Speculation: Roster Building Thread : Part XV (Light em up!)

[The Crypto Guy]

Are NYR really in a position to potentially draft Hagens? I thought he was supposed to go 1st OA.

Were are like the 8th worst team right now and likely going to he even lower after the next 8 games.

 

[GAGLine]

Are NYR really in a position to potentially draft Hagens? I thought he was supposed to go 1st OA.

Were are like the 8th worst team right now and likely going to he even lower after the next 8 games.

10th, but that can change pretty quickly.

Teams can't move up more than 10 spots, so we need to finish at least 11th worst, though Hagens may not be the 1st overall pick. A couple other players are in the mix.

Tankathon | 2025 NHL Draft Order & Lottery Simulator

2025 NHL Draft order tracker updated after every game. NHL lottery simulator to determine the top overall pick. View traded picks and playoff matchups.

www.tankathon.com

Tankathon has the odds to move up for each pick.

 

[Clark Kellogg]

The rangers were looking for a top 4 thx for half a decade before they landed trouba. He was young and fit a timeline even in a rebuild. Look at other teams that strip it down and backfill all with kids. They often go into a spiral. At the time trouba was acquired fox wasn't a thing. People forget the perspective.

And panarin literally fell in their lap the way gaudreau did for Columbus. That's the signing that stopped the rebuild, that was the moment, but the business of msg was not going to walk away from Panarin wanting to come here.

For those that are around the sport at this level they know that business ops and hockey ops are almost always in conflict with each other no matter the team. In this case business ops was able to say that hockey ops had its rebuild time and that good business was not to "look a gift horse in the mouth."

Gift horse? More like a Trojan horse.
Dolan had to sign off on the February 18, 2018 letter.
So what changed between the letter the Panarin signing and the Trouba trade.
I’ll point to one thing; JD was brought on
May 18th 2019 as President.
(then)
June 17th, 2019 Jacob Trouba is traded to the NY Rangers for Neal Pionk and the 20th overall 2019 pick.
(then)
July 1st, 2019 Artemi Panerin signs with the NY Rangers.
What rebuilding team trades away a first round pick and a young defenseman?
Some more JD fingerprints:
Play in TDL:
Kept Kreider (UFA)
Kept Georgiev
Kept TDA
Kept Fast (UFA)
Even after the club knew the night before that Igor Shesterkin and Pavel Buchnevich were injured in an automobile crash.
More JD overriding:
Signed Jack Johnson and when the media asked Gorton at the press conference about the signing, Gorton turned and said “You want to take that one JD?”
Was it JD who scuttled the rebuild? Was it JD who approached James Dolan for the job telling Dolan he needn’t have to suffer through a rebuild?
Guess we’ll never know, unless someone drops a book one day.

 

[TGWL]

10th, but that can change pretty quickly.

Teams can't move up more than 10 spots, so we need to finish at least 11th worst, though Hagens may not be the 1st overall pick. A couple other players are in the mix.

Tankathon | 2025 NHL Draft Order & Lottery Simulator

2025 NHL Draft order tracker updated after every game. NHL lottery simulator to determine the top overall pick. View traded picks and playoff matchups.

www.tankathon.com

Tankathon has the odds to move up for each pick.

Yeah, this would our luck to win a draft and then go the next 5 years determining if we made the wrong choice compared to others in the draft. Hagens dropped a little on some list and you're now seeing guys like Porter, Misa, and Schaefer (youngest of them all?) compete for that 1.

 

[MrAlmost]

The bold that is my entire problem with anything that has to do with this team. There are certain players that people want to make life easier for when in reality a winning organization needs those players to step up and lead the group. The rangers do not have those kind of leaders.


How often do top 10 picks get traded in the draft anymore?

Also Schafer is in contention to go 1oa. You aren't getting Schafer and Hagens haha

Naw. You right. But it can't hurt to pretend.

 

[bleedblue94]

All my numbers are 5v5. I had to use the line tool tab on NST to get the date range.

