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Top 10 Prospects for the New York Rangers
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Time for the final addition of my prospect rankings this year. If you missed it, here are rankings 35-29, rankings 28-21, and rankings 20-11. Without further ado:
10. Ryan Gropp, W – Ryan Gropp is a polarizing character on the Rangers prospect list. Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of prospects more than I like Gropp, but given his physical traits and his quick release he may have a better chance at carving out an NHL career. It is hard for me to get excited about Gropp knowing the Rangers willingly passed on Daniel Sprong, Jeremy Bracco and Oliver Kylington and it is even worse when he hasn’t exactly made them look brilliant. While he is known to be a wonderful scorer with an NHL release, you would expect him to produce more as an overage guy in the WHL.
Unfortunately for the Rangers, he didn’t really get the offense going until halfway through the year when Islanders top prospect Matt Barzal returned to his pivot. His lack of offense was a major red flag, and coincidentally as it was becoming more profound we started getting prospect reports discussing Gropp’s drastically improved defensive play.
New York Rangers Prospect Rankings 20-11
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Time for the latest addition of my prospect rankings. If you missed it, here are rankings 35-29 and rankings 28-21. Without further ado:
20 – Ty Ronning (RW) – Ronning is admittedly one of my favorite prospects in the system. I am drawn to the small pests who can also chip in on offense, it is why players like Brad Marchand and Brendan Gallagher are among my favorite players. Ronning has been cursed with two things that have diminished his value as a prospect, his size at 5’8″ and the absolutely horrible Vancouver Giants team that he plays on.
The story with Ronning is simple, he is a buzz saw. Great on the forecheck, knows how to get to the front of the net and also has the quick hands that actually make him effective there too. Unfortunately for him, being part of a poor Vancouver Giants team hasn’t exactly allowed him to display his skills at that level consistently.
Here is the kicker. Just like his dad who was absolutely fearless on the ice, during Ronning’s brief stint with the Hartford Wolfpack, we not only saw his game transfer against bigger pros, but also saw it being used successfully. Ronning was still forechecking like a mad dog forcing turnovers from players who may be five inches taller than him simply because of his speed and smarts. He was a big component of his line actually being able to cycle the puck for an extended period of time which Hartford hasn’t been able to do much that season.
New York Rangers Prospect Rankings: 28-21
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Hey everyone. Sorry for the brief hiatus, I was studying for an entrance exam and with it finally behind me, I can put all my focus into hockey. Without further ado, here is the continuation of my prospect rankings.
28. Chris Nell G- It’s hard to believe that only four years ago the Rangers had arguably the worst goaltending prospects. Our future after Henrik Lundqvist looked bleak but then all of a sudden, BOOM we have a farm. Chris Nell was one of the recent acquisitions that added to an already deep crease and apparently, the Rangers have liked him for a while.
Two seasons ago, Nell had an astounding year on a pretty poor team for Bowling Green. I don’t really spend a lot of time watching college hockey, and when I do Bowling Green is certainly not at the top of my list. According to the sbcollegehockey.com, it is possible to attribute Nell’s less remarkable season to an unexpected death in the family.
The Rangers have had some good success in finding goalies in the unknown college hockey schools (Cam Talbot), so there is nothing I see wrong with getting a goalie who has shown the ability to carry a bad team. Nell has been known to be a more aggressive goalie, giving the Rangers a large variety in their goaltending pool style wise. Given the goalie depth in North America right now (Halverson, Georgiev, Nell) it can be fair to assume Nell will be getting a good amount of games with the Swamp Rabbits in the ECHL next year.
New York Rangers Prospect Rankings 35-29
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We are officially in the dog days of summer. As Rangers’ fans, we have nothing to talk about except how we differ by $250K on Mika Zibanejad’s future contract, so a good use of time would seem to be ranking the Rangers’ prospect pool. A little bit of a forward though, I will not be considering Anthony Deangelo or Pavel Buchnevich in the prospect pool as they are no longer ‘rookies’. But I will probably talk about them when we get to the top of the rankings. There is a lot that we can talk about for each prospect and while some seem to be on the verge of striking out as NHL guys, they may still have value to the organization by being good depth AHLers.
35. Adam Chapie (RW, 26, 6’1, 185 lbs)
Scouting Alex Georgiev
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When teams invite players to their prospect development camp, it is rare to expect much from the players. After all they went undrafted, and usually for a feasible reason. But there was one name that stood out on this year’s list. Alexander Georgiev, a talented goalie prospect in Liiga was among the invites for the Rangers only weeks after they didn’t retain Magnus Hellberg and Mackenzie Skapski. The Rangers signed him late last night.
Georgiev is a name that is known among the European hockey fans, he although Russian, has been playing in the Finnish league to play against pro men since he was 19 years old and over the last 3 years has taken strides in that league along with significant international tournament exposure.
