrying about him.
Kindl was horrible defensively for 2 years before he became "adequate" he wasn't forced to play the hardest minutes his rookie year & he still doesn't get the 2nd hardest assignments, they still go to Smith & Quincey. Ericsson had that great playoff run but was lackluster for the next 2 years. It takes defenceman time to adjust to the NHL & trading away ones with the upside that Smith has is a losing venture.