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Olympic medals for the best Rangers draft picks, round by round

By Steve Paulus

Rangers Brian Leetch gets the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP following game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals at Madison Square Garden June 14, 1994. The Rangers won the game 3-2 and the Stanley Cup.Rangers Win Stanley Cup
Rangers Brian Leetch gets the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP following game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals at Madison Square Garden June 14, 1994. The Rangers won the game 3-2 and the Stanley Cup.Rangers Win Stanley Cup /
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Rangers Brian Leetch gets the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP following game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals at Madison Square Garden June 14, 1994. The New York Rangers won the game 3-2 and the Stanley Cup.Rangers Win Stanley Cup
Rangers Brian Leetch gets the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP following game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals at Madison Square Garden June 14, 1994. The New York Rangers won the game 3-2 and the Stanley Cup.Rangers Win Stanley Cup /

Now that the Olympics are over, it’s time to give out our own Gold, Silver and Bronze medals.  In this case, we will be looking at New York Rangers draft picks and grading the picks in each round of the draft.

The draft has maxed out at seven rounds since 2005 though it had as many as 12 rounds in the mid 1980s.   We will award medals for rounds one through seven and give one set of medals for players picked in rounds 8-12 (there aren’t that many medal worthy picks).

One thing worth noting is the very large number of medalists who did their best work after they left the Rangers.  It’s kind of depressing to look at the list of players who went on to success in other uniforms.  Oh well, that’s what it means to be a Rangers fan.

Let’s dive right into it with the first round and a list of talented players.

First round picks

Gold: Brian Leetch (1986)

Silver: Brad Park (1966)

Bronze: Rick Middleton (1973)

Honorable mentions:  Steve  Vickers (1971), James Patrick (1981), Dave Gagner (1983), Alex Kovalev (1991),  Marc Staal (2005), Chris Kreider (2009)

Future medalists?:  Alexis Lafrenière (2020), Kaapo Kakko (2019), K’Andre Miller (2018), Nils Lundkvist (2018), Vitali Kravtsov (2018)

Two Hall of Famers take the gold and silver with Leetch finishing ahead of Brad Park.   There is a legitimate argument that bronze medalist Rick Middleton deserves HOF consideration.  It is kind of shocking that only two first round picks for the Rangers have achieved immortality.

The honorable mentions are a solid group of players, but none is close to the top three.  As for careers as Rangers, we all know about the Blueshirts giving Middleton away to the Bruins and the trade of Brad Park in his prime.

If Lafrenière or Kakko live up to their hype, they could sneak into medal contention, but that will take years.

Next, the second round and an impressive list of medal contenders.

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