KingDeathMetal
Registered User
The Rangers sacrificed some great talent throughout the 90s, chief among them Amonte, Savard, and Kovalev (at least we have a Cup to show for the Amonte trade), but those blows would have been easy to take if our drafting record from 95-99 was at least a tick above terrible. But it wasn't just terrible - our draft picks during that time were beyond worthless. Besides Marc Savard in 95, the Rangers didn't draft a single player who was better than 4th line or third pairing quality, and even those picks were few and far between. Mike York and Manny Malhotra are basically the highlights of our draft picks from those years, which is crazy considering that Manny was a huge disappointment.
The only thing I'll say in our defense, is that the mid-late 90s NHL drafts were for the most part a talent abyss. Those drafts read like a hall of fame of first and second round disappointments. Probably explains why the stars from the 80s and 90s continued to be premiere NHL players well into the early 00s, because there just wasn't anybody to take the baton aside from what, Joe Thornton, Daniel Alfredsson, and Marian Hossa? Vinny Lecavalier? Yawn. Thankfully it wasn't long before we got players like Ovie, Sid, Kane, Karlsson, McDavid, etc. Late 90s was just brutal.
Regardless, look at our top two picks from each draft in that era:
1995
Christian Dube (39th)
Mike Martin (65th)
1996
Jeff Brown (22nd)
Daniel Goneau (48th)
1997
Stefan Cherneski (19th)
Wes Jarvis (46th)
1998
Manny Malhotra (7th)
Randy Copley (40th)
1999
Pavel Brendl (4th)
Jamie Lundmark (9th)
Terrible. Most of these guys didn't even play a season in the NHL, and didn't seem to matter how high or low they were taken. Our lower picks for each year don't look much better. Say what you want about Sather, but our drafting record immediately improved during his tenure.
Here are some of the names of players who were drafted at least three spots after the above names, that became NHL regulars (essentially players we missed on):
Chris McAllister (95)
Peter Schaefer (95)
Brad Isbister (95)
Daniel Briere (96)
Colin White (96)
Kristian Huselius (97)
Henrik Tallinder (97)
Mark Bell (98)
Mike Rupp (98)
Nik Antropov (98) (Prob the only player in this 1998 bunch that was better than Manny)
Ossi Vaananen (98)
Tim Connolly (99)
Oleg Saprykin (99)
None of these names are franchise changing, but one, two, or three of these players as regulars in our lineup could have made a big difference, possibly could have meant a playoff birth in one or two of those years where we missed. Imagine if we kept Savard and drafted Isbister, Briere and Huselius?
Our fans today are spoiled. Every year we have another one or two players in their early 20s making the team out of camp and contributing right away. There was once a time where that almost never happened.
The only thing I'll say in our defense, is that the mid-late 90s NHL drafts were for the most part a talent abyss. Those drafts read like a hall of fame of first and second round disappointments. Probably explains why the stars from the 80s and 90s continued to be premiere NHL players well into the early 00s, because there just wasn't anybody to take the baton aside from what, Joe Thornton, Daniel Alfredsson, and Marian Hossa? Vinny Lecavalier? Yawn. Thankfully it wasn't long before we got players like Ovie, Sid, Kane, Karlsson, McDavid, etc. Late 90s was just brutal.
Regardless, look at our top two picks from each draft in that era:
1995
Christian Dube (39th)
Mike Martin (65th)
1996
Jeff Brown (22nd)
Daniel Goneau (48th)
1997
Stefan Cherneski (19th)
Wes Jarvis (46th)
1998
Manny Malhotra (7th)
Randy Copley (40th)
1999
Pavel Brendl (4th)
Jamie Lundmark (9th)
Terrible. Most of these guys didn't even play a season in the NHL, and didn't seem to matter how high or low they were taken. Our lower picks for each year don't look much better. Say what you want about Sather, but our drafting record immediately improved during his tenure.
Here are some of the names of players who were drafted at least three spots after the above names, that became NHL regulars (essentially players we missed on):
Chris McAllister (95)
Peter Schaefer (95)
Brad Isbister (95)
Daniel Briere (96)
Colin White (96)
Kristian Huselius (97)
Henrik Tallinder (97)
Mark Bell (98)
Mike Rupp (98)
Nik Antropov (98) (Prob the only player in this 1998 bunch that was better than Manny)
Ossi Vaananen (98)
Tim Connolly (99)
Oleg Saprykin (99)
None of these names are franchise changing, but one, two, or three of these players as regulars in our lineup could have made a big difference, possibly could have meant a playoff birth in one or two of those years where we missed. Imagine if we kept Savard and drafted Isbister, Briere and Huselius?
Our fans today are spoiled. Every year we have another one or two players in their early 20s making the team out of camp and contributing right away. There was once a time where that almost never happened.