CAUGHT IN A DRAFT
Rangers must not fall into same trap as Sabres with picks
ACROSS the ice from the Rangers on Saturday night, in one of those games no one really wants to have to play, were the Sabres, one of the NHL’s prime illustrations of a team that has not won for losing, and an example the Blueshirts would not want to emulate.
Because despite drafting in top eight for each of the past five years, going back-to-back with second-overall selections in 2014 and 2015 that yielded Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel, Buffalo not only has been eliminated from playoff participation for the eighth straight season, but is wallowing in the misery of holding the league’s worst record.
That’s the way it was three years ago, when the Sabres and Coyotes audaciously tanked for the right to finish last and thus own the best odds going into the Connor McDavid lottery. Buffalo went in with a 20 percent chance of winning the sweepstakes, while Arizona clocked in with a 13.5 percent chance of claiming the prize after finishing two points ahead of the Sabres in the overall standings.
Lo and behold, Edmonton, eight points better than Buffalo and third from the bottom, came away with the right to draft McDavid after winning the lottery. The Sabres then selected Eichel before the Coyotes, now out of the playoffs for the sixth straight year, landed Dylan Strome (who to this point has played a total of 20 NHL matches) a pick before Mitch Marner went to Toronto. And Reinhart, who this year has 42 points (19-23), was selected a slot before Leon Draisaitl was snatched by the Oilers, not to mention six spots ahead of the Maple Leafs’ pick of William Nylander.
Or, as a wise philosopher once said: “Anyone can make the pick. Making the pick is easy. Making the right pick is hard.”
Seriously, though, Elaine, you hear so often about the need to bottom out in the NHL, and for sure it is better in any given year out of the playoffs to finish with the best lottery odds possible, but collecting a string of high picks does not guarantee success.
The Flames appear out for the seventh time in nine years, the Islanders are all but out for the eighth time in 11 years, the Canucks for the fourth time in five years, the Stars perhaps for the eighth time in 10 years, the Candy Canes facing extinction for the ninth consecutive year and the Oilers out for the 11th time in 12 years. If the Puddy Tats are out, it will be for the 15th time over the past 17 seasons.
All of these teams have one thing in common: an uncommon number of high draft picks. Well, two things in
common: not have enough talent. Make that three: inferior management.
And that’s why the Rangers, who defeated the Sabres 5-1 at the Garden on Saturday night, are not planning on one of these slow, bottom-of-the-barrel rebuilding processes. Of course they are going to be active on the open market, though they intend to avoid heaping lavish, long-term deals on veteran free agents.
The Blueshirts should not face any kind of cap crunch over the next few years. Hence, it is likely they will offer shorter-term deals with higher peryear compensation to free agents. It is anyone’s guess whether this will represent a successful strategy in attracting players to New York.
Of course, the rebuilding certainly would get a jump start if the Rangers, currently in the 10th-overall draft slot, win the lottery off their approximately 3.5 percent odds and thus reel in projected franchise defenseman Rasmus Dahlin.
But general manager Jeff Gorton is probably not holding his breath.
The Rangers were tied with the Islanders (holding the ROW tiebreaker), and had one more point than the Oilers, who would have an approximately 6 percent chance of winning the lottery from their temporary perch at eighth from the bottom.
These are the numbers that concern the not-quite-mightyhave-fallen Rangers these days, the very same ones that have consumed the plowshares from Buffalo for almost a decade.