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Draft lottery, pump up video and this date in Rangers' history...

May 27, 2020, 12:05 PM ET [21 Comments]
Jan Levine
New York Rangers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Hockey is back. Not on the ice, but based on yesterday's announcement and despite hurdles to surmount, the sport is back. I thought Gary Bettman and Bill Daly did as good a job as possible - save for maybe the draft permutations - explaining how we will proceed in the near future. For all the criticism lobbed to Bettman, the league's handling of the possible return to action sure looks like it has been managed a lot better than Major League Baseball. 

We likely have close to two months to analyze Rangers-Hurricanes. Included within will be the regular season matchups, which given the timeframe between contests can almost be thrown out the window, or at worst, discounted heavily. The key discussion - something for the future - will be who should be between the pipes, Henrik Lundqvist, based on his career mark versus the 'Canes, or Igor Shesterkin. New York will get Chris Kreider back from his broken foot while Carolina benefits from the return of Dougie Hamilton from a fractured fibula as well as possibly Sami Vatanen.




Friedman's tweet all but confirms that New York will have the big three netminders, as if there was any doubt. But Adam Huska could travel with the team to provide the Black Aces another goalie if needed. A 28-man roster gives New York some flexibility. This is another items for future discussion, or more accurately, continuation of a prior conversation, because that could mean Vitali Kravtsov and Lias Andersson as part of the squad for the play-in-round and beyond.

AJ Castiglia Pump Up Video:


All the Rangers goals against the Hurricanes:


A good FAQ and 10 key questions answered in yesterday's return-to-play announcement:





Steve Kournianos did a nice job for Forever Blueshirts in breaking down the six possible scenarios associated with the draft pick the Rangers received from Carolina in the Brady Skjei deal. Now that the Blueshirts are in the playoffs, they are not one of the seven teams on the outside looking in. Even so, New York is not precluded from moving up in the draft.

The good news is that because they own Carolina's pick, New York, regardless of if they win or loss, the team will automatically be in the lottery. Because of this, defeating the 'Canes in the play-in-round should be the goal. Then it's fairly clear, which was mentioned in the blog comments, what option we should want. Because Carolina owns Toronto's pick, which also comes with some protection, nuances exist, resulting in the six scenarios. But a very small chance exists for the Rangers to move way up in the draft, as they did last season when they drafted Kaapo Kakko, similar to when the Canes moved from 11 to 2 to select Andrei Svechnikov.   



And one more thing, in case you needed the reminder as to the importance of today's date, besides my younger daughter's birthday:



As a heads up, I am out of pocket beginning Thursday night to Saturday night. If any new information breaks, I will grab it when I return. But at least we have something tangible to discuss with more to come in the future.

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