What does hiring John Lilley mean for the Rangers?

New York Rangers General Manager Chris Drury made another important hire in his reshaping of the team’s organization. He hired John Lilley away from the Toronto Maple Leafs, making him the Rangers’  Director of Player Personnel and Director of Amateur Scouting.   Lilley had been the Maple Leafs’ Director of Amateur Scouting the last three years and had been a scout with Toronto since 2006.

Lilley had been the face of the Toronto draft for the last three years, providing player assessments to the media.   With Dave Morrison as the Maple Leafs’ Director of Player Personnel, this is a promotion for Lilley that he was not in line for in Toronto.

Lilley is a former NHL right winger who appeared in 24 games for the Anaheim Mighty Ducks between 1993 and 1996. Like Drury, he went to Boston University, but not at the same time.  He is a native of Wakefield, Massachusetts.

Before becoming Toronto’s chief amateur scout, he was in charge of U.S. scouting for the Maple Leafs since 2016 and is responsible for over 100 draft picks by the team.

His record in Toronto

While Lilley has been highly regarded in hockey circles, the Maple Leafs have not exactly wowed anyone with their draft picks in recent years. It’s still too early to tell since he has been in charge for the last three drafts and the team has had a first round pick only once in that time.

In the last decade, three Maple Leaf players picked after the first round have played as many as 100 games in the NHL.  Connor Brown was a sixth round pick in 2012, Andreas Johnson was a seventh round pick in 2013 and Travis Dermott was picked in the second round in 2015.   That’s the same number as the Rangers in the same amount of time.

Of course, it was as head of U.S. Scouting that the Maple Leafs drafted the best U.S. born player currently in the NHL in Auston Matthews, but that choice was a no brainer.

In his three years running the Toronto drafts, the team has drafted 21 players.   There’s been a heavy emphasis on European players with 10 picks including six from Finland and four from Russia.   Six U.S. born players were drafted and five from Canadian junior teams.

The one player he drafted who has made it to the NHL is left winger Nick Robertson, a second round pick in 2019 who played six games last season and should be competing for a job with the Maple Leafs this season.

Filling a void

Lilley fills an open position in the organization. Gordie Clark had been Director of Player Personnel, but had stepped back from that role as was listed most recently as Pro Scout and Advisor, Amateur Scouting.  He is off the organization chart with the hiring of Lilley.

Kevin Maxwell remains as the Director of Professional Scouting along with Chris Morehouse who is Director of North American Scouting.  Lilley will be looking to find a new Director of European Scouting to replace Nick Bobrov who was fired in May when Drury took over.  The question is whether Lilley will poach any of his former colleagues in Toronto.

This is a key hire for the Rangers as they still retain most of their draft picks over the next few years including five picks in the first four rounds in 2022.  We won’t know if Lilley is the right man for the job for quite a while since we cannot expect to see any of his picks in the NHL for many years.