Youth movement starts with Pionk summoned to join blueline

Goodbye, Brendan Smith; hello, Neal Pionk.

The Rangers put Smith on waivers Thursday afternoon, sending away the veteran defenseman on his 29th birthday while trying to get out from under his fouryear, $17.4 million contract signed this summer. The league’s 30 other teams have until noon Friday to put in a claim on Smith. That team would then assume the rest of his contract — at $4.35 million annual salary-cap hit — or he will be assigned to AHL Hartford.

In a corresponding move, Pionk came up from the Wolf Pack and will likely make his NHL debut Friday night at the Garden against the Flames.

“It’s awesome,” said Pionk, a 22-year-old righty. “It’s something you dream about as a kid and when you first sign a contract, it’s something that you dream about a lot. Now that it’s all here, I’m just trying to soak it all in.”

Pionk spent practice alongside captain Ryan McDonagh. Coach Alain Vigneault was hoping he could bring some energy to his lackluster defensive group.

“Defends, moves the puck. Was good there on their second power play,” Vigneault said. “Kid’s getting his first opportunity to play on this level in a regular-season game. Seemed excited and hopefully he’ll bring a good game for us.” Winger Jimmy Vesey practiced while wearing a non-contact jersey as he recovers from the concussion suffered on a headshot from the Predators’ Filip Forsberg on Saturday in Nashville. Vesey would still need a practice with contact before being cleared to play, but was excited about his progress.

“Feel good, actually. Today is the best day I’ve felt, skated the last two days. Hope to be back soon,” he said. “Think I’m going to see the doctor [Friday] morning, and hopefully all goes well and I’m back in the lineup soon.”

As for the hit that drew a three-game suspension for Forsberg — although no penalty during the game — Vesey was pretty diplomatic.

“I know in situations like that, sometimes it’s your job as the forechecker to get in front of somebody. But didn’t really expect him to

finish me that hard,” Vesey said. “I thought I got rid of the puck and it looked like he followed through up high. It was head contact, the way I saw it.”

Although neither of the Rangers’ first-round picks from this season has been recalled just yet, general manager Jeff Gorton seemed to be anticipating seeing Lias Andersson and Filip Chytil at some point follow-wing the attempted ros-oster sell-off before thehe Feb. 26 trade deadline.e

“We’ve talked aboutut that for a while,” Gortonon said. “We’ll have thoseose conversations as we go along here and give peo-eople a chance to see whatwhat they can do so that can help us make our deci-cisions going forward.”