The New York Rangers traded veteran forward Cody McLeod to the Nashville Predators on Wednesday afternoon creating a lineup vacancy. For now, Vinni Lettieri is up with the club, this is his moment.
There comes a point in every professional athlete’s life where they need to see if they can cut it against the best players in the world on a regular basis. In the NHL, players usually find out their career arch by age 23. Some are destined for a life in the AHL only to be emergency call-ups and others find a way to eke out a living at the NHL level.
As a rebuilding franchise, the New York Rangers are experiencing this inflection point with several different players. Of this group, Vinni Lettieri is the one with the most to prove based on his amateur career and what he’s done up to this point. As an undrafted college free agent, the forward’s had an uphill climb to even get this far.
Thus far, Lettieri has played in 35 games at the NHL level and registered five points while averaging 10:37 of ice time. During both of his stints with the big club, the forward always played well in small spurts was never able to consistently make an impact on a shift to shift basis.
There was some hope that Lettieri would make the NHL team out of training camp coming into this year and stick around. However, following a strong preseason and a minimally impactful 16 games, the University of Minnesota Product was sent back to the Wolf Pack where he’s been since.
Comparisons
At face value, Lettieri is an imperfect player for the modern NHL. The fact that he’s so dependent upon his energy and hitting as a player is a dead giveaway that he’s too often chasing the puck instead of controlling it. Using Bill Comeau’s SKATR comparison tool we can get a better understanding of Lettieri’s play.
In direct comparison to Adam Cracknell, a player that the Rangers gave a brief audition to last year, Lettieri creates a lot fewer points and is less effective at driving possession. Granted, it’s possible for a player to be effective without doing either but this leaves them limited in terms of potential impact. A shot suppressing forward is useful but only in certain contexts.
Throw in the fact that Lettieri is heavily used in defensive zone starts and it only adds to the picture. It’s difficult for any player to positively drive possession while starting in their own end of the ice more than half of the time.
Opportunities are finite
After a certain point, the Rangers will stop calling up Lettieri with the hope that he will still get better. Given that he’s 24-years-old, the Minnesota native is running out of time to still be labeled a project or still developing as a talent. At this point, most players are what they are in terms of talent, only so much teaching can be done.
This is a golden opportunity for Lettieri to play in a situation with as little pressure as possible. With the Rangers not expected to win most nights and inherently interested in tanking for a high draft selection, this is going to be a breeding ground for lineup experiments.
Thus far into his career, Lettieri is relatively unimpressive and a below replacement level player. Yes, his experience is limited and heavily skewed towards a defensive role, however, there needs to be a jolt and this may be it.
With the Rangers bottom three lines a jumbled mess of forwards, there is a chance for Lettieri to play alongside someone like Pavel Buchnevich or Filip Chytil for stretches of time. As a shoot first type of player, Lettieri could benefit from playing alongside a playmaker.
It may be a touch dramatic, but this very well could be Lettieri’s last NHL stint. There’s no shame in being a career AHL player, many would kill for such a life. However, that would close the book on his prospect status and thus relegate him to an emergency call up permanently.