New York Rangers Report Card: John Gilmour
John Gilmour was a candidate to make the New York Rangers blue line corps after an impressive NHL debut last season. With the glut of defensemen on the big league roster, Gilmour spent most of the season in Hartford despite excellent offensive numbers.
John Gilmour : Grade Incomplete
As we continue our New York Rangers report cards we come to John Gilmour who played only five games for the the varsity. He’s another player who seemed to warrant a better chance of making the team, but ended up barely contributing.
His season
John Gilmour’s NHL season is hardly worth talking about. He was called up from Hartford in late March, played in five games and was scoreless. He showed his speed and skating ability, but was a minus three in those five games and appears destined to be an ex-Ranger next season.
Although his season was short, in the Rangers’ 2-1 overtime win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on March 23, he was credited with seven blocked shots. That was a season high for the Rangers and Gilmour is the one of three Ranger players not named Girardi to have as many as seven in one game. Brian Boyle and Chris Drury are the other two Rangers to equal that number. Dan Girardi (who else?) holds the team record with ten in a game in 2015. Girardi also blocked eight shots in a game three times.
The odd thing about Gilmour is that he had a fabulous offensive season for the Wolf Pack. Her finished second among all AHL defensemen in scoring, notching 20 goals and 34 assists for 54 points in 70 games. He was Hartford’s power play quarterback with 23 of his points scored with the man advantage. He was also Hartford’s representative at the AHL All-Star Challenge and he scored three goals in the round robin tournament.
Considering that he made a positive impression last season while playing 28 games for the Rangers and scoring two goals and five points, most Ranger fans kept looking at those AHL stats and wondering when he would be Broadway bound.
It’s apparent that although Gilmour is a gifted offensive player, it’s his defense that suffers. In his 28 game debut last season with the Rangers though he had good possession stats, he was a minus 11. Although a big scorer for the Wolf Pack this season, he was a minus 11. He was minus three in his five games with the Rangers this season and his Corsi was an abysmal 39.87.
While one would believe that a player like Gilmour would find a place on the Rangers’s roster, he was behind Kevin Shattenkirk, Tony DeAngelo and Neal Pionk on the depth chart and there was clearly no room for a left shooting offensive defenseman on the roster.
Why the grade
It might have been interesting to see what Gilmour could do on the major league level in a longer tryout, but this season it was not to be, so he ends up with an Incomplete grade. Gilmour is 25 years old and it appears that his career as a Ranger is over. He is an unrestricted free agent and it is unlikely that he will re-sign with New York and spend another season in the AHL. There will undoubtedly be a team in the NHL that will be willing to take a chance on a player with his offensive skills. Whether he can make it as a NHL player is doubtful, but if he does, it won’t be in New York. .
The numbers
Games: 5
Goals: 0
Assists: 0
Points: 0
Plus/Minus: -3
PIM: 4
Hits: 3
ATOI: 16:05
Blocked Shots: 13
Corsi For %: 38,.6%
More. Teams with salary cap issues. light
Next report card: Libor Hajek