A “Not the New York Rangers All-Star team”

The bench

That’s it for the starting five.  There are still other former prospects who could fill in.  Among the forwards there is Brandon Dubinsky (2nd Round, 2004 #60) who has had a long career with the Columbus Blue Jackets since being traded there in the Rick Nash deal.

Dubinsky is now 33 and is in the twilight of his career. He has had to endure several injuries and is on injured reserve this season with a wrist injury with no timetable for a return.  A 24 goal scorer in his best year for the Rangers, he has never equaled that with the Blue Jackets.

Artem Anisimov (2nd Round, 2006  #54) was also part of the deal for Rick Nash and was later dealt  from Columbus to the Blackhawks.   This summer he was traded to Ottawa after three productive seasons in Chicago. The 31 year old Russian has been hampered by injuries this year, limiting him to 15 games this season.  He has scored four goals and added one assist.

The Rangers probably have always regretted having to trade away Carl Hagelin  (6th Round, 2007 #168) in 2015 due to salary cap constraints.   He was swapped for Emerson Etem, a deal that definitely didn’t work out in the Rangers’ favor.  He found no success in Anaheim, but has gone on to be a productive member of three Stanley Cup Championship teams in Pittsburgh and Washington.

Never a top goal scorer, he has yet to dent the twines with Washington this season, but is still a valuable penalty killer and defensive forward.   He still has explosive speed and at age 31 he is the kind of player who will always find a contending team looking for his services.  Hagelin is the perfect example of the impact of the salary cap with the Rangers forced to trade a productive player that they drafted and developed.

Believe it or not, defenseman Dylan McIlrath (1st Round, 2010 #10) is in the NHL. McIlrath will go down as one of the biggest draft busts in Ranger history, but this season he has played 16 games for the worst team in the NHL, the Detroit Red Wings.

The Rangers gave up on McIlrath in November, 2016, sending him to Florida in exchange for Steven Kampfer.   Florida traded him to Detroit and this season, he has found a role as a spare defenseman.   No matter what McIlrath does for Detroit, the deal has to be rated a success as it removed a draft disaster from the organization and they got some useful games out of Kampfer.

Three more Ranger prospects are out there, but not in the NHL.  31 year old winger Dale Wiese (4th Round, 2008 # 111) is playing for the Laval Rocket of the AHL after nine years in the NHL for five teams.   MacKenzie Skapski (6th Round, 2013 # 170) has one of the more bizarre career stat lines in NHL history.  He started two games for the Rangers in the 2014-15 season, both against Buffalo. One game was a shutout and the second game he gave up one goal. Two starts, two wins, a 0.50 goals against average and a .978 save percentage.

After that debut, he was returned to the AHL and his minor league career went downhill leading to his release by the Rangers.  He was last seen playing in the Slovak league.

Most Ranger fans don’t remember Nigel Dawes (5th Round, 2003  #149).  He played two seasons in New York and ended his NHL career playing five seasons for New York, Phoenix, Calgary, Atlanta and Montreal.  It’s what happened after he left the NHL that is distinctive.  He has played nine  years in the KHL for Astana Barys and Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg and holds the distinction of being the second highest career goal scorer in KHL history with 238 goals.  He is fifth all-time with 436 points and third with a 0.50 goals per game average.   Even this season, at 34 years old, he has scored 14 goals and 25 points in 34 games.

The future all-stars

The fact that there are only nine former Ranger draft picks playing in the NHL is proof that the Rangers mortgaged their future by trading away draft picks.  If we expanded this list to include players drafted with New York picks that were dealt away, it would be a much better team.

That’s the bad news.  The good news is that with one of the best prospect pools in the NHL, the current Rangers organization boasts of players who will inevitably make it elsewhere.   The bottom line is the Rangers didn’t have the prospects to trade and now they have an overabundance.

The key is making the right deals at the right time, just like they did in 1994.  It all starts in February.