Every year NHL teams draft 200 players over the course of seven rounds and leave undrafted free agents. Signing an undrafted player who becomes an NHLer is like finding gold. The New York Rangers have struck gold a few times.
The list of undrafted players who are in the Hall of Fame is impressive. It includes Adam Oates, Ed Belfour, Peter Stastny, Joe Mullen, Dino Ciccarelli and Borje Salming. Martin St. Louis finished his career as a Ranger, but in 1988 every NHL team thought that there were 252 other players who were better. It was Calgary who took the chance to sign St. Louis and he became a star in Tampa. Current undrafted NHL players include Sergei Bobrovsky, Tyler Johnson, Chris Kunitz, Nate Schmidt, Tyler Bozak and Artemi Panarin.
Every season the Rangers go out and sign undrafted players in the hopes of finding a diamond in the rough. This past year the list included Alexandar Georgiev, Ville Meskanen, Neal Pionk, Michael Lindqvist, Chris Nell, Vinni Lettieri and Dawson Leedahl. Each of these players hope to make it on Broadway and not end up like Malte Stromwell or Andrei Bereglazov who were released from their deals after failing to make an impression.
While the Rangers have never discovered a Hall of Fame caliber player, they have found a few quality players