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).