Also yeah Fox isn't in the conversation this year, the team and partner he's with are dogshit. If the team was playing the way they looked before Lindgren came back, he's probably higher up. But when the team as a whole is playing terribly, obviously Fox's production will be lower. (4th and 5th place Norris finishes are also, y'know, really good)

Thank you. It's confusing how different the data is person to person claiming they have the same parameters.

Again, people talk about fox like he's elite and I never saw that. He's very very good, but elite players lift the rest of the group and rarely see the ship dragged underwater. Others don't need to agree with me but I don't see it with fox the way I've seen it with other elite players.

 

[bleedblue94]

The real disconnect is that a lot of people on here really just don’t believe how bad the NYR weak links are so they just think the Lindgrens and Boninos are getting unfairly scapegoated. I wish NYR could build their team so that the strong links would be the difference but they’re perpetually doing the AHLer in the top 4 challenge

Boninos?

Holy reconceptualization of a discussion.

 

[bleedblue94]

Gift horse? More like a Trojan horse.
Dolan had to sign off on the February 18, 2018 letter.
So what changed between the letter the Panarin signing and the Trouba trade.
I’ll point to one thing; JD was brought on
May 18th 2019 as President.
(then)
June 17th, 2019 Jacob Trouba is traded to the NY Rangers for Neal Pionk and the 20th overall 2019 pick.
(then)
July 1st, 2019 Artemi Panerin signs with the NY Rangers.
What rebuilding team trades away a first round pick and a young defenseman?
Some more JD fingerprints:
Play in TDL:
Kept Kreider (UFA)
Kept Georgiev
Kept TDA
Kept Fast (UFA)
Even after the club knew the night before that Igor Shesterkin and Pavel Buchnevich were injured in an automobile crash.
More JD overriding:
Signed Jack Johnson and when the media asked Gorton at the press conference about the signing, Gorton turned and said “You want to take that one JD?”
Was it JD who scuttled the rebuild? Was it JD who approached James Dolan for the job telling Dolan he needn’t have to suffer through a rebuild?
Guess we’ll never know, unless someone drops a book one day.

It was more than a year from the letter to what you're trying to tie together. It wasn't 2 weeks later. Nyr is a money machine and the team sucked. Business ops wanted a change.

The claims you are making about JD do not align in any sort of fact at all with JD 's history in patience and developing young players. He literally was the person to always preach patience. He was a hockey ops guy. Business ops said enough of that shit get us some playoff revenue...

They sign Jack Johnson so that's your big tie? Jack Johnson signed in October of 2020, 1.5 years after Panarin. What the hell does Jack Johnson have to do anything other than JD had a history with him from Columbus and he wasn't a great fit in nyr. Strangely he is another bad nyr d man to go on and win a Stanley cup elsewhere.

 

[AirGut]

Gift horse? More like a Trojan horse.
Dolan had to sign off on the February 18, 2018 letter.
So what changed between the letter the Panarin signing and the Trouba trade.
I’ll point to one thing; JD was brought on
May 18th 2019 as President.
(then)
June 17th, 2019 Jacob Trouba is traded to the NY Rangers for Neal Pionk and the 20th overall 2019 pick.
(then)
July 1st, 2019 Artemi Panerin signs with the NY Rangers.
What rebuilding team trades away a first round pick and a young defenseman?
Some more JD fingerprints:
Play in TDL:
Kept Kreider (UFA)
Kept Georgiev
Kept TDA
Kept Fast (UFA)
Even after the club knew the night before that Igor Shesterkin and Pavel Buchnevich were injured in an automobile crash.
More JD overriding:
Signed Jack Johnson and when the media asked Gorton at the press conference about the signing, Gorton turned and said “You want to take that one JD?”
Was it JD who scuttled the rebuild? Was it JD who approached James Dolan for the job telling Dolan he needn’t have to suffer through a rebuild?
Guess we’ll never know, unless someone drops a book one day.

