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New York Rangers 2018 Draft Review (Part 2)
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Picking up where we left off this morning. Here is Part Two of of the 2018 draft review.
Round 2 Pick 39, Olof Lindbom G
The pick that ended the world. I get the outrage about the pick, trust me I was mad too. I wanted a forward and do not get the logic about selecting a goalie when we are pretty stacked at that position. That said, I try to only focus at the picks at hand, this guy is a Ranger, it is unhealthy to look at who was selected after. Also, lets stop caring about what the Islanders do, yes they looked like they had a great draft but at the end of the day they do not matter to the players the Rangers want to develop and finally, how many drafts actually work out in which the central scouting rankings are the exact ways in which players end up NHLers.
Back to Olof. Unfortunately, I do not know much about goaltenders, outside of the ones I like to focus on in Russia. I can’t comment on his style but I can make a few comments about the pick. First, I don’t like that his sv% is under .900 normally for a goalie to be successful you want domination or at the very least success at these lower leagues. On the other hand when playing for the Swedish national prospect team his numbers rise to .949 and .910 in the U18 and U20 tournaments respectively. When the difference is this stark I tend to see the quality of play of the other goaltender on his junior team and Rosengren who is 2 years older had a .920 SV%. I personally don’t see the excitement that the Rangers management saw in Lindbom but clearly the Rangers loved him and think Allaire can work his magic. He was not the #1 ranked goalie and taking him at 39 certainly shows how much they love him. Lets hope it works out.
New York Rangers 2018 Draft Review (Part 1)
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The 2018 Draft has come and passed. In the first real draft of the rebuild, the Rangers have supplemented the 2017 first rounders that were able to debut on Broadway this spring with three more first rounders. Over the last couple of years, I have noticed a few strategies, or trends with the Rangers in their selection of prospects. First, I feel like they acquire positions in bunches. When we had no goaltenders in the system the Rangers went on a run in three drafts and were able to select goaltenders to revamp the prospect pool along with adding a few undrafted.
The 2017 draft seemed to revolve around building through the middle as the Rangers selected Chytil, Andersson and even Barron to give them centers with varying levels of offensive potential to blend with a fairly young group of top-dix centers in Zibanejad and Hayes. During the deadline the Rangers built upon that center depth by getting Howden but they also seemed to focus on getting defensemen that can play a puck moving game. Rykov, Lindgren, and Hajek provided the Rangers a group of defensemen that all seem like they can be quality pros at the same time.
In this 2018 draft we see a continuation of this as in the 10 selections that were made, 6 defensemen were chosen. If I were a betting man, I would expect the Rangers to select some more wingers in next year’s draft or get some wing prospects in the highly anticipated trades.
Who Are the New Prospects? Some Info about the Deadline Aquisitions
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First off, I would like to show my appreciation for the Rangers management realizing that a rebuild might be the best option in order to compete in future years. The Rangers began to trade off some fan favorites and target young players to try to jump start said rebuild. It is understandable that people may be upset that after the sell offs. since we didn’t get an absolute ‘A’ level prospect, but at the same time –in something like Ryan McDonagh’s case– would you move someone like Mikhail Sergachev for 1.25 years of McDonagh if the sides were flipped?
Most of the value the Rangers acquired is in the draft picks. Given the now deep center prospect depth, getting picks in a draft dominated by wingers and defensemen is pretty nice timing to help build hopefully a future contender. Based on who the Rangers have acquired, I envision a team being built that will come at you in waves. Filip Chytil looks like he can be a first liner, Lias Andersson looks like he will be a quality NHLer too. The Rangers as of now don’t have a franchise prospect (hopefully a draft lottery win can change that), but the pieces that we have recently acquired are the pieces that can potentially develop into key players that help separate contenders from pretenders. Quality depth is just as important as elite skill.
Seventh Heaven – Patrik Virta is an exciting prospect to have
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The Rangers are about to enter a new era. We will be seeing more of a youth influx to the roster and one of the names that fans are getting really excited about is Ty Ronning. This is for fairly good reason, sure he is an older player in the WHL but you love to have a 50+ goal scorer in the system. It is still a long road for him but this is a great step to take. Ronning however, isn’t the only 7th round pick in the system that has been making noise this season. Last summer, the Rangers selected Patrik Virta of TPS and he has quietly been providing them with value few get from 7th rounders this quick after the draft, even for a two-times overager.