New York Rangers 2017 Draft Recap
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The 2017 NHL Draft has come and gone, with the Rangers making seven picks. They picked just one North American player, with the rest coming from the various European leagues. That’s a bit of a deviation from prior drafts, and likely has to do with the lack of North American talent in this draft. The Rangers also went heavy with the over-agers (20+ year olds), another deviation from the norm. But if there’s one person who has earned the trust of the fans, it’s Gordie Clark. So let’s recap.
First Round (#7) Lias Andersson
Lias Andersson is a really interesting pick. At one end of the spectrum it may be upsetting because he likely doesn’t have that really high potential that we may have wanted after trading Derek Stepan, but he is the kind of player that I think everyone who loves hockey will love him on the Rangers. He does everything well and is known as a super intelligent 200 foot player with a quick release on his shot.
New York Rangers First Round Targets: Forwards
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Last week I covered the potential NYR picks if they decide to go defenseman in the first round. of course, there is the possibility that they want to draft a forward. The interesting thing about the forwards is that all the potential “game breakers” have a glaring issue, whether it be size or injury history. In this post, I will be covering four forwards who have been linked to the Rangers. These forwards do not include centers Lias Andersson, Elias Pettersson, or Nick Suzuki, all of whom would probably be a surprise if they fall this far. Suzuki is projected to go around 12-15, Andersson 14-17, and Pettersson some say can even go top-five. As previously done, I will be listing them in order of my priority.
Klim Kostin (RW, 6’3, 196 lbs)
Kostin is probably one of the most intriguing forwards in the group because he is likely to be available. Originally seen as a potential top-ten pick, Kostin dropped due to a pair of factors. The first is a shoulder injury, and the second is his lack of production in the KHL. To sum him up, Kostin is your big power forward with incredible hands around the net. He loves to be a force and when he causes a commotion he can easily get the puck to a teammate to score. His preferred way to score, though, is to power through the defense and around the goalie to tuck in pucks. He loves to simply dominate a defenseman or two and crash the net.
New York Rangers Round 1 Targets: Defense
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Barring a sale of an unwanted contract to Vegas, it seems likely that the Rangers will hold a first round pick for the first time in five years. There are of course some pessimists who would like to complain that the Rangers hold a first rounder but it is in a “bad draft”. Personally, I think the bad draft narrative is extremely overblown. Most drafts would look weak after McDavid and Matthews but there are still not only really good prospects but awesome depth in this draft.
I think the Rangers may end up like bandits if they can steal a couple of late picks because their value may be so low. Oilers GM Peter Chiarelli even said that this isn’t a good year to have a second or third rounder. I don’t want to pretend that I know more than an NHL general manager but the Rangers could really use more prospects in the system.
In any case, it has been well documented that the Rangers have two glaring needs; puck moving defensemen and game breaking forwards. Today, I will cover some defensemen who might be available in the first round. There are many kinds of defensemen available but I will focus on the 5 who will either be available around the 21st pick or have been “drafted” by the Rangers in mock drafts. In the comment section, post who you would take.
Are the Rangers targeting Czech prospect Radim Simek?
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The Rangers have decided that they want to make their prospect pool to model the United Nation. After signing three NCAA prospects in the spring, the Rangers followed up by signing the highly coveted Alexei Bereglazov from Russia and are believed to be in contention to potentially sign Swedish defenseman Andreas Borgman. I believe that the Rangers may be adding a Czech defenseman in the coming days to the prospect pool as well.
Radim Simek is one of the top Czech defensemen not in the NHL, and at 24 years old he wants to take a chance in North America. It was originally speculated that the San Jose Sharks will be the team that will be able to sign Simek to a contract, which makes sense. Good team, good weather, they have a history of signing good Euros to deals (Rangers should sign Tim Heed away from them this summer), and they have a Czech on the team. Apparently, that all changed a few days ago as seen in this article. Here is the interesting quote thanks to Google translate:
Comparing Zibanejad to Brassard – Playoff edition
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When teams are struggling to score it’s easy to look down a roster and pick off players with the zeros. While Chris Kreider has been nearly invisible this playoff series, I have noticed that Mika Zibanejad has been getting flack. Zibanejad will forever be linked to Big Game Brass, a fan favorite, and during the playoffs it’s easy to be nostalgic. Zibanejad has only one point thus far, while Derick Brassard has five. It’s easy to see the frustration some fans have for Zibanejad, but that’s a very small window for comparison.
Brassard came to the Rangers during his 25 year old season in the NHL. That is already one later than Zibanejad (who is also five years younger), who just turned 24 a few days ago. Before Brassard came to the Rangers he was seen as a risky center with injury history that had been unable to reach his potential with Columbus. The Rangers helped mold Brassard and utilized his skill properly by placing him with the right players. Low and behold, Brassard blossomed in front of our eyes. So why are we so down on Zibanejad?