The whole idea was to enter a territory of competitiveness while continuing to gain stock in the draft so that the veterans of the team could carry the youth to make surprise runs while adding to the main squad, then you can make a personnel change when the time is right and the youth can take full reigns seamlessly, sort of like what Dallas has managed to do in recent years. The problem was always that management had conflicting opinions on how to go about all of this so everything was thrown off course. The team did way better than anyone could've ever expected back before COVID too. Then, creating that mix of vets and youth almost got us to a Cup Finals, twice. People can complain all they want about how the Rangers went about their plan from the 2018 letter but it actually almost really worked. That was harder to pull off than most realize because most teams settle for being in the doghouse for 5+ years but this team didn't.



I actually prefer the Rangers Glen Sather style approach of using the influence and money power this team has to take big swings when you see fit. This franchise still has business tier class, the Rangers will spend and won't stop spending when they want and I respect that. It ends up pissing off a lot of people around the league but it stems from jealousy, that's what makes it all worth it as a fan in my opinion. I trust Drury despite what many on here think. He deserves a chance to actually form the team he's wanted but couldn't due to what Jeff Gorton & JD wanted to do.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Are NYR really in a position to potentially draft Hagens? I thought he was supposed to go 1st OA.

have you watched the team lately? If they dont make a coaching change and/or a massive shakeup trade, they will continue to be the worst team in the NHL AENIC. They're not going to find their way out of this on their own.

 

[McRanger92]

I feel like as a fanbase we spend too much time trying to figure out who to blame for the position we are in, instead of figuring out what the best path forward is.

 

[FoxyClean]

I feel like as a fanbase we spend too much time trying to figure out who to blame for the position we are in, instead of figuring out what the best path forward is.

I think we as a fanbase have no power over what the path forward will be so we instead turn our attention to hating on those in power who clearly have gotten us to this point and aren’t trying hard enough to fix things.

 

[McRanger92]

Ruhwedel to Hartford. Guessing K'Andre is healthy. They have to play him with Fox when he comes back or what's even the point. Im not a Miller fan but I think you'll see a different side of him if players continue taking liberties with Fox. He is the perfect partner, in theory for Fox. Size, reach, skating ability. Minimize the mistakes by getting the puck to Fox and getting out of the way.

It's also time for a merit based lineup starting Saturday.

Panarin-Trocheck-Berard
Lafreniere-Chytil-Cuylle
Kreider-Carrick-Edstrom
Vesey-Mika-Brodzinski

Miller-Fox
Vaakanainen-Schneider
Jones-Borgen

 

[80shockeywasbuns]

Boninos?

Holy reconceptualization of a discussion.

Not that crazy to want a lineup of NHLers before coming after the teams best and most consistent players

 

[UAGoalieGuy]

1.5 hours until Kreider dealt? Lol

Edit: losing track of the days. 1 day and 1.5 hours

 

[GAGLine]

1.5 hours until Kreider dealt? Lol

Edit: losing track of the days. 1 day and 1.5 hours

25.5 hours.

 

[Clark Kellogg]

It was more than a year from the letter to what you're trying to tie together. It wasn't 2 weeks later. Nyr is a money machine and the team sucked. Business ops wanted a change.

The claims you are making about JD do not align in any sort of fact at all with JD 's history in patience and developing young players. He literally was the person to always preach patience. He was a hockey ops guy. Business ops said enough of that shit get us some playoff revenue...

They sign Jack Johnson so that's your big tie? Jack Johnson signed in October of 2020, 1.5 years after Panarin. What the hell does Jack Johnson have to do anything other than JD had a history with him from Columbus and he wasn't a great fit in nyr. Strangely he is another bad nyr d man to go on and win a Stanley cup elsewhere.

please go back and read my post. The timeline I posted clearly states Letter,
then a year later the JD hiring and then the Panarin signing, Trouba trade, no move at the play-in TDL.
The reason Jack Johnson is mentioned is to show that Gorton didn’t want him and JD did. JD President, Gorton GM.
President trumps GM.

 

[LokiDog]

I don’t think you have to disagree with the fact that Fox is a great defenseman to simultaneously assert that he has limitations that other D who are very similar, in terms of quantifiable metrics, don’t have. I also think anyone who takes the stance that there’s no such thing as intangibles - or things analytics can’t account for - in hockey, is out to lunch. Therefore, I don’t feel the need to justify my feelings on Fox.

