Rangers Draft Analysis 2nd-7th Rounds

Okay, before I go into today’s draft results and me going into how good or bad they were, I want to go over last night’s results. In retrospect, the more I read about Dylan McIlrath the more I am happy about our pick.  My friends and I were just talking before the draft about how the Rangers don’t have a shut down defender, as much as we’d like Marc Staal to be, he just isn’t it.  Hours later, we draft the biggest, toughest, most feared guy in the draft who supposed to be our new shut down defender. Also, he will be our Marian Gaborik protector, which is something I am thoroughly excited about. Even though I’d rather them draft Vladimir Tarasenko given the same pick, I’m not terribly disappointed with McIlrath and seeing him come up.

I’d like to also mention that even though I called this after our 1st Round pick (refer to my comment last night), but the Rangers traded Bobby Sanguinetti today to the Carolina Hurricanes for a 2nd Rd Pick in 2011 and 6th Rd pick this year (refer to Jesper Fasth). Some of my friends are upset we didn’t get more for him, but personally, I think this is a fine trade, because clearly he has proven that he was not worth a 1st Round pick and I’ll take two picks including a 2nd Rounder for him.

Alrighty, on to today’s draft results. I’ll try to give a brief synopsis of each player. At the same time, be aware that you shouldn’t have too much hope for anyone drafted beyond the 3rd Round. The rest are pot-luck shots that you should thank your lucky stars that they work out and make their way to the NHL.

2nd Round Pick – 40th Overall – Christian Thomas – A 5-foot-8, 162 pound Right Winger from the OHL who has speed and a decent scoring touch. (64GP, 41G, 66Pts) He is also the son of former 20 year NHL vet, Steve Thomas. I’m not going to lie, if he is anything like his father, I’m thoroughly excited for him to come up.

4th Round Pick – 100th Overall – Andrew Yogan – Another big guy at 6’3″ and 205 pounds Center/Left Winger also from the OHL who is has big size and can score surprisingly. (63GP, 25G, 55Pts) My friend, Matt, said that people are comparing him to Jason Spezza, which is nice to hear, but hard to believe that is anything close to reality, especially from a fourth rounder.

5th Round Pick – 130th Overall – Jason Wilson – I’m reading a lot of anger towards this pick. I kind of concur, he is now the 3rd fighter we’ve picked in this draft. Three fighters in our first four picks, not smart. He’s a solid big guy who plays a north south game, and isn’t even a good fighter. Can we say a tall Ryan Hollweg? If you want to see his “fights” click this link. Quick stats – 6’2″, 205 lbs, 46GP-17G-35Pts-101PIM in the OHL

6th Round Pick – 157th Overall – Jesper Fasth – Our first international selection, Fasth and has techincally only played 2 games of professional hockey racking in zero points. Fasth has proved to be very talented in Sweden’s junior Super Elite League, and has incredible speed and acceleration. His good size (6’0″, 176 lbs) can only help him and we can all look forward to his first full year of professional hockey in the 2010-2011 season.  His contract ends 2011-2012, so be sure to see him come across the pond soon after. There’s a great profile on him here.  Unfortunately there is no video of him that I can find, if anyone does, please let me know.

7th Round Pick – 190th Overall – Randy McNaught – Hey, guess what, another fighter. For those of you still reading, that’s six picks, four fighters. Thank you Gordie Clark and Glen Sather. Luckily this is the 7th round pick so his odds of actually meaning anything are slim to hell. He should call Henrik Lundqvist and ask him “How to make it as a 7th round pick?”  Playing for two teams in the WHL last year he had a combined 65 Games Played with a whopping 12 Points and 163 Penalty Minutes. You’ll be happy to know he made the playoffs and received another 11 Penalty Minutes, don’t bother asking me if he actually got a point. This actually makes me wonder if we’re even looking at who we draft or do we just sometimes pick people with cool sounding names. Here’s his Hockey Fights page.
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So to cap off this wonderful evening, we have some things to look forward to: More high draft picks. The good thing I can say at least is that the first 3 picks we had were pretty decent. Nothing amazing, I mean I’d still rather have John Davidson or Dale Tallon as our General Manager, but that’s not happening anytime soon.