New York Rangers staring at desired future version of themselves in Pittsburgh

Whatever happens in in this First Round series, the New York Rangers can take something valuable away from their match-up against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

While a First Round exit will be disappointing, there is no denying that the Blueshirts have made significant strides forward as they take another step towards morphing into a legitimate contender.

And, having seen up close and personal what postseason experience looks like, the Rangers can certainly learn a thing or two from their opponent as they continue to draw up their cup contending blueprint.

While some Ranger fans may cringe at the very thought of trying to aspire to be like the Penguins, there are a plethora of things to like about how that franchise has gone about being a consistent legitimate contender in the National Hockey League.

There’s also plenty of similarities between what Pittsburgh has achieved and what the Rangers have started to try and do since tearing it all down and committing to a full-blown rebuild.

For starters, the Penguins have built their identity and subsequent success around three franchise cornerstones in Sidney Crosby, Evegni Malkin and Kris Letang, and you can throw goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury in there as well given that he was a big part in their three Stanley Cups.

Now look at the Rangers and they are trying to build a similar core with Igor Shesterkin, Adam Fox, Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin the pillars, while the organization hopes that both Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko can reach their high ceiling and morph into elite franchise players.

When you throw K’Andre Miller, Nils Lundkvist, Braden Schneider, Filip Chytil, and Brennan Othmann into the mix, then it is abundantly clear that the future is very bright for this franchise and they have the pieces to be able to construct a sustained championship-caliber roster.

That’s exactly what the Penguins have done, using the trade market and free agency to add different pieces to their existing core, which is a big reason why they’ve qualified for the playoffs for 16 consecutive seasons – the longest active playoff streak in major professional sports in North America.

Of course, the Rangers are still in the early stages of the process so the core they are putting in place should have a lengthy window in which to win the franchise’s first Stanley cup since 1994 – and more perhaps – while they have the draft capital and the prospects to make a swing-for-the-fences type move that can put a team over the top.

Granted, cap constraints will perhaps shorten the window a little bit but, again, due to the young core and the overall strength of the farm system, the next rebuild should be nothing more than a minor retool rather than a full-blow makeover again.

Another thing the Penguins have mastered is patience and stability. While they’ve had a change in the front office with Ron Hextall and Brian Burke coming in to replace Jim Rutherford, that was more of a forced change rather than a desired one.

And they’ve had stability behind the bench for a while now with Head Coach Mike Sullivan likely to be operating on a long leash having led his team to back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017.

That kind of stability can only be good and it is another big reason why the Penguins keep making the postseason, and the Rangers will hope that they can replicate something similar in order to bring consistent success back to The Garden.

You do have to consider that Gerard Gallant never lasts more than a few years wherever he’s been but, regardless, there is now a structure in place in New York that should eventually translate to a winning formula, as has been the case in Pittsburgh.

It also needs to be said that winning consistently in the NHL is incredibly hard to do in the salary-cap era, which makes what the Penguins have achieved and, on a smaller scale, the Tampa Bay Lightning, that much more remarkable.

However, when facing across from the team on the cusp of eliminating them from the postseason, the Rangers can look back and say in confidence that they are on the right track.

They have put the right building blocks in place, they have their goaltender of the future, they have studs on the back end and they have forward players who can contribute now and also way down the road.

There is still a long way to go for the Rangers, and this series is hammering that fact home, but they can look at their opponents in the Penguins and how they’ve constructed a consistent Stanley Cup contending team and know they are on the right path.