He’s a great defenseman but his skating in particular is a limitation which, to me, is significant in the game of hockey. If I am building a team, I want a thoroughbred as my #1D, and even if that thoroughbred is only in the top 10 range instead of the top 3, I would likely choose them 10/10 times over a top 3 D with weak skating. To me, your top D and best puck mover needs to be a dynamic skater.

For me, the intangible effect of having an effortless, superlative skater as your top D is one of the most significant in the game. That’s just me. Fox will always be lacking there and while his game doesn’t rely on athleticism to be effective, there is still a point at which skating becomes an issue for any player. The better of a skater you are, the more steps you can afford to lose to age and injury. Fox maintaining his skating at its current level for as long as possible is essential. He has far less runway than many, and certainly less than the vast majority of top D in this league.

Is Mitch Marner a great, super talented forward? Is Stutzle? Hughes? Bratt? Reinhart? Keller? Hintz? Robertson? Nylander?

Do you like them all equally? Do you have preferences? I prefer Stutzle and Hintz, who I l’d wager are probably the two fastest, but also have two of the nastiest wrist shots and both who play with a bit more physicality than all of the others. Stutz in particular is not just fast but an electric skater, while Hintz is the most physical and also the most explosive and powerful skater. We all have ideas on the ideal types of players to win with. There’s some people who, while acknowledging Fox is a great defender, feel that the skating leaves something to be desired and have concerns about how Fox is going age. Maintaining peak physical shape does not seem to be a Mackinnon-esque priority for him.

 

[bleedblue94]

please go back and read my post. The timeline I posted clearly states Letter,
then a year later the JD hiring and then the Panarin signing, Trouba trade, no move at the play-in TDL.
The reason Jack Johnson is mentioned is to show that Gorton didn’t want him and JD did. JD President, Gorton GM.
President trumps GM.

Yes he did, but it's 1.5 year after the point you are trying to make. If it happened at the point of the change in philosophy then it would make sense but 1.5 years later is irrelevant. Business ops won out when the org pivoted. It wasnt JD.

Not that crazy to want a lineup of NHLers before coming after the teams best and most consistent players

You do you however you want to make your point. I'm not going to debate with someone that goes this far out of the lane in a conversation. Nick bonino is making fox a worse player now haha, oooook

 

[mandiblesofdoom]

To expound on this point, this is the big issue with the Rangers as a franchise since the Cablevision took over in the mid 90s. The only way to get elite talent is to either tank or get lucky and draft a player like Kucherov. Unlike in NBA, elite players in their prime are never available. B+ talents like Nash, Gaborik, and Panarin, but as we have seen constantly, those players aren’t good enough to carry a team to a Cup. They need a Leon Rose, someone to overhaul the organization top to bottom, too many cronies within departments like player development are hindering the franchise. Until they realize, you need think forward, not behind, nothing will change.

It's true ... but it's probably not totally luck that some franchises get Kucherov's in the draft. A key part has to be get the best scouting & drafting possible.

The point about cronies is key.

 

[Oscar Lindberg]

I’m still laughing out loud at the idea of Drury sulking in his office because he wasn’t able to hand out an enormous deal to Guentzel

Frankly, Drury should be thanking Trouba cause he probably saved Chris from himself. Handing out another big ass deal to a LW in his 30s while the rest of the fundamental issues on the team still existed

 

[Shesterkybomb]

Anyone think there’s a chance laviolette gets fired out of the break? The last game was rock bottom imo for that locker room. There either has got to be a trade or that coming

I kinda do, reason being is the timing of the red wings coaching change, was almost like they didn't wanna wait because they were worried someone else might wanna make a coaching change and maybe take their guy

I’m still laughing out loud at the idea of Drury sulking in his office because he wasn’t able to hand out an enormous deal to Guentzel

Frankly, Drury should be thanking Trouba cause he probably saved Chris from himself. Handing out another big ass deal to a LW in his 30s while the rest of the fundamental issues on the team still existed

Probably would have came with his patented nmc for the whole contract

 

