Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Rangers Deserve Credit for Recent Drafting Prowess

Rory Boylen at The Hockey News takes a look at how the Rangers drafting has improved tremendously post lockout...

"The Rangers have a total of 10 homegrown players on their NHL roster with 2004 picks Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan leading the team in scoring, while stars Chris Drury, Vaclav Prospal and Marian Gaborik recover from injuries. While the team’s management takes a lot of heat for how they handle (or mishandle) the salary cap, GM Glen Sather’s squad deserves credit for how it has patiently brought along its youth and allowed them to rise to prominent roles, a theme that will become more apparent as the post-lockout group of prospects develop."

Gordie Clark, Rangers' Director of Player Personnel, describes the change...

“When I sat down with Glen (Sather) and Don Maloney at that time they clearly made it evident that with the way everything was going with the cap and the future, everybody is going to be somewhat equal now,” said Rangers director, player personnel Gordie Clark, who runs draft day for the team. “(Sather) made a real decision to say the way you can try and outdo the opposition is hopefully draft properly and then raise them.”

...glad it only took Sather five years to figure that out. In all seriousness for all the bad free agent signings you have to give Sather (ok mostly Clark) lots of credit for stockpiling the Rangers organization with top prospects.

...although as Clark points out the reason the Rangers might be drafting better is because the team is struggling and they are getting higher picks which equals better players. So I guess Sather still stinks.

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7 comments:

Mattias DM said...

I disagree on this.

Following that logic the islanders would have a kickass team by now...

AnnoyingJoe said...

Sather Schmather. Dolan stinks for letting Maloney go.

Mattias - I think the isles are a special case of mismanagement top to bottom, and their ineptitude shouldnt't be an argument against building thru the draft.

Beuke23 said...

Drafting prowess? Granted the Rangers aren't the train wreck Atlanta is, but it's not like they're the Red Wings either. The Rangers are great at getting second and third line players, but besides Lundqvist, when was the last time this team got a real difference maker in the draft?

I'll take what they're doing over throwing money at well-done veterans, but as the Wolf said in Pulp Fiction, let's not start sucking each others d!cks just yet.

Chris said...

you know who would be a great GM for the rangers....

... John Davidson.

Unknown said...

Who are all of these wonderful prospects? Do you mean all the guys that are buried in Hartford and can't get a sniff of the NHL while the team signs White, Fedotenko and Emminger? You want a top prospect? How about a guy that makes the team the year that he's drafted like Skinner of the Hurricanes. I realize he was a top 5 pick, but when have the Rangers even had a rookie that contributes with meaningful production?

LI Joe said...

rj - -white and eminger were trades to get rid of bad contracts (brashear and voros)

jury still out on drafts starting in 2008. before that pretty pathetic if you ask me especially at forward. and that includes latter part of smith era as well as most of sather error


http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/teams/dr00007089.html

Rick said...

It's been a long time since this team had any relevancy to it. Even with decent draft picks we were always coming up short and relying of the FA list to build a team.