New York Rangers: Why fans should be glad Oscar Lindberg left for Vegas
Every Rangers fan had their pick of who they wanted the Golden Knights to select in the expansion draft. Oscar Lindberg went and fans should be glad he was the one taken.
The expansion draft created a unique scenario this offseason that rarely happens in sports. Throughout the process, teams had to create a list of players who could be taken by the Las Vegas Golden Knights. While it was obvious for some teams in terms of which player would be selected, others like the Rangers had three or four options.
Of the Rangers candidates, Jesper Fast, Oscar Lindberg, and Michael Grabner were the three at the top of the list. Lindberg was coming off two back-to-back solid seasons. Fast is underrated but his production in many ways can’t be understated. Grabner had a career year with 27 goals for the Rangers. Ultimately Lindberg was chosen. A few months later, that seems to have worked out for the best for New York.
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The Stats Speak
Since not being taken by the Golden Knights, Fast and Grabner have started this season right where they left off last year. Fast is well on his way to a career high in just about every major statistic. He has four goals, seven assists and 11 points in just 20 games. His career high is 10 goals, 20 assists and 30 points. Fast can be plugged in on the third or fourth lines and log solid minutes. The best part about Fast is that he is disciplined. He has just 52 penalty minutes in 236 games.
As for Grabner, there was talk that he might not be nearly as productive this season as he was last year. Before the season started, I wrote that Grabner would be only slightly worse statistically than last season. Currently Grabner is on a similar pace to what he saw last season. Through 25 games this year, Grabner has 10 goals. Last season through the same amount of games Grabner had 12 goals.
On the other end of things Lindberg has just five points this season for the Golden Knights, all of them goals. It isn’t as if Lindberg is playing for an inferior team. In fact the Golden Knights have three points more than the Rangers with two games in hand. Not only are the point totals much lower for Lindberg, but he has also gone nine games now without a single point and is a minus three in those games.
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The Intangibles
While the stats alone dictate that Lindberg was the player to lose, there is more that Grabner and Fast contribute than just better numbers. As I mentioned earlier, Fast is one of the most reliable Rangers in all aspects of the game. He plays good defense, can kill penalties, never takes penalties and always makes the smart play. Fast is a coaches best friend in a lot of ways. While he won’t light up the score board, he will never make crucial mistakes. He logs solid bottom six minutes and his career plus-minus of +15 speaks for itself.
Grabner is a much different player but has made an equally large contribution to the team. Grabner is one of the fastest player at any given time on the ice. That alone makes him valuable. Couple that with the fact that in just 101 games he already has 37 goals for New York and Grabner has offered a huge boost to the bottom six scoring for New York. The number that shows why Grabner has been a great keep this year is eight. That is the number of third period goals Grabner has, good for a tie for first in the league. Not only has Grabner produced the second highest goal total on the team this year, but he has produced 4/5ths of those in crunch time.
Less than a year in to the expansion draft it isn’t even close. Oscar Lindberg was easily the player the Rangers should have lost. Keeping Grabner and Fast has payed dividends for the team so far this season and should continue to do so for much longer. Lindberg wasn’t a bad player, but he didn’t bring what Fast and Grabner do.