New York Rangers: The best and worst draft classes of the 1990s
Like most teams in the history of the NHL Entry Draft, the New York Rangers have scored big in some and missed badly in others. Here are the best and worst Rangers’ draft classes of the 1990s.
It’s time to look at the New York Rangers drafts of the 1990s. We’ve gone through the entry drafts of the 1970s and 1980s and we are finally in the decade that produced a Stanley Cup championship.
While a championship helps determine the quality of a draft class, there are other criteria. Did they fill several needs? Did they draft a future superstar? Did they draft serviceable players though not elite? Or is it a comparision to the performance of players subsequently drafted by other teams?
For this piece, all of the above.
Best: Class of 1990
Standouts
Doug Weight (2nd round, 34th overall, center)
Sergei Zubov (5th round, 85th overall, defense)
Sergei Nemchinov (12th round, 244th overall, center)
Analysis
The Rangers squandered the 13th overall selection on defenseman Michael Stewart, who never played a NHL shift.
In doing so, they passed on forwards Brad May (2,248 penalty minutes) and Keith Tkachuk (1,065 points and 2,219 penalty minutes), Hall of Fame goaltender Martin Brodeur, and defenseman Jiri Slegr (838 penalty minutes and 232 points).
But the Blueshirts can be excused.
After all, they did choose three players who would become keys to the team ending its 54-year Stanley Cup championship drought.
The best pick was Zubov, a future Hall of Famer who would play over 1,068 games, score 152 goals, assist on 619 others, and win two Stanley Cups in 16 NHL seasons.
After helping the Unified Team win the gold medal in the 1992 Olympic Games, Zubov made an immediate impact for the Rangers with 31 points in 49 games in 1992-93.
The following season, he led the team with 89 points and added 19 more in the postseason to help the Rangers win the President’s Trophy and the Stanley Cup. In doing so, he became only the second defenseman in NHL history to lead a first-place team in scoring (Bobby Orr, 1969-70).
Zubov had 36 points in 38 matches for the Rangers during the lockout-shortened 1994-95 season, but was traded the following summer to the Pittsburgh Penguins with Petr Nedved for Ulf Samuelsson and future Hall of Famer Luc Robitaille.
Zubov won a another Stanley Cup in 1999 with Dallas, where he played 12 seasons before hip-related injuries limited him to 10 games in 2008-09. Those would be the last games of his NHL career. He officially retired in April 2011 and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2019.
Zubov is second among Rangers’ single-season leaders in assists with 77 in 1994, and in points by a defenseman. (Hall of Famer and Stanley Cup champion Brian Leetch had 80 assists and 102 points in 1992).
Weight spent two of his twenty NHL seasons in New York, posting 23 goals and 70 assists in 118 games.
Following two seasons at Lake Superior State, where he notched 50 goals and 94 assists, Weight made his Broadway debut in the 1991 playoffs. The following season, he played 53 games as a rookie and scored eight goals and added 22 assists for 30 points.
In 1992-93, he put up 15 goals and 25 assists for 40 points in 65 games before he was, to his surprise, traded that March to the Edmonton Oilers for left wing/super pest Esa Tikkanen.
At the time, trading a talented 22-year-old center for a player six years his elder and with significant miles on his odometer was a questionable optic (at best) for the Rangers.
However, armed with an uncanny ability to irritate opponents and the experience of helping Edmonton win four of its five Stanley Cups, Tikkanen proved very useful to the Rangers during playoff runs in 1994 and in ’97.
He notched 23 goals and 31 assists in 1993-94, then added eight more points in the playoffs, including the lone assist on Stephane Matteau‘s game winner in double overtime versus the Devils in Game Seven of the conference finals.
Nearly five weeks after celebrating with teammates and fans in the ticker-tape parade on June 17 in New York, Tikkanen was off to St. Louis, traded with Doug Lidster for Petr Nedved.
Over parts of the next three seasons, Tikkanen played a combined 298 games for the Blues, New Jersey and Vancouver. In March 1997, he was traded back to the Rangers with Russ Courtnall for Brian Noonan and Sergei Nemchinov.
His return paid off for New York in the playoffs that spring.
Tikkanen scored twice in overtime in the opening round against the Florida Panthers, including the series clincher in Game Five.
In the conference semifinals that went five games, he had four goals, propelling the Rangers to an upset of the Devils, who won the Atlantic Division that season with 104 points. He added two tallies in a 4-1 series loss to Philadelphia in the conference finals.
