I mean I have said exactly that about the Yakupov pick. I think that's a separate question though. That's a matter of identifying the best talent and knowing you can snag him at some point lower. Edmonton of the Yakupov draft was also in a totally different boat than us at the last draft. They had a couple of legit blue chippers at forward and nothing on D. We have some nice pieces up front, maybe one or two on the back end. But we have zero, slam dunk elite prospects anywhere. We need to take our BPA because we simply need elite talent everywhere.
I'm kind of sticking to the BPA regardless of need stance because we are drafting for 3 or 4 years in the future. We could conceivably stack up on left wing or right d this summer because of need but maybe we sign Fox UFA in 18 months and get a legit top 2 RD in a Zucc or Hayes trade. We have a couple of players signed past 2 seasons. We have a blank slate in 4 years when a 2019 draftee will be contributing. How do you even answer what the Rangers' needs are right now?
I think the Rangers are doing a good job building up evenly in all areas. When you’re rebuilding, you should go D-heavy first, because they take longer to develop. They made it a point to acquire D in the Stepan, Holden (yeah, just O’Gara), Grabner, Nash, and McDonagh trades. Plus signing Pionk. Meanwhile, they’re picking forwards higher in the draft and last year, after Kravtsov, 5 of their next 6 choices were D.
Out of DeAngelo, Pionk, Rykov, Lindgren, Hajek, Crawley, Sjalin, Miller, Lundkvist, Ragnarsson, Keane, and Gross... I feel like chances are pretty good we will develop a good D corps.
This year, they should take some D, but the focus should be on forwards.
that’s pretty funny. Subconscious choices.
