New York Rangers Rumblings: A Lias Andersson revival?

New York Rangers prospect Lias Andersson lights it up

For all of you who have given up on Lias Andersson, not so fast.  He scored two goals and added three assists for five points in a 7-2 exhibition win for HV71 against Linkopings on Saturday.  Both of Andersson’s tallies were power play goals, scored in the second period.

While preseason games don’t count, the fact that Andersson has been on a scoring spree is a good sign for the former first round pick.

Andersson is off to a hot start in the preseason and in a tweet from HV71, he looks happy.

That’s good news for the Rangers and their fans.  Andersson was picked seventh overall in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft and up till now has been regarded as a bust.  He is still only 21 years old (he turns 22 in October) and it is probably much too early to write him off.

Here is the first of Andersson’s two power play goals as he puts in a rebound from the faceoff circle. He is wearing number 23.

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In case you were curious, we didn’t see much of Lias Andersson on the power play during his time in New York.  in 66 games spread over three seasons, Andersson saw 696 minutes of ice time.  Of that, he had all of 3:47 of ice time on the power play. That’s less than four minutes total in three seasons.

Andersson is still under contract to the Rangers, but has been loaned to HV71 in he Swedish Hockey League.  He will be seeing a lot of action before the Rangers can even think about starting their training camp.  It’s very possible that Andersson could play the entire SHL season and still come back to North America and finish the NHL season with the Rangers.

Andersson appears to have found a goal scoring touch in Sweden.  In his first three seasons in the SHL, he never topped nine goals.  Last year, after joining HV71 he scored seven goals in 15 games and has picked up where he left off so far in the preseason.

If Andersson can salvage his career and become a useful member of the Blueshirts, it could be one of the better narratives in the NHL this season. At the very least, he is driving up his trade value.  During this regular seaosn there were reports that there was some interesting in Andersson from other NHL teams, but Jeff Gorton was insisting on a first round pick in exchange for him so no deal was made.  It could be that Gorton was right to insist on that value.

Nils Lundkvist was in action this week for Lulea in an 4-2 exhibition win against IF Bjorkoven, a team in the Allsvenskan league (similar to AHL).  He didn’t get any points, but he did hit two posts in the first period.

Center Karl Henriksson has yet to see any action for Frolunda and Center Adam Edstrom did not play in Rogle’s last exhibition game.

The SHL regular season will get underway in just under two weeks on September 19.