Rangers silent as round 1 of the NHL draft ends, will tomorrow be different?

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Matthews (NHL)

Matthews (NHL)

Well if you are like me, you watched and waited. If you are like me, you perked up everytime Gary Bettman said, “we have a trade to announce.” And if you are like me, you were quickly dejected when you realized the Rangers weren’t involved.

So the last time the Blueshirts made a 1st round selection at the draft was Brady Skjei in 2012 and the drought continues.

Auston Matthews went 1st overall and a total of 12 Americans were selected in the 1st round which is a new NHL record for U.S. born players. The NHL draft will resume with round two tomorrow afternoon.

There really was no surprise that the Rangers weren’t able to trade into the 1st round. The trades that did happen usually involved swapping a spot or three between teams already picking in round one.

Still, there was hope that the Rangers would maybe announce a deal similar to what Montreal did with Washington when they moved Lars Eller or when they acquired Andrew Shaw from Chicago. Alas, Jeff Gorton had no deal to make today.

Tomorrow, well that will be a brand new day and a whole other story. Expect the Rangers to begin having conversations with UFAs at midnight when the embargo is lifted to speak with them. You can expect Gorton to reach out to Steven Stamkos, at least to kick the tires.

The Buffalo Sabres and now the Detroit Red Wings are the lead dogs to land #91. When Detroit was able to move Pavel Datsyuk‘s contract off their cap, they opened up enough space to offer Stamkos at least 10M a year for the next 7 years.

Back to the Rangers. Tomorrow you can expect a few deals which will maneuver them into round two. Expect Rick Nash to be dealt and probably a few other surprises too. There simply is no way that the Rangers do nothing tomorrow but make their scheduled selections  starting in round 3.

Well, at least we hope they do something.

By Anthony Scultore

Anthony Scultore has been covering the New York Rangers and the NHL since 2014. His work also appears at... More about Anthony Scultore

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