When the Rangers fired both Jeff Gorton and John Davidson, it marked a complete shift in direction and change in plans. With Gorton and Davidson, the plan was to amass skill, and then plug in roster holes with the toughness and role players that fit the team mold. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it was logical. Now with Chris Drury, it appears a key part of that plan, Rangers prospect development, has been thrown aside for a win-now roster. They traded the plethora of skill for role players, creating a skill vacuum on the roster that was supposed to be plugged by Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko. They haven’t developed into offensive stars as quickly as they had hoped, thus the plan got shot to hell real fast.
The problem with the plan isn’t with Lafreniere or Kakko themselves. It’s with the plan that expected them to be stars after half a season (Lafreniere) or one season (Kakko). In terms of Rangers prospect development, that’s not really fair when neither showed they were ready for that kind of role. Remember, even though they’ve technically played in the NHL for multiple years, Laf only has 95 games played, and Kakko just 151. That’s not enough to label either of them a bust. But it is enough time, given the roles they’ve been given (or not given) to notice a clear development problem within the Rangers.
Expecting Lafreniere and Kakko to be stars this soon, when it was clear from their rookie seasons they needed development time, may have been a misstep in whatever the new plan is. Development isn’t linear. Not all top picks become stars immediately. It took Aleksander Barkov three full seasons before he turned into a consistent 50+ point player. If Drury and Glen Sather were expecting them to be stars, it was a clear miscalculation. Expecting them to be stars is why we can explain away some of the offseason moves that clearly haven’t panned out the way they hoped.
Focusing solely on Rangers prospect development of first round picks right now, there are way more question marks and misses than hits. In fact, you can make the argument that the Rangers don’t have a first round pick from this rebuild that has been a bonafide hit.
Of their four top-ten picks, only two are on the roster: Kakko and Lafreniere. Lias Andersson’s development was torched under David Quinn and whatever the Rangers had in Hartford at the time (note: Not good). Vitali Kravtsov isn’t going to be a Ranger, although I’m willing to chalk that one up to failed communication.
Beyond the top-ten picks, Filip Chytil is still a giant question mark, mostly because they refuse to see what they have in him. K’Andre Miller is playing well in the top four, but it appears his development has stagnated a bit. Nils Lundkvist looked decent in his 25 games, and is now hopefully fine tuning his game in the AHL. Braden Schneider has awful metrics in a very small sample size, but that may be a product of the current state of the Rangers.
First round picks aren’t guarantees, but they are as close as you get to them. As Steve Valiquette said last night, you have to prove you can’t play, not that you can play. This is where I find fault in the Rangers, not the kids, this year. The Rangers haven’t given them the chance to play, get in a rhythm, and generate confidence. Lafreniere looks lost and out of shape. Kakko looks fine, relatively speaking, and is the furthest along of all the kids. But the points aren’t there.
The Rangers have a development problem, and it starts with their first round picks. Expecting the kids to hit their potential immediately is unfair, and not the message of this post. The concern is that of their eight first round picks from 2017-2021, none appear to be on a path to hit their true potential.
The good news is that development is not a linear process. There’s quick progress, steps back, flashes of greatness, and then finally some consistency, assuming everything pans out. That last piece is the true concern, as the Rangers haven’t developed a single first round pick into their potential since Chris Kreider in 2009. Rangers prospect development shouldn’t take a back seat to winning now, especially when developing these kids properly is the biggest risk to winning. Rangers prospect development has become a major problem for this team, with no real solution in sight.
Share:
More About:Prospects