Change of course
Rangers heading toward rare top-3 pick, true franchise star
REGARDING the Rangers, on the road to purgatory (and at Montreal on Thursday) When Rick Nash goes, it will mark the exit of the last in a long line of Rangers brought in as a savior after having been some other team’s franchise player.
With Henrik Lundqvist, a seventh-round selection in 2000, and Brian Leetch, ninthoverall in 1986, as exceptions over the past four decades, the Blueshirts have had to trade for franchise players, and just about always when it has been too late to matter.
But this season that went irretrievably wrong within days of the calendar flipping to 2018 could be the one to put the Rangers into position to change the cycle.
Because, with lottery luck that was absent in 2004 when the Blueshirts entered the Sidney Crosby Sweepstakes as one of four teams with the best (6.25 percent) chance to claim the grand prize before somehow leaving with the 16th-overall selection, a continued deep dive could set up the franchise with at least a top-three selection for the first time since it was called the amateur draft.
And that was in 1966, when the Rangers selected Brad Park second overall after the Bruins chose Barry Gibbs with the first pick. Imagine, the B’s could have had Park and Bobby Orr together for each’s prime, and not just for 10 games immediately following the Nov. 7, 1975 trade before Orr went down for the season with a knee injury.
By the way, Orr’s final game as a Bruin came at the Garden, when he teamed with Park for a goal and an assist in Boston’s 6-4 victory. You’re not going to find this info everywhere, you know.
But seriously, it has been more than five decades since the Blueshirts had a top-three pick. Every other team in the NHL has had at least one in the interim. Beyond that, the Rangers haven’t had a top-five since 1999 when then-general manager Neil Smith traded up to fourth-overall in order to grab Pavel Brendl. Better to have passed on the trade, in which Smith sent an essentially equivalent package to the Lightning as he could have sent to Hartford in 1996 for Brendan Shanahan, or at least passed on the notoriously disappointing Brendl.
There are, of course, exceptions such as 2008’s 15th-overall Erik Karlsson, but franchise players generally come from the top of the draft. The Rangers did have a shot at a franchise player at 12th overall in 2003 when, among others, Ryan Getzlaf, Brent Burns, Zach Parise and Ryan Kesler were on the board but the club chose Hugh Jessiman.
Premium draft position guarantees nothing, of course. The Oilers have had four firstsoverall, a third and a fourth over the past eight years, and they don’t seem appreciably closer to winning anything than the Rangers. The Islanders selected within the top five, five times within a six-year period beginning with John Tavares in 2009, and they’re still no more than a bubble team.
But given the tatters in which the Rangers are likely to emerge from this season, a premium draft pick is a possibility to anticipate and to celebrate, even if no one should expect an organized tank in order to secure it. As opposed, that is, to the disorganized defeats over the past six weeks.
If Blackhawks defenseman Michal Kempny could bring back a third-rounder in a trade as the Capitals sacrificed for the 27-year-old impending restricted free agent, then surely rental property Nick Holden is worthy of the same. All right, at least a fourth. Unless all of the scouts have been watching too closely.
So, a fourth line against the Flyers with Cody McLeod on the left, Peter Holland in the middle and … J.T. Miller on the right? Come on, man.
The Rangers have lost four straight in regulation for the second time in three weeks. The last time an Alain Vigneault team dropped five straight in regulation? That would have been Nov. 10-18 in 2000 over the coach’s final five games behind the Canadiens’ bench.