[B17 Apricots]

Gift horse? More like a Trojan horse.
Dolan had to sign off on the February 18, 2018 letter.
So what changed between the letter the Panarin signing and the Trouba trade.
I’ll point to one thing; JD was brought on
May 18th 2019 as President.
(then)
June 17th, 2019 Jacob Trouba is traded to the NY Rangers for Neal Pionk and the 20th overall 2019 pick.
(then)
July 1st, 2019 Artemi Panerin signs with the NY Rangers.
What rebuilding team trades away a first round pick and a young defenseman?
Some more JD fingerprints:
Play in TDL:
Kept Kreider (UFA)
Kept Georgiev
Kept TDA
Kept Fast (UFA)
Even after the club knew the night before that Igor Shesterkin and Pavel Buchnevich were injured in an automobile crash.
More JD overriding:
Signed Jack Johnson and when the media asked Gorton at the press conference about the signing, Gorton turned and said “You want to take that one JD?”
Was it JD who scuttled the rebuild? Was it JD who approached James Dolan for the job telling Dolan he needn’t have to suffer through a rebuild?
Guess we’ll never know, unless someone drops a book one day.

Now that JD has been back in Columbus for a few years it's pretty obvious he has a large input. Look at what Columbus did when he was brought in. Whether someone wants to argue pro or con, that's one thing. But it's pretty clear now the sort of direction he has. He went to the BJs and followed a similar blueprint.

When they brought him back they were coming off a shortened season where they finished 4th to last in the league. They had made the playoffs 4 consecutive years up until then. The following season after JD was brought in they didn't make a ton of moves in terms of free agents or trades. There really wasn't much cap space. They had just acquired Laine for PLD and gave him big money. They swapped Atkinson for Voracek. He carried a big price tag. They signed Elvis Merzlikins to that 5 year +5M per deal after only ever playing 33 games at the most in a season... thats the guy who requested a trade not too long ago, and their GM flat out said no one is trading for that contract . So they had some money on the books.

Then they miss the playoffs again that year (21-22). The following off-season they have some cap space, that's where they really spend. And thats an apparent theme for JD. He isnt shy about spending. They sign Johnny Hockey (RIP) for a boatload of money at almost 30 years old. Very similar to the Panarin signing. Except this time, Johnny really wasn't performing up to the contract. They made that silly signing of Gudbranson, paying him 4 million a year. This isn't hindsight either, many people were skeptical about all these moves at the time they were made. So they miss the playoffs yet again (22-23). At this point you kinda figure they're rebuilding. But, the following summer they go out and trade away a 1st and a 2nd round pick for Provorov.... not all that dissimilar from the Tuba acquisition. (That pick turned out to be 1 spot ahead of our boy Gabe Perreault). Again, JD & Co go out and sign another ~30 year old, Severson to that 8 year +6M per contract.

If someone wants to argue the merit, for or against some of the moves, sure. I think there have been some good and some bad. But it's obvious when looking at both organizations' timelines that JD has had his fingerprints all over them.

 

[RangerBoy]

I feel like as a fanbase we spend too much time trying to figure out who to blame for the position we are in, instead of figuring out what the best path forward is.

The best path forward is to overhaul the organization and eliminate the egos in the room. The players’ role is to focus on playing hockey, not to question management’s decisions. This isn’t a power-sharing arrangement or a diplomatic negotiation—it’s about running a team effectively.

 

[SA16]

To expound on this point, this is the big issue with the Rangers as a franchise since the Cablevision took over in the mid 90s. The only way to get elite talent is to either tank or get lucky and draft a player like Kucherov. Unlike in NBA, elite players in their prime are never available. B+ talents like Nash, Gaborik, and Panarin, but as we have seen constantly, those players aren’t good enough to carry a team to a Cup. They need a Leon Rose, someone to overhaul the organization top to bottom, too many cronies within departments like player development are hindering the franchise. Until they realize, you need think forward, not behind, nothing will change.

Just clarifying here that Panarin, who has two top 5 Hart finishes in the last 5 years is a B+ talent?