NEW YORK \u2014 It\u2019s not that Mike Sullivan doesn\u2019t care about where the New York Rangers pick in what will be a pivotal 2026 NHL Draft for his team. He just knows that worrying about it with two weeks left in the season would be a disservice to the players he\u2019s paid to coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I have interest,\u201d the Blueshirts bench boss said prior to Tuesday\u2019s 4-1 win over the New Jersey Devils at Madison Square Garden. \u201cBut I just don\u2019t think right now with where we\u2019re at \u2014 I\u2019m immersed in this daily endeavor of trying to do my very best to help this team continue to move forward. And it starts with trying to instill the right habits and trying to hold the group accountable to a certain standard \u2014 a standard that we want to be proud of. And it starts with attitude, effort, energy, things of that nature. I\u2019m trying to help us get better, and that\u2019s where all my energy is right now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019ll be a time for (draft conversation). It\u2019s not now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s victory helped one cause (positive momentum) while hurting another (draft positioning). Mika Zibanejad scored his 33rd goal