What? Rangers’ prospect rankings drop
For the last few years, New York Rangers fans have had the pleasure of reading about their prospect pool, deemed to be one of the best in the NHL. Last season, the Blueshirts were consistently ranked first or second when it came to rankings and their young players were considered to be among the top in the world.
The Hockey News just came out with their “Prospects Unlimited” rankings of the best prospects 21 years old and under and it’s clear that their hockey cognoscenti are less impressed by the Rangers’ young players than in the past. There are certainly reasons to argue that the rankings are wrong.
Here’s where the pride of the Blueshirts rank.
- #26 – Alexis Lafrenière
- #54 – K’Andre Miller
- #62 – Kaapo Kakko
- #72 – Zac Jones
- #88 – Braden Schneider
- #96 – Nils Lundkvist
Vitali Kravtsov doesn’t make the list because he was born in December 1999 and the cutoff is a birthdate in 2000. While the publication ranks 2021 top pick Brennan Othmann as a “blue chip” prospect, he didn’t make the top 100.
While it could be seen as encouraging that there are six current or future Rangers in the top 100, the fact that 2020 top overall pick Lafrenière has slipped to 26th and 2019 second overall pick Kakko has dropped all the way to 62nd is somewhat disturbing.
When it comes to Lafrenière, the Hockey News ranked seven players picked after him in that draft ahead of the young Ranger. Jamie Drysdale, Quinton Byfield, Jake Sanderson, Tim Stützle, Anton Lundell, Lucas Raymond and Jaroslav Askarov are all considered to have a better upside.
As far as Kakko, his position at 62nd overall just doesn’t seem fair. Players drafted after him that ranked higher include Trevor Zegras, Cole Caufield, Spencer Knight, Moritz Seider, Bowen Byram, Kirby Dach, Alex Turcotte, Matt Boldy, Shane Pinto, Alex Newhook, Philip Broberg, Arthur Kaliyev, Nils Hoglander, Connor McMichael, Cam York and Vasily Podkolzin. Top overall pick Jack Hughes also dropped in the rankings, but came in at 32nd overall. That’s 17 players from the 2019 draft ranked higher than the young Finn.
In taking a deeper look, there are reasons to question the rankings.
But are they right?
Ranking prospects is an imprecise science and there are a lot of factors at play. It’s worth noting that three of the top 10 prospects are eligible for the 2022 draft including center Shane Wright at number one, center Connor Bedard at second overall and Russian winger Marvei Michkov at sixth overall. It seems like yesterday that we were talking about Lafrenière, Kakko and Hughes the same way.
The fact that the two top Rangers prospects are wingers must have been held against them. Hockey experts will always put more emphasis on centers, defensemen and goalies. Of the seven players ranked ahead of Lafrenière, only Stützle and Raymond are wingers. Only six of the 17 2019 draftees ranked ahead of Kakko are also wingers.
It’s worth noting that of all of the 2020 picks ranked ahead of Lafrenière, only Tim Stützle has played over 40 games in the NHL while the Ranger has 71 games as a pro. Lafrenière has scored 16 goals and 26 points with only Stützle with comparable numbers.
Although the Hockey News currently ranks Quinton Byfield as the fifth best prospect, he has still played only six NHL games and has yet to score his first NHL goal. Tim Stützle was picked third overall in 2020 and the publication had him as the 12th best prospect, much higher than the Rangers’ winger.
While these rankings are based on potential, ranking Lafrenière 26th just doesn’t make sense especially when you look at what his peers have accomplished on the big stage.
Dropping Kakko to 62nd overall is even more egregious. He has scored 20 goals, the same number as Jack Hughes and his 42 points trail only his Devils rival. The pair are the only 2019 draftees to have played over 100 NHL games and Kakko has shown steady improvement in his overall game since he was a rookie.
What’s really unfair is to judge the play of the two Rangers as teenagers in the NHL against the play of their peers in Canadian junior hockey, European pro leagues or the AHL. While neither Lafrenière nor Kakko have been dominant since they joined the team, they’ve had tough learning experiences in the best hockey league in the world.
Not only that, but the two young Rangers had to play in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, undergoing challenges in the NHL that none of their peers had to endure.
The question has to be where the two would be in the rankings if they had been allowed to have another year of development in the minor leagues, Europe or junior hockey. Instead,they were rushed to the NHL with mixed results.
The Rangers’ fan base would have never stood by that kind of development track. The simple fact is that Trevor Zegras, taken seven picks after Kaapo Kakko in 2019, is currently ranked the third best prospect 21 and under according to the Hockey News. Yet, he has played only 38 games in the NHL, compared to Kakko’s 125 and he has seven goals and 21 points compared to 20 goals and 42 points for the Ranger. Zegras also has had the benefit of playing at two Junior World Championships and 17 games in the AHL while Kakko was struggling to make it in the NHL.
No Rangers fans should lose sleep over these rankings. Until a prospect has competed on the big stage, it’s an apples to oranges comparison. Sure, the two young Rangers haven’t set the league on fire like a Connor McDavid or an Auston Matthews, but they are playing regular minutes and have contributed to the Rangers’ 9-3-3 record, one of the best in the NHL. Just look at the win over the Devils, a game when the duo showed what they are capable of.
Now, it’s up to Alexis Lafrenière and Kaapo Kakko to prove that the experts at the Hockey News were wrong. Their work in the Devils game was a great start.
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