Pick-up for first general pick to Edmonton in 2010. First-general pick to Edmonton in 2011. First-general pick to Edmonton in 2012. Seventh-general pick to Edmonton in 2013. Third general pick to Edmonton in 2014. First general pick – who was Connor McDavid, by the way – to Edmonton in 2015. Fourth general choice to Edmonton in 2016.
And do you know how many playoff rounds Edmonton has won in the past 11 years? That would be one, and that is with the player who has the most complete offensive skill in NHL history.
See, Monday was a glorious day in Rangerstown. There’s no reason to rain on the Blueshirts’ parade following the stunning lottery victory in which the 12.5 percent chance that the team had to land the first overall pick in the entrance leg, was turned into a 100 percent shot at adding projected franchise winger Alexis Lafreniere to a top-of-the-line start-up stall with the first-overall pick in the October draft.
Let’s face it. This was a stunner. The Rangers somehow won 16th overall in 2005 when they entered the lottery as one of the four teams with the best chances to grab the No. 1 spot and the right to select Sidney Crosby. The league introduced a retroactive cap-recapture component in the collective bargaining agreement after the 2012-13 lockout intended to punish the Blueshirts for signing Brad Richards’ front-agent.
So yes, well, to the people who believe that the victory of the Rangers in this lottery was somehow rigged.
The Rangers will be able to add some talented talent in Lafreniere, who should be an important piece of a Stanley Cup fan at the time. But please, do not push yourself forward. The Blueshirts figure next year not to be in that position and an attempt to shorten the redevelopment process which is just two years old due to the outcome of the lottery draw would be a terrible mistake.
And I have the confidence that President John Davidson, who oversees rebuilding in St. Louis and Columbus, and general manager Jeff Gorton understand that there are no short cuts to becoming a perennial candidate. That is actually the goal. If the Rangers just wanted a playoff team, there would have been no Letter in February of 2018.
There’s no doubt that adding a talent like Lafreniere’s speeds up the process just like adding Adam Fox, Kaapo Kakko, Ryan Lindgren and Igor Sheshterkin to the mix this past season. But it is still very difficult to become a perennial candidate.
There is still definitive analysis to be done about the Rangers’ terrible performance in their sweep of the qualifying game of three games by Carolina. Gorton indicated that he and the decision makers place a significant amount of weight on the team’s performance under the bubble as opposed to the work that was done in the regular season 37-28-5 that ended five months ago.
“We’re still trying to get through this, but I think it’s pretty significant,” the GM said. ‘Even though it was three games, the way we lost, I think we have to think about a lot of things we could have done differently, because we’re moving forward to a harder team to play against. We’re looking forward to it.
“I do not want to reject the 70 games and how far we came as a team and where we were before the break. We were in a good place, we won a lot of games, a lot of young guys did a lot of good things, [Artemi] Panarin had a special year, Mika [Zibanejad] had a special year, [Igor] Shesterkin how come, [Adam] Fox, there were so many good things happening. I do not want to dismiss that at all and I am excited about it all.
‘But at the same time we want to joke ourselves not to ask why we were so easily pulled out? That we are going to do that now for sure. ”
The Rangers moved into 2020-21 essentially the moment the team received its eviction message to leave the bubble. But, even with this lottery win and the glorious, good, prospect of adding the, well, universally recognized top prospect to the mix, this offseason may not be over 2020-21.
It should be around 2021-22 and 2022-23 and 2023-24. There are no shortcuts to continued success – the Penguins with Marc-Andre Fleury no. 1 in 2003, Evgeni Malkin no. 2 in 2004 and Sidney Crosby first overall in 2005 did not make the playoffs until 2007 – and it would be a terrible mistake for the hierarchy to act differently.
The Rangers have Shesterkin. They have Kakko. They have Fox. They have Panarin and Zibanejad and Chris Kreider. They have joined K’Andre Miller and Nils Lundkvist. They have a second first-round pick coming out of the Canes this year. They have Jacob Trouba and Ryan Lindgren. They have Filip Chytil. They have Tony DeAngelo. They have talent.
And they have the first choice in the concept of 2020.
Here is to the future, and a very, very bright future indeed. But it’s one that New York’s management should not make mistakes for next year. For good things – indeed, great things – come those who wait.
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