Why Rangers draft history since 2000 not pretty without 1st-round pick
You’ve probably heard the old adage “history tends to repeat itself” countless times. Well, the New York Rangers will try to turn that phrase on its head this weekend at the 2025 NHL Draft because they certainly don’t want to repeat certain aspects of their recent draft history.
The Rangers do not have a first-round pick this year. Earlier this week, the Rangers decided to send the No. 12 overall pick to the Pittsburgh Penguins to complete a trade condition stemming from when they acquired J.T. Miller from the Vancouver Canucks on Jan. 31, and later involved the Penguins in a separate deal with the Canucks.
So, barring a move back into this year’s first round, the Rangers will sit out Day 1 for the seventh time since the turn of the century. In five of those seven years, the Rangers’ top pick was selected in the second round. The other two times, the Rangers had to wait until the third round to finally be on the clock.
Though the jury remains out on developing prospect Adam Sykora, New York’s top pick in 2022 (second round, No. 63 overall), the rest of this specific list when the Rangers didn’t have a first-round selection is not pretty.
Let’s take a look.
Related: Rangers’ biggest 1st-round busts in NHL Draft since 2000, including Lias Andersson
Rangers top draft picks in years they didn’t have first-round selection this century
Filip Novak – D – 2000
Though he ended up playing nine seasons in the KHL, Novak appeared in only 17 NHL games, none with the Rangers. Selected in the second round (No. 64 overall), he played two more seasons with Regina in the Western Hockey League, piling up the points, but never made it to the NHL with the Rangers. Instead, he was part of the massive package the Rangers sent to the Florida Panthers for superstar forward Pavel Bure.
In theory, this should raise Novak’s value to the Rangers, except for the fact that Bure played only 51 games with the Rangers before retiring due to a knee condition. Though, Bure scored 31 goals with the Rangers, the deal obviously didn’t work out for New York. Nor for Novak, who sustained his own knee injury and only years later played 11 games with the Ottawa Senators and six with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Of course, that 2000 draft remains memorable for the Rangers for a far better reason. Hall of Famer Henrik Lundqvist was selected in the seventh round (No. 205 overall) that year.
Lee Falardeau – C – 2002
In that Bure trade, the Rangers also received a second round pick (No. 33 overall) in the 2002 draft. They used it to select Falardeau, a 6-foot-4, 215-pound center from Michigan State University. Not only did Falardeau never play an NHL game, he played far more in the ECHL than the AHL before retiring after the 2008-09 season.
That 2002 draft class was pretty much a complete loss for the Rangers, save for Petr Prucha, an eighth-round selection who famously scored 30 goals as a rookie for the Blueshirts in 2005-06 and 22 the next season before his production took a nosedive.
Adam Tambellini – F – 2013
The next time the Rangers didn’t have a first-round pick was in 2013, when they also didn’t have a second-rounder. So, their first selection in the 2013 draft was No. 65 overall, when they chose Tambellini in the third round. The son of former Islanders forward and Edmonton Oilers general manager Steve Tambellini never played in the NHL, lasted four seasons in the AHL with Hartford and then played out the rest of his career in Sweden.
The Rangers actually had three third-round picks in 2013, and 10 picks after taking Tambellini they selected Pavel Buchnevich, who’s closing in on 200 NHL goals, albeit now with the St. Louis Blues. Five picks later, the Rangers drafted another forward, Anthony Duclair, who’s bounced around the League but still played 607 games. In the fourth round, the chose defenseman Ryan Graves, who’s played 433 NHL games, though never one with the Rangers.
Brandon Halverson – G – 2014
The Rangers tried to land their goalie of the future in the second round of the 2014 draft, when, with their first pick they selected Halverson. It was a major swing and miss. Halverson’s been a career minor-league goalie, and just made his first two NHL appearances this past season with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
However, they did find their goalie of the future. The Rangers drafted a kid named Igor Shesterkin in the fourth round that same year.
Ryan Gropp – F – 2015
Gropp was a high-scoring forward with good size (6-foot-2, 196 pounds), who scored 30+ goals three straight seasons in the Western Hockey League. The Rangers selected him in the second round (No. 41 overall) of the 2015 draft, and he never played a single game in the NHL. Gropp’s played overseas in Europe since 2020, part of a simply awful Rangers draft class in 2015, where seven picks totaled 10 NHL games.
Sean Day – D – 2016
2016 was the fourth straight year that the Rangers didn’t have a first-round draft pick. Like 2015, it was a terrible draft class, headed by Day, who was selected in the third round (No. 81 overall). It was a high-risk, high-reward pick at the time, because the skilled defenseman had a string of off-ice issues to deal with. It never worked out for him with the Rangers, though he did appear in two games with the Lightning in 2021-22. He played last season in Sweden.
Adam Sykora – F – 2022
The Rangers had various degrees of success or lack thereof selecting in the first round the next five years before 2022, when they were again without a first-rounder. So, in the second round they selected Sykora from Slovakia with the No. 63 overall pick. Sykora is an undersized forward, lauded for his high character and leadership ability. He turns 21 in September and already has two full seasons under his belt with Hartford of the AHL. Sykora had nine goals and 30 points last season, but it’s hard to tell if he’ll make it as a bottom-six forward one day in the NHL.
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