New York Rangers: Ranking the prospects by tiers

Tier 2

Lias Andersson, Igor Shestyorkin, K’Andre Miller, Nils Lundkvist

There are some NHL franchises who would love to have these four as the centerpieces of their prospect pools. The Rangers are lucky enough to have them as their second tier of prospects. Unless something crazy happens, these four could be future NHL All Stars and key cogs in a championship team.

The Rangers have gotten a lot of flak for drafting Lias Andersson at seventh overall while leaving players like Casey Mittelstadt, Gabriel Vilardi and Michael Rasmussen on the board in the 2017 draft. The team expected Andersson to make the team out of camp but it was obvious that he was not ready.

Andersson ended up playing games in the SHL, AHL, NHL, World Juniors and World Championships in 2017-18. That has to be incredibly hard for any human to travel that much. Imagine having to play hockey at a high level in all those different situations, too?

Andersson was very good at each level he played at but was exceptional at both the World Juniors level, as well as in the AHL. In 13 World Juniors games, Andersson tallied nine goals and three assists as he captained Team Sweden. In the AHL, he was one of the league’s best 19 year olds, posting five goals and nine assists in 25 games.

Andersson may not end up being a top-line center at the NHL level, but he’ll likely end up being one of the top second line centers in the game as well as a potential future captain.

Then there’s the heir apparent to Henrik Lundqvist in Igor Shestyorkin.

Shestyorkin has been one of, if not, the best young goalies under the age of 25 in the world. He’s been in part of a time share with the best team in the KHL, SKA St. Petersburg, over the past two seasons. He’s posted back-to-back seasons with a .933 save percentage or better and has 15 shutouts over those seasons, the most in the league.

The KHL does not have much parity so it’s hard to tell how good he’d be at the NHL level. He’s played extremely well in national tournaments too, which bodes well. His contract expires after the 2018-19 season. If he comes over to North America for the 2019-20 season, expect him to split starts with Lundqvist.