New York Rangers: Buy as many lottery tickets as possible ?
In designing an NHL roster, a team’s front office needs as many cracks at the draft as possible. The New York Rangers executive’s need to really work on getting maximum return.
Much of the buildup to the NHL trade deadline every single year focuses on one end of the spectrum. Naturally, the established player already in the league being shopped is the story because of their notoriety. However, the story at the other end of the potential within a return is never given its due.
The reason a team agrees to trade away a productive player for assets is one of a few reasons. Mostly, they coalesce around the team shopping the player being unable to afford a contract extension or having less incentive to do so. This can be a matter of a team not being in contention for several years and needing to recoup future assets.
In terms of franchise building, draft picks are the life’s blood of success. Young and cost controlled players for the first eight years of their career are the foundation for a winning team. Those are the essential building blocks that the New York Rangers as currently designed lack. There is no blue chip prospect over the horizon ready to lead the team back from the brink.
Related Story. The Rangers have already won the Ryan Strome trade. light
There are several teams around the league that found a way to build through the draft and not just with first round picks. In this theory, draft picks are lottery tickets and prospects are half used scratch-offs.
Gotta hit up 7-11
So, in this theory, a draft pick represents a brand spanking new lottery ticket. There’s an infinitesimal chance that the player selected with the pick turns into a generational talent capable of altering the direction of a franchise. Since players that are drafted outside of the first round also do occasionally blossom there are better odds on certain lottery tickets.
The Powerball jackpot has different odds than scratch-off tickets and is where the line starts to be drawn. Typically, it’s the first round picks that are expected to develop into dependable NHL players for the long haul. However, there is the fair share of first-round picks that simply miss out and never grow into what their potential was.
It’s important to note that every pick has value because of the outliers. Granted, the chance of winning the Powerball jackpot is one in 302.6 million but there is also the chance that a seventh-round pick develops into Henrik Lundqvist and becomes one of the greatest players in the history of the sport.
The middle rounds (2 and 3) produce a decent amount of NHL talent and should not be overlooked as simply throw-ins on trades. Yes, the Tampa Bay Lightning have extraordinary talent evaluation and development systems in place, but, the fact remains that both Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point were taken after round one.
All 30 teams in the league, at that point, could have bought the winning lottery ticket and lucked into either Point or Kucherov. But, the Lightning were the ones who went to the right gas station and won the jackpot from the right ticket.
The prospect dilemma
The dirty little secret of trade deadline negotiations that no one ever mentions is that no organization is going to willfully give away a prospect it covets. The reason former Lightning G.M. Steve Yzerman was so effective in deadline moves was his steadfast resolve to not concede ground on who his untouchable pieces were.
The Rangers ended up with Brett Howden and Libor Hajek in the Ryan McDonagh trade instead of Point or Mikhail Sergachev because of Yzerman’s negotiating position. The former Lightning G.M. new the value of his prospects and was unwilling to throw away the parts of a potential contender to bolster his blue line for two postseason runs.
A prospect is an already used scratch off with only one or two panels left on it. Sure, if you get the right stroke of luck you might be able to pull a rabbit out of the hat, yet, it’s extremely unlikely. If someone else was ready to give up on the ticket, it’s going to take a minor miracle for someone else to win something with it.
Final thoughts
In conclusion, there is a serious element of chance to any potential trade with prospects and draft picks coming in return. It’s really a matter of determining if the potential of the return will out produce that of the proven asset.
Is there a chance that the 28th pick in this year’s entry draft in return for Kevin Hayes yields the Rangers the defenseman the team desperately needs? Sure, there’s also a chance of winning the Powerball if you buy a ticket at 7-11. It’s about deciding between the five dollars in your wallet or the lottery ticket.
Sure, the five dollar bill is not as exciting as the chance at millions of dollars, but there comes a point where buying too many tickets becomes a debilitating addiction.
Next. The Mt. Rushmore of the Lundqvist era. dark
Constantly trading off players on the verge of unrestricted free agency is the direct equivalent of having a lottery ticket addiction. In the right situation, sure, five bucks here and there is no big deal. But three tickets a day every day for 30 years and suddenly you’ve funded education in the state single-handedly.