Richter, Gaborik, and the Draft, Oh My!
By Editorial Staff
Another episode of This Day in Rangers History has us looking back at June 15th, 1985 when the New York Rangers drafted Mike Richter. Indubitably, the best Rangers goaltender to ever strap on the pads and easily one of the main reasons 1994 existed. And easily one of the best American goalies to represent Team USA. I mean you would be going against Ranger-lore to not be in love with this man. Who can not forget “The Save”?
Click the picture for the video. Because you know you can’t get enough of that save, or that man. What a good draft choice. Hopefully we pick that good this year (more on that later).
Apparently Marian Gaborik is not happy with the current status of the team. Really though, who isn’t? The only shocking thing about this is that Gaborik never really comes out publicly to say anything. And this is a guy who played
EIGHT
years for the
, where you have A LOT to complain about.
"BostWorld translates a recent quote from Marian Gaborik in a Slovakian newspaper…“‘I hope, that management of our club will do something about it. We suffered the consequences of unbalanced performances. If we played during the whole season like in the last month, we would have advanced to the play-offs,’ the feared closer emphasized…”"
The last part of that is a little confusing, but we can all see what he means.There was too much inconsistency though with last year: When the defence did well, Henrik Lundqvist let in loose goals, when Lundqvist did great, the defense played the “Olé” scheme, and when finally both did well, the offense was no where to be seen.
Clearly what we, more importantly, he needs is a center that can help him. The Rangers were looking for that all season. Unfortunately, the only real consistency he found was on the other wing in Vinny Prospal, and since he is about to become a free agent, who knows. Although…
"“We want to keep Vinny (Prospal), and I think we should be able to do that if the contract request isn’t out of whack.”— GM Glen Sather"
(Personally, around mid-late March when it was quite clear we would not make the playoffs and if we did it wouldn’t be far – I was rooting for the team to tank so that we could get a great draft pick and at one point, we were in line for the 4th Overall. Don’t be mad, its not like we made the playoffs anyways)
Nevertheless, a Top 10 draft pick is very exciting. I know what you’re saying, “The Rangers don’t know how to draft” and looking at our First Round draft picks from 1995-2004, I whole-heartedly agree with you [think Matt Millen and the Detroit Lions]. Manny Malhotra being the limelight of that bunch. But since 2005 and Marc Staal, the Rangers have actually vastly improved in First Round picks. Alexei Cherepanov was out of anyone’s control, but he was an amazing pick regardless, and as for the rest, well all three defensemen are shaping up nicely with Bobby Sanguinetti more than likely seeing MSG this year. Chris Kreider is still out for debate, but we have time on that.
Most mock drafts have the Rangers looking at Swiss-born RW Nino Niederreiter who is in the WHL right now doing a bang up job, or Russian RW Vladimir Tarasenko who is undersized but shows great potential. Click their names for their respective player profiles. Or go to the NHL’s Central Scouting page for more information.
As long as we don’t draft another defenseman or Pavel Brendl, I’m happy…