All stats from this analyses and hype post are from Simo Teperi (@SimoTeperi). He has built a great website to compliment the already comprehensive stat website from Liiga. Being able to get this deeper level analysis is extremely useful for dealing with any prospects, especially the European leagues where the team building may be a bit different than in North America.
NHL Expectancy of New York Rangers Prospects – A Cohorts View
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As you all know, I absolutely love looking at prospects and the upcoming draft. With more information readily becoming available, I am enjoying incorporating everything from individual scouting to the underlying numbers that have been unearthed due to research projects in the analytics community. Over the weekend, I came across a tweet by Byron Bader of the Athletic here that shows how likely a prospect can become an NHL player by using NHLe as a key. This piqued my interest.
I then incorporated Christian Roatis of NHLNumbers NHLe calculator to get an accurate NHLe for some of the Rangers forwards prospects. Byron’s tweet came at just the right time for me, I’ve noticed people have been complaining about picking Lias Andersson over Casey Mittlestadt due to point production, and while we can make the argument in regards to potential, the point argument in my opinion is invalid. When comparing NHLes both players have a nearly identical number which would also put them in the same cohort for Byron Bader’s NHL likeliness/superstar key.
Can Patrik Virta Push for an NHL Spot?
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As most of you know, one of the main hobbies I have regarding hockey is creating visuals for other leagues. Prior to this year I have been mostly focusing on North America and Russia but I will now be seeping into most other leagues. While doing my research to try to get the most information possible, I truly became a big fan of the New York Rangers’ 7th round pick Patrik Virta.
For the new readers, Virta is a buzzsaw type player, he gets in on the forecheck and is defensively responsible. Over the last couple of years, he also began to generate points as well. Seen as a good playmaker mostly from behind the net given his adept forechecking ability Virta also has a pretty strong shot that has been used on the PP.
Overall he has been growing as a player and the Rangers felt it would be worth drafting his rights before other people can sign him. One other thing about Patrik Virta, he is becoming an absolute possession monster and given that he is 21 years old, Virta may be pushing for a roster spot sooner than we may expect from a 7th rounder.
Let’s Chat Prospects – Gettinger and Chytil producing nicely
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Gettinger (Photo: Adam Bell, OHL)
I feel that last week’s prospect chat was received well among the comments section. Today will have a little less to talk about but perhaps the quality of prospects can be more useful this week given the state of the Rangers. I mentioned that if people want a certain prospect talked about to just send me a message on twitter or in the comments section so I will try to work with those names.
Let’s get excited:
Tim Gettinger – It is actually pretty funny that the Rangers drafted Tim Gettinger and Ty Ronning essentially back to back in 2016. They not only play a bit differently but I am pretty sure they’re a foot apart size wise. With all that said both have proven to be good late round draft picks. Gettinger has attracted a lot of fans due to his massive size and trend upwards as a prospect. It is actually quite interesting, normally people of his size that can’t skate get drafted in the 2nd round but when a prospect like Gettinger who has size but can also move fairly well somehow falls to the later portion of the draft.
Lets Chat Prospects
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The 2017 draft has provided something for Rangers fans that we haven’t had in years: First round caliber prospects that are likely one year away from the NHL. It almost feels magical, a year after a draft we have two talented young centers that can push their way into having important roles on the big club.
With all that said, we still have other prospects that are trying to make names for themselves. Over the course of the season, I will be trying to give updates on a handful of prospects that may interest fans. It won’t be all of them, but more so the ones that are making waves over the week. If I don’t mention a prospect that you would really like talked about, I will read the comments of these posts every week and try to see if I can incorporate a name or two whenever I can.
Making us Proud:
Graced by Vadim Shipachyov
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In the midst of the panic with the Rangers having a poor first two games of the season, one of the things that have been consistently talked about is Coach Alain Vigneault essentially benching 18 year old rookie Filip Chytil throughout the first two games of the season. Chytil has struggled, but when he is your defacto 2C, you can’t be playing him five minutes a night. Perhaps it takes a bit to get used to the tougher competition.
One thing thing the Rangers must do is add a talented center as soon as possible if the Rangers intend on sending Chytil back to Zlin (Czech league), otherwise the offense is in trouble. Adding a top-six center is incredibly difficult, and the Rangers don’t really have the chips to land a guy that fits that mold. It’s going to be easier said than done. So the club is going to have to get creative.
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.