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New York Rangers: Not all of the prospects are going to pan out

By Nicholas Zararis

NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 26: The New York Rangers send Lias Andersson #50 and Filip Chytil #72 out for warmups as the rest of the team waits in the tunnel prior to the game against the Washington Capitals at Madison Square Garden on March 26, 2018 in New York City. The practice is done by many NHL teams to acknowledge rookies as Andersson will be playing in his first NHL game. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 26: The New York Rangers send Lias Andersson #50 and Filip Chytil #72 out for warmups as the rest of the team waits in the tunnel prior to the game against the Washington Capitals at Madison Square Garden on March 26, 2018 in New York City. The practice is done by many NHL teams to acknowledge rookies as Andersson will be playing in his first NHL game. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /
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NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 26: The New York Rangers send Lias Andersson #50 and Filip Chytil #72 out for warmups as the rest of the team waits in the tunnel prior to the game against the Washington Capitals at Madison Square Garden on March 26, 2018 in New York City. The practice is done by many NHL teams to acknowledge rookies as Andersson will be playing in his first NHL game. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 26: The New York Rangers send Lias Andersson #50 and Filip Chytil #72 out for warmups as the rest of the team waits in the tunnel prior to the game against the Washington Capitals at Madison Square Garden on March 26, 2018 in New York City. The practice is done by many NHL teams to acknowledge rookies as Andersson will be playing in his first NHL game. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

In the modern NHL, the draft is the way to build a quality team. However, no NHL front office nails all of their draft picks.

It goes without saying, that the draft is the most important resource for NHL teams. The draft gives the 31 teams access to young talent that can be held under team control for at minimum seven years or until the player is 27. On any given night, an NHL team dressed 18 skaters and two goaltenders, 20 players is far too many to depend on free agency and trades to acquire.

With the league’s salary cap going up pretty much every season now, the crunch is not as serious, but every dollar counts. Across all of the salary cap sports, there is a clear formula for success that is being replicated at every level of competition. Get cheap cost controlled talent as the foundation for success and then target established players with higher salaries.

This method is what allowed the Toronto Maple Leafs to have Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander all on entry level deals while signing Patrick Marleau and John Tavares in consecutive off seasons. Basically, a team cannot afford to botch its picks in the first three rounds being that they are so important.

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In the case of the New York Rangers, the team’s draft history is quite spotty. For every Pavel Buchnevich in the third round, there is a Brandon Halverson in the second round.

The reality

The Rangers front office really shot themselves in the foot for the near future during the 2014, 2015 and 2016 entry drafts. The team’s continued efforts to try and win the Stanley Cup meant mortgaging draft picks and the future. Of course, in the moment, the team had a core at the right age that was primed to make a cup run. Simply choosing to stand pat at the deadline for the fear of giving up draft picks was not an option.

However, those years of giving up the future eventually shortchanged the team. Now that the team’s core was aged and coming up for new contracts, there was no young talent to replace them. The reason the Tampa Bay Lightning, Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets have such deep rosters is their quality drafting.

All three organizations built their success through sustained quality drafts. Now, the Rangers have taken the proper steps to ensure that they will be competitive again soon. The group of Filip Chytil, Lias Andersson, Vitali Kravtsov, K’Andre Miller, Nils Lundqvist, Yegor Rykov, Igor Shestyorkin, Brett Howden, Libor Hajek, Ty Ronning and Sean Day represent the future of the organization.

However, the reality of the way scouting works is that at least a few of these players will be busts. By the simple law of averages, they cannot all possibly pan out. Take into account the Ranger organization’s history of whiffing on picks and storyline is there.

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Prospect development is not an exact science, there is no guaranteed path to success. For whatever reason, players at the junior level can sneak by the smell test and get to that NHL entry contract. But, with so much of the Ranger’s future success riding on the development of a group of prospects, it’s important to remember not all of them will pan out.

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