5 great story lines involving ex-Rangers

The Lias Andersson saga continues

Just when you thought it was safe, it’s time to talk about Lias Andersson again.  Rangers fans were uniformly shocked when the Los Angeles Kings chose to protect him in the Kraken expansion draft, but if you were following his season, it made some sense.

Andersson spent most of the season on the taxi squad for the Kings, getting into 23 games and scoring three goals and six points.  However, he did play a bit in the AHL and he was a point-a-game player for the Ontario Reign with six goals and 17 points in 15 games.  Prior to that he played 19 games in Sweden, scoring five goals and 11 points.  That’s a total of 14 goals and 34 points in 57 games in three leagues.

The Kings were very happy with the line of Andersson, Gabe Vilardi and Alex Iafallo in a small sample size at the end of the season and it appears that Andersson may have a future on the wing.

If Andersson lives up to at least some of the promise that made him the seventh overall pick in the 2017 draft, the Rangers had better hope that winger Will Cuylle, makes it to the NHL as a productive player. Cuylle is the player they drafted with the 60th overall second round 2020 pick they got in exchange for Andersson.

And if Andersson turns out to be a solid NHL player, it has to raise questions about whether the Rangers screwed up the development of a top pick by rushing him to the NHL and damaging him by raising expectations too soon.

Playing on the west coast, Kings games tend to be under the radar, but watching how Lias Andersson does will make keeping track of Los Angeles a little more interesting. And let’s not forget that Brendan Lemieux is a King and after scoring two goals in 18 games for them last season, he may end up on the same fourth line as Andersson.

Speaking of players Ranger fans love to hate, there’s another one worth keeping an eye on.