Blue Line Station
Fansided

New York Rangers: Why we should be depressed by the WJC Tournament

By Steve Paulus

MONTREAL, QC - JANUARY 05: Goaltender Ilya Samsonov #30 of Team Russia makes a stick save while teammate Grigori Dronov #23 battles for position with Lias Andersson #15 of Team Sweden during the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship bronze medal game at the Bell Centre on January 5, 2017 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
MONTREAL, QC - JANUARY 05: Goaltender Ilya Samsonov #30 of Team Russia makes a stick save while teammate Grigori Dronov #23 battles for position with Lias Andersson #15 of Team Sweden during the 2017 IIHF World Junior Championship bronze medal game at the Bell Centre on January 5, 2017 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. (Photo by Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 2
Next
VANCOUVER, BC – DECEMBER 28: Vitali Kravtsov #14 of Russia fights off the check of Matej Pekar #5 of the Czech Republic in Group A hockey action of the 2019 IIHF World Junior Championship action on December, 28, 2018 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images)
VANCOUVER, BC – DECEMBER 28: Vitali Kravtsov #14 of Russia fights off the check of Matej Pekar #5 of the Czech Republic in Group A hockey action of the 2019 IIHF World Junior Championship action on December, 28, 2018 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images) /

Teenage prospects

So, what are the qualifications to be considered a top teenage prospect?  Obviously, playing in the NHL at that age makes one a top prospect.  Let’s also assume that any under 20 player  invited to a WJC training camp can be considered a top prospect. Every NHL team has such players in their systems or on their major league rosters.

Some teams have more prospects than others including three organizations with five teenagers  who can be considered future stars.  The Vegas Golden Knights are one of those teams and that makes sense considering the number of draft choices they accumulated at the expansion draft.  Ottawa has three WJC players and two  teens in the NHL.  Philadelphia has five WJC players as well.

Teams with four top U20 forwards include the Los Angeles Kings and the Calgary Flames. 13 teams have three top U20 forwards.

Twelve teams have only one or two top teenage forwards.  Count the Rangers in that group with Kravtsov and Chytil.

Where are the Ranger Prospects?

With Lias Andersson and Brett Howden the only current Rangers who finished in the top WJC scoring tier in the last three years, there are reasons to be pessimistic.  Kravtsov has a chance of cracking the top group this year, but the lack of scoring forwards in the prospect pool is cause for concern.

In the last three years, the Rangers have drafted 23 players, but only ten forwards.  While Tim Gettinger (2016, 5th round #161) has made it to the big leagues, only Kravtsov, Andersson and Chytil can be considered offensive success stories.

The good news is that by focusing on defense, the Rangers have built up a solid corps of defensive prospects.  Draftees include WJC players  K’Andre Miller, Nils Lundkvist, Nico Gross, Joey Keane and Jakob Ragnarsson.  They also acquired WJC players Libor Hajek and Ryan Lindgren in deadline trades. That’s seven of the top defense prospects in the world aged 20 or younger and all are baby Rangers. That is really good news for a Ranger  defense that has been challenged for the last few years.

So the mission is to get more top young scoring forwards into the prospect pool.  Look for the Rangers to do that in the 2019 Entry draft and to use their deadline trade bait to pry some of those young scorers away from their current organizations (as with Howden).

Next. What the Rangers need to do to make the playoffs. dark

Think how it would have felt last year if we had known that the future Rangers at the tournament were not just Andersson and Chytil, but included Howden, Hajek and Lindgren. So, as you watch the WJC this year, make some mental notes about players you like and hope that you may see them in Ranger blue in the future.  It may not be so depressing.

Home/Editorials