Larry Brooks is providing player evaluations daily in the NY Post, an exercise that began the past Monday. The order is by last name, and while he is not giving a grade, he is giving a sort of high-level assessment. Since it's my hope that we will have hockey, I thought it might be interesting to take one or a few aspects of his daily column along with his closure - the latter in italics - and provide my view, then receive yours in the comments. I will try and do this daily, and have covered Lias Andersson, Pavel Buchnevich, Filip Chytil, Tony DeAngelo, Jesper Fast, Adam Fox, Alexandar Georgiev, Brett Howden and Kaapo Kakko. Today, it's Chris Kreider.
Kreider
The Answer: Jan Erixon.
The question: Who is the last forward drafted by the Rangers to remain with the team until age 30?
Erixon was drafted in 1981.
Kreider, 29 of April 30, should be the next after signing a seven-year deal to remain in New York.
You are quite familiar by now with the often interchangeable exclamation point and question mark that follow the four words, Did You See Chris. It was a question mark the first couple of months of this season in which No. 20 scored seven goals in his first 32 games. It was an exclamation point essentially thereafter while the winger scored 17 in his next 26 contests to help drive the Rangers into the playoff race
That was the outburst that convinced what previously had been a quite skeptical management to go all in on the club’s third-senior player and lock him up as a vital plank of the bridge from rebuild to contention. Around the middle of the year the refrain out of the front office was along the lines of, “How could we keep Chris?” By the deadline it was, “How could we not?”
This year’s splits are not unique. In 2018-19, Kreider scored 20 goals in his first 37 games. He finished with eight in his final 42. He has had stretches in which he has scored two goals in 21 games (2017-18), one in 16 (2016-17), one in 19 (2014-15). Exacerbating the issue is that when Kreider isn’t scoring, he too often isn’t involved at all. Nine years later, we know who he is.
He is a force when he’s going, an intimidating presence with size, speed and strength and a finisher’s hands. (Pay no attention to that year, was it 2015-16, when after finally scoring on a breakaway late in the year, he exclaimed, “I’m 1-for-72!”). He is a vital part of a superior power play. He is a leader in the room, an offseason workout pied piper for any and all who want to join him. He is, in large part, the team’s conscience.
In 2013-14, Kreider was on the left with Stepan in the middle and Rick Nash on the right. That had been the team’s best line post-Jaromir Jagr. Now, a debate is in the offing. That line, or the one with Kreider, Mika Zibanejad and Pavel Buchnevich.
Take your pick. Either way, it includes Kreider. Of course it does.
I think I said all I had to say when the debate existed as to whether Kreider should be signed long-term. This is what I wrote on February 25, mirroring what I had been saying for the past several weeks. Since you know I was all in on bringing back Kreider.
"President John Davidson showed that winning outweighed all. You can most certainly argue that the term, years and likely dollars, is high for a player who has yet to score 30 goals. But New York is expecting future growth and continued leadership from an asset that looks to still be on an upward trend. This is what JD said in his press conference, but if a deal couldn't have been reached. the Rangers would have dealt him, which would have changed the tenor for the remainder of the day."
If Mika Zibanejad is not the next captain of the Rangers, Kreider should be. Look at the impact on the lineup after he was injured shortly after signing the deal. Add in all the comments by his teammates, who recognize his leadership on-and-off the ice, and you have a player that should hopefully spend the rest of his career in red-white-and blue.
Kreider does need to take that next step forward. Show consistency night in and night out. Shorten the fallow periods in production, and when he isn't scoring, make up for that lack of output by contributing elsewhere. If CK20 can do that, then he takes a quantum leap forward and should earn that salary and term of the contract.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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