Apparently impressed with his postseason performance, the Panthers signed Tikkanen the following September.
The Washington Capitals, needing grit and experience, traded for Tikkanen in March 1998 and advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they were swept by the Detroit Red Wings.
In October 1998, Tikkanen signed again with the Rangers, notching three assists in what proved his final 32 NHL games.
Nemchinov spent six of his eleven NHL seasons with the Rangers, notching 105 goals and 120 assists for 225 points. In 52 postseason matches for the Blueshirts, he posted 22 points, including two goals and five assists in the 1994 playoffs.
As an added bonus for Rangers fans, the New York Islanders drafted five forwards in rounds eight to 12, all before Nemchinov, and none made the NHL.
Honorable mention: Class of 1991
Standout
Alexei Kovalev (1st round, 15th overall, left wing)
Notable
Corey Hirsch (8th round, 213th overall, goalie)
Analysis
Kovalev had moves that could dazzle and the strength to win puck battles, thanks to his frame of 6 feet, 2 inches and 220 pounds.
He also had a knack for scoring big goals, perhaps none more important than his tally in Game 6 of the 1994 conference finals. Facing elimination and trailing 2-0 in the second period, Kovalev scored with 1:41 left. He the notched assists on the tying and winning goals of Mark Messier’s hat trick in the final period for a 4-2 New York win.
Kovalev dazzled from start to finish in the ’94 playoffs with nine goals, 12 assists and 21 points. He had a goal in each match of a four-game sweep of the New York Islanders in the first round. In the Stanley Cup Finals, he scored three goals, including the winner in Game Four.
What the 20-year-old didn’t have was consistency or maturity, which frustrated Rangers’ brass. Perhaps, no one more than his first NHL head coach, Mike Keenan.
Keenan was irked by Kovalev’s penchant for holding the puck too long, leading to turnovers, and for taking long shifts.
“Iron Mike” reached his boiling point during a match against Boston at Madison Square Garden, when Kovalev didn’t come to the bench after a long shift. Seething, Keenan ordered Kovalev to stay on the ice for a “shift” of over five minutes.
(Unfazed, Kovalev drew two penalties and scored on the power play in the period’s final minute.)
Kovalev was traded to Pittsburgh in 1998, dealt back to the Rangers by the Pens in 2003 and swapped to the Montreal Canadiens in 2004. He finished his career with second stop in Pittsburgh between stints with Ottawa and Florida.
In 492 games for the Rangers, he had 142 goals, 188 assists and 330 points.
Meanwhile, the Hirsch pick is notable not because of his 1-2-1 record with New York, but for whom he was traded in April 1995. That would be Canucks forward Nathan Lafayette, whose one-timer hit the post (and stayed out) with six minutes remaining, and the Rangers clinging to a 3-2 lead, in Game 7 of the finals.
Hirsch also allowed the shootout goal to Peter Forsberg that gave Sweden the gold medal in the 1994 Olympics.
Honorable mention: Class of 1994
Notables
Dan Cloutier (1st round, 26th overall, goalie)
Kim Johnsson (11th round, 286th overall, defense)
Analysis
The Rangers won the Stanley Cup exactly two weeks before this draft, and therefore had the last pick of the first round. They also had the absolute last selection (No. 286) and nabbed a player who ended up playing ten seasons as a regular in the NHL.
Considering the championship and the Johnsson pick, the Rangers get the benefit of the doubt here, even though they missed out on Patrik Elias, Milan Hejduk, Daniel Alfredsson, Tim Thomas and Tomas Holmstrom. The reality is, the Rangers have had far worse drafts after failing to win the Cup.
Despite spending much of his ten NHL seasons off Broadway, Cloutier nonetheless secured a spot in Rangers’ lore April 4, 1998 at the Nassau Coliseum by absolutely destroying Islanders counterpart Tommy Salo.
Salo’s troubles began when entered a bout between teammate Mariusz Czerkawski and Rangers’ tough guy PJ Stock. Just as Salo was about to intervene, he was grabbed by Cloutier and subsequently beaten into submission. Cloutier next challenged the Islanders bench for good measure.
Those too young to remember can Google it or watch it here.
The last pick of the draft, Johnsson played 151 games in two seasons with the Rangers, scoring 11 goals and 36 assists for 47 points before being traded with Jan Hlvac, draft-bust Pavel Brendl and a third-round pick for Eric Lindros.
