Rangers Draft Review: Part One

We've pretty thoroughtly looked at the three kids they took in the first round last night, and sort of took snap shots of today's picks as they were being made. One thing is very clear, the Rangers, this year, were not as impressed with the North American skaters as they were when they were putting together the last core. D'Andre Miller is a American Unicorn and future #1 defenseman, but he was sandwiched between two Euros, and they only took 3 other Americans, two of whom Jacob Ragnarssson and Simon Kjellberg are playing in Sweden. The only other NA taken who's playing in America was Riley Hughes, the kid they traded back into the draft to get.

This shouldn't surprise us because the Junior National Teams from USA and Canada have been joined at the top of the mountain by Sweden, Russia, and sometimes Finland.  When asked why Gordie was taking Americans over Canadians years ago, he answered that American kids kept beating the Canadians.  Anyway, some of the confusion that fans were feeling today was a reflection of the North American bias that is always reflected in the annual prospect rankings. Having said that, they did realize that ther was no modern version of Lady Sid at the top of the heap this year - there was Swedish D Rasmus Dahlin.  Then came the usual passel of North American Major Junior and College Prospects that were getting examined to death. They weren't interested, or perhaps, analytically capable of slotting in Vitali Kravtsov who had been busy playing against men and not other boys.

The Islander took two classic and very good North American propsects with their back to back picks and were roundly applauded.  But they were only able to do so because teams like the Rangers and Canadiens went for skillsy, talented Euros that they were willing to take over the NA kids.

Another thing that went on last night was that C's were not in big supply this year, and not a lot had true first round value like they do most years. The Rangers were lucky enough to grab two last year when they were in more abundant supply. But teams that didn't starting with the Canadiens were reaching all over for C's and that really helped the Rangers, who were already sitting on Chytil, Andersson and Howden as C prospects. So be glad they weren't elevating flawed C's.

After the draft, which was also a bad G draft, Gorton said that the Rangers had Oscar Lindblom as the best goalie in the draft by about a mile. He further rang the same bell I did earlier about the Rangers ability to both develop and trade goalies.  It was surprising, but nothing to freak out about given that there are only 3 position groups. They took one G and 9 skaters.  It was fine.

As we've been taking about,  Gorton was serious when he observed the way the game was going back to skill and skating.  So that's what the Rangers were looking for, plus they made character a co-equal measure, so they weren't going to take Bode Wilde today instead of the goalie, because he had off ice stuff. Plus every metric showed him to be not as good as Miller. So people who were bent about that, and there were plenty, just weren't looking at things through the same prism that the Rangers were using.

So, in general it was good draft for skillsy S's, a not as good draft for skillsy F's, and a bad draft for C's and G's though the Rangers believe they got the best G.

We'll talk more later.  Not sure anyone is reading the hockey stuff, but when the Yanks lost again, I had to start this.