Rangers Draft History and '09 First Round Options

The 2009 NHL Entry Draft is scheduled to be held June 26th and 27th, 2009 at the Bell Centre in Montreal, honoring the Canadiens' 100 years of NHL history.

The New York Rangers will be selecting 19th overall, as a result of the 2009 draft lottery. The Rangers 19th overall lottery selection is exactly as expected (having finished 19th from last place in the '08-09 season).

Let's look at the Rangers 1st Round Draft choices in the past 5 years, and notes on the players of choice...

'08 - (20th) Michael Del Zotto - Defenseman
*** 18 year old, turns 19 in two weeks as of this post. Despite his young age, has shown superb maturity with the puck. Just completed 3rd season of junior hockey in the OHL, tying his career high in points (63), establishing new career highs in regular season assists (50) and playoff points (19). From what we saw in the pre-season exhibition, this was a very intelligent defensive draft choice and will excel in the NHL.

'07 - (17th) Alexei Cherepanov - Right Wing
*** Aka the 'Siberian Express,' Cherepanov was linemates with former Ranger Jaromir Jagr, in his third season with Avangard in the Russian Superleague. In his rookie campaign, Cherepanov had more points than superstars Evgeni Malkin, Alexander Ovechkin and Ilya Kovalchuk did respectively, at only 17 years old. Cherepanov also surpassed the Russian league rookie goal scoring record previously held by Pavel Bure (17 goals). He died tragically of heart failure on October 13th, 2008 on the bench beside Jagr, bringing an abrupt halt to an already-legendary career.

'06 - (21st) Bob Sanguinetti - Defenseman
*** Sanguinetti has spent the past 4 years of his young career maturing in the minors. Comparing his game to that of Rangers hero, Brian Leetch, Sanguinetti has shown he can put up numbers in the AHL with 42 points in 78 regular-season games, and 5 points in 6 post-season contests in '08-09. The hockey sense is in Bob's mind, however he will need to prove his strength and stamina at an NHL level after having weighed in at last year's training camp at a modest 182 pounds in a 6'2" frame.

'05 - (12th) Marc Staal - Defenseman
*** The most recent of the Rangers' first-rounders to make a Marc (heh heh)in the NHL, with already 2 seasons under his belt. We have witnessed Marc mature before our eyes, with simple positional mistakes almost entirely eliminated from his game. Staal has the ability to keep his cool, take huge hits, lay out even huger hits, and battle for the puck in any situation. What we would like to see, however, is some confidence behind the offensive angle of the puck, otherwise he has been, perhaps, the best NHL Rangers draft contributor since Henrik Lundqvist.


'04 - (6th) Al Montoya - Goaltender
*** Until Henrik Lundqvists skillset were fully realized, Montoya was predicted to be the Rangers' next starter after Dan Blackburn fizzled. He had a solid start to his professional career in AHL before being shipped to Rangers' friends the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for a fellow first-rounder Fredrik Sjostrom, who has become a staple of the Rangers' checking core.

'04 - (12th) Lauri Korpikoski - Left Wing
*** The second of the most-recent Rangers' first round picks to make the garden ice, Lauri Korpikoski has shown a solid skillset underscored by great speed and stamina in the NHL and looks to build on his hard-fought rookie campaign.


Here are some of the big name players in the past 5 years that we have missed out on:

'08 - (none)
'07 - (none)
'06 - Patrik Berglund (25th)
'05 - (none)
'04 - Alexander Radulov (15th), Travis Zajac (20th),Wojtek Wolski (21st), Andrej Meszaros (23rd), Mike Green (29th)

And of course I would not be the kind of writer my readers expect if I did not remind my Rangers readers about '03..

'03 - (12th) Hugh Jessimen - Right Wing
Missed out on: Dustin Brown (13th), Brent Seabrook (14th), Steve Bernier (16th), Zach Parise (17th), Ryan Getzlaf (19th), Mike Richards (24th), Corey Perry (28th), Loui Eriksson (33rd), and others.


If there are three things that this recent draft history tells us, it is that:

1) The Rangers have been doing much better with their latest selections then they were closer to the start of the century, and

2) Offensive talent has proven to make the jump to the NHL much quicker, and become much more identifiable, then defensive talent.

Barring any off-season trade talk or analysis, and knowing that the clear and present lapse in the Rangers '08-09 formula for success was the presence of goal-scoring, we can attempt to address this issue with the first round choice of the '09 NHL Entry Draft.

Watching our heroes fail desperately at scoring goals (2.44 g/gm, 3rd worst in league) and get banged around by bigger teams all season, it pretty clear that this off-seasons drafting/acquisitions need to be built around scoring and size.



I have taken the top 30 ranked skating prospects in North America, and top 30 ranked skating prospects in Europe and narrowed them down to the forwards available in the draft (20 North American, 21 European).

From this list I have listed each player's draft ranking, league, position, height, weight, and '08-09 scoring. I have narrowed these down to the top 10 North American and top 10 European forwards in terms of points-per-game and pounds-per-inches, and then further narrowed these down to the top 5 of North America and Europe respectively topping both statistics.

Note: This spreadsheet is based on total '08-09 statistics. It is important to remember that a lot of the hockey played by up-and-comers in Europe is at a higher level then the Junior hockey played primarily in Canada, which is why a lot of the scoring statistics are inflated for the North Americans. Also, the Europeans and North Americans are both ranked 1-30 (defense/goaltending omitted), each on their own scales. So with a draft selection of 19th, the Rangers should be realistically looking at the 10-15 range on either side.

Please view the spreadsheet here (and remember to look at the different tabs):
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rL-BaZiqW69dWj9epchnE3Q&output=html

The top 10 statistically largest, best scorers across North America and Europe are found on the tab "Top 10 (5 NA + 5 Eur)." If the Rangers were to draft this season based upon addressing the weaknesses of '08-09, these are the top players they should target. Narrowing down the first round selection by scouting rank, that leaves the most realistic 3 players the Rangers able to chose from as:

Rank (Origin) - Name (POS)

7 (EU) - Carl Klingberg (LW)
13 (EU) - Richard Panik (RW)
14 (NA) - Chris Kreider (C)

Of course you can read the scouting reports and research these names yourself, but they are all on the top 30 for a reason. This article is meant to determine who are statistically the biggest goal scorers in the '09 NHL - completely by the numbers.


See the Draft outcome here: http://7and32sports.blogspot.com/2009/06/rangers-pick-kreider-and-bourque-trade.html