Honorable mention: Class of 1995
Notables
Christian Dube (2nd round, 39th overall, center)
Marc Savard (4th round, 91st overall, center)
Dale Purinton (5th round, 117th overall, defense)
Analysis
This class isn’t anywhere close to being the team’s “best” of any Rangers’ era. But, it probably was the best the Rangers could do without a first-round pick. And, at least they didn’t miss out on any future Hall of Famers.
Purinton, at 6 feet 2 inches and 228-pounds, essentially fought his way to a roster spot and played with a snarl in 181 NHL games. He had 578 penalty minutes, many the product of pounding opponents who took liberties with his teammates, especially Mark Messier and Brian Leetch.
Savard spent just two of his 13 NHL seasons on Broadway, posting 51 points in 98 games. However, he was traded in June 1999 to Calgary for Jan Hlavac and the Flames’ first-round choice in the Entry Draft the following month.
The Rangers used that pick, 9th overall, on center Jamie Lundmark (more on him later). Savard wound up playing over 800 NHL games and producing more than 700 points.
Hlavac became a part of the Rangers’ “Czechmates” line with Radek Dvorak and Petr Nedved. In 2000-01, the trio combined for 91 goals and 209 points. Dvorak and Hlavac had single-season career bests in goals (31 and 28 respectively) and points (67 and 64), while Nedved led the Rangers that season with 32 goals.
The Rangers’ biggest gaffe was taking center Christian Dube at 39th overall. But other than forward Jochen Hecht (458 NHL points) and goalie Miikka Kiprusoff (Vezina winner in 2006), the Blueshirts didn’t miss much else.
Worst: Class of 1999
Notables
Pavel Brendl (1st round, 4th overall, forward)
Jamie Lundmark (4th round, 9th overall, forward)
Analysis
Hard to blame Rangers brass here. For starters, the pickings were slim in what is widely considered among the weakest drafts in NHL history. Also, the players the Blueshirts chose had torched the opposition in Canadian juniors in the seasons leading up to draft.
Brendl had a monster 1998-99 season in Canadian juniors, having notched 73 goals and 61 assists for 134 points for the Western Hockey League’s Calgary Hitmen. In 110 games over the next two seasons in juniors, he had 91 goals.
Unfortunately for the Rangers, Brendl never played for the Rangers. He was traded with Kim Johnsson and Jan Hlvac to the Flyers in August 2001 for Eric Lindros. Brendl lasted just four seasons in the NHL, scoring a combined 11 goals and 11 assists in 78 games.
So what happened?
Well, according to many accounts, including Rick Carpiniello’s in his book Nightmare on 33rd Street, Brendl reported out of shape for his first Rangers training camp, was only slightly better in his second one, and was widely viewed as being lazy.
Like Brendl, Lundmark was drafted after a terrific season in Canadian juniors, having posted 40 goals and 91 points for WHL Moose Jaw in 1998-99. He just didn’t flourish in the NHL, where he lasted just six seasons. He played parts of three seasons with the Rangers, recording 11 goals and 19 assists for 30 points in 114 games.
Among the players could’ve had include Barret Jackman, Martin Havlat and Ryan Miller, who won the Vezina in 2010 with Buffalo.
Dishonorable Mention: Class of 1996
Notables
Jeff Brown (1st round, 22 overall, defense)
Daniel Goneau (2nd round, 48th overall, forward)
Analysis
Brown never played an NHL shift, Goneau was gone after 53 NHL games, and the Rangers missed out on Tomas Kaberle, Sami Salo and Daniel Briere, all of whom had productive NHL careers.
Dishonorable Mention: Class of 1992
Notables
Peter Ferraro (1st round, 24th overall, forward)
Mattias Norstrom (2nd round, 48th overall, defense)
Eric Cairns (3rd round, 72nd overall, defense)
Chris Ferraro (4th round, 85th overall, forwards)
Analysis
Neither Ferraro brother made a big impact for the Rangers. Natives of Port Jefferson, N.Y., they combined for four points in 22 games for New York. Players the Blueshirts passed on include Michael Peca (two-time Selke Trophy winner), Boris Mironov (891 penalty minutes) and Valeri Bure (400 points).
Norstrom saw just 43 games with the Rangers before being packaged in a trade to Los Angeles for 25 matches of Jari Kurri and an awful Marty McSorley. Considering Norstrom became a defensive stalwart for 11 seasons in Hollywood, it’s probably fair to cite this as another example of the Blueshirts turning a decent draft into a poor one.
