2020 NHL Draft: Size is the difference for the last two picks

The New York Rangers finished off their 2020 NHL Entry Draft by taking two players in the last two rounds who are huge

The NHL concluded a marathon second day of draft picks that lasted over seven hours, involving 185 players over six rounds.   The Rangers made two trades and selected seven players and the last two can honestly be called gigantic.

Sixth round pick Matt Rempe

With their sixth round pick, #165 overall, the Rangers selected giant Seattle Thunderbirds center Matt Rempe.  The 18 year old is 6’8″, 205 pounds and has to be seen as a project, heading into his second season in the WHL. At seven feet tall on skates, he is shorter than only one NHL player, Zdeno Chara and if he can make it to the NHL he would be the tallest forward in NHL history.

Rempe didn’t make the NHL Central Scouting list of top North American forwards.  His coach talked about Rempe in an article from ESPN Seattle.   Coach Matt O’Dette said “There’s no fear to his game, there’s no hesitation.  He’s always hunting that puck and always finishing his checks, creating havoc on the ice. That makes room for himself and for his linemates. He’s done that for himself and I think he’s created some chemistry with his linemates.”

While it will be a challenge for him to make it as a pro, it should be fun watching his progress.

The last pick, more size

With the Rangers’ last pick of the draft at 197th overall in the seventh round, the Blueshirts selected Hugo Ollas, a goalie playing for  the Linkoping Junior team in the J20 Nationell League.  In his post-draft press conference even Jeff Gorton wasn’t sure he was a goalie.

His most distinctive feature is the same as Rempe.  Ollas, like Rempe is 6’8″, 238 pounds and he would be the tallest goalie in the NHL.   He was the seventh ranked European goalie by NHL Central Scouting.  Last season he played in 20 games with the Linkoping J20 SuperElit team with a 2.43 Goals Against Average and .895 save percentage with two shutouts.

He joins Olof Lindbom, the other Swedish goalie prospect in the Rangers system.

What are the odds of a player selected 197th overall  making it to the NHL?  The Rangers have drafted 96 players 197th or later in the draft. 26 went on to play at least one game in the NHL. Five went on to play at least 500 games in the NHL.

Perhaps Ollas can emulate another late round Swedish goalie who went on to fame and fortune in the NHL.   Henrik Lundqvist was drafted 205th overall in 2000 and we all know how he turned out.

One defense option gone

The Washington Capitals have re-signed defenseman Brenden Dillon to a four year $15.6 million contract.  Dillon was going to be an Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA) and was someone the Rangers could have targeted as a stay at home left-shot defenseman to partner with Jacob Trouba.  The deal is reasonably priced with an Average Annual Value of $3.9 million, but the Rangers might have been reluctant to take on the term.

With Dillon signing, the number of lefthanded UFA defensemen gets just a bit smaller.  A trade is still an option and the free agency window opens on Friday at noon.

Swedish action

We had mentioned in an earlier post that Jakob Ragnarsson was in action for Timra in the Allsvenskan League.  Timra won 7-1 over Karlskoga and while the Ranger defense prospect didn’t dent the scoresheet, he had an active game. He took a two minute interference penalty in the first period, then took a double minor for fighting in the third period when he battled Linus Karlsson.