New York Rangers’ general manager Jeff Gorton is orchestrating a full-scale rebuild that will require several years of change. Some are already over the G.M.’s plan.
There’s an old saying in the New York area about sports teams, you can’t rebuild here. In spite of having the fourth most expensive ticket on an average basis, the New York Rangers under general manager Jeff Gorton are in the process of standing up to that wisdom. This was not an easy decision to make for the G.M. or his team, there was a workable core at this time two years ago.
The core that went to the Stanley Cup Final and multiple conference finals was aging but still had considerable upside. In an alternate scenario, instead of blowing the team up Gorton keeps Derek Stepan, Ryan McDonagh, Rick Nash, Kevin Hayes and Mats Zuccarello to keep pushing for a Stanley Cup.
Instead of building through the draft and acquiring prospects, Gorton could’ve been stubborn and kept the band together. A team with that core and the team’s young players it would have still selected like Filip Chytil and K’Andre Miller to accompany an aging core. The big mistake came in the form of Gorton not having the young players to work with that group.
On the other end of the spectrum, Gorton decided to blow up that Stanley Cup contender in hopes of making the Rangers in his vision. This yielded ten draft picks in both last and this year’s entry draft, that is how a team successfully accumulates enough talent to have a quality foundation. There needs to be cheap talent on entry-level deals to surround with veteran talent to win.