Cairns was a tough defenseman who worked hard to remain in the NHL for 11 seasons. He had 1,182 career penalty minutes, 239 of them in parts of two seasons with the Rangers.
Dishonorable Mention: Class of 1993
Notables
Niklas Sundstrom (1st round, 8th overall, forward)
Todd Marchant (7th round, 164th overall, forward)
Analysis
The only positive for the Rangers was that they got veteran center Craig MacTavish for Marchant in a March 1994 trade with Edmonton.
Prior to his arrival on Broadway, MacTavish had 141 games of playoff experience and three Stanley Cup rings over 10 seasons with Boston and then the Oilers. The last to play in the NHL without a helmet, his most memorable moment as a Ranger was his faceoff win with 1.6 seconds remaining in Game Seven of the Cup Finals, preserving a 3-2 win.
Sundstrom put up 65 goals and 98 assists for 163 points in 315 games for the Rangers. But to take him, the Blueshirts passed on Saku Koivu (832 points), Todd Bertuzzi (1,478 penalty minutes), Miroslav Satan (735 points), Pavol Demitra (768 points) and Kimmo Timonen (571 points). If that isn’t bad enough, Sundstrom was part of the trade that gave the Rangers the Brendl pick. After being dealt, Sundstrom played seven more NHL seasons. Of course he did.
Dishonorable Mention: Class of 1998
Notables
Manny Malhotra (1st round, 7th overall, center)
Jason LaBarbera (3rd round, 66th overall, goalie)
Tomas Kloucek (5th round, 131st overall, defense)
Analysis
Malhotra had two problems after being taken by New York.
The first was his coach John Muckler, who didn’t think he’d amount to much in the NHL and played him sparingly.
The other was the Rangers’ logjam down the middle with Petr Nedved, Mark Messier, Mike York and Tim Taylor already on the roster.
As was widely reported when Ron Low replaced Muckler as coach, Malhotra was encouraged to learn to play left wing. In the American Hockey League with Hartford. Malhotra wanted to “study” in New York.
He was traded in 2002. Playing at center for four NHL clubs over parts of the next 12 seasons, Malhotra won 59 percent of his draws and finished in the top five in voting for the Selke Trophy in 2011.
Meanwhile, LaBarbera played just five games for the Rangers, while Kloucek played 141 games in parts of five seasons. The tough defenseman posted nine of his 10 career points and 211 of his 251 total penalty minutes for the Blueshirts.
Players the Rangers passed on include Alex Tanguay (863 career points), Simon Gagne (601 points), Mike Fisher (589 points), Mike Ribeiro (793 points), Andrei Markov (572 points), and Brad Richards (932 points – 716 of them before he signed with the Blueshirts in July 2011, helping them reach the Stanley Cup Finals in ’14).
What About the Class of 1997?
Notables
Stefan Cherneski (1st round, 19th overall, right wing)
Mike York (6th round, 136th overall, center)
Mike Mottau (7th round, defense)
Analysis
Hard to rank this class because Cherneski’s NHL career ended before it ever started.
Assigned to AHL Hartford to develop, Cherneski shattered his right patella into six pieces in a game versus Springfield on Nov. 13, 1998. The injury required four surgeries and hundreds of hours of rehab.
He played in 29 AHL games after the injury, but still experienced pain and decided to retire in January 2001 at age 22.
Meantime, York played 230 matches over three seasons with the Rangers, notching 58 goals and 80 assists for 138 points.
A two-time Hobey Baker finalist (as college hockey’s top player) in four years at Michigan State, York made an impressive debut on Broadway in 1999-2000. Playing on the “FLY” line with Theo Fleury and Eric Lindros, York led the Rangers with 26 goals and 50 points, and finished third in voting for the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie.
But after scoring just 32 goals total over the next two seasons, York was traded to Edmonton for defenseman Tom Poti.
Mottau won the Hobey Baker award while at Boston College, but played just 19 matches for the Rangers before he was traded to Calgary for a sixth-round pick and future considerations. He was drafted ahead of forward Shawn Thornton (1,103 penalty minutes) and defenseman Andrew Ference (225 points, 753 penalty minutes). Both Thornton and Ference would help Boston win the Stanley Cup in 2011.
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Coming next
Blue Line Station will look at the Rangers’ draft classes from 2000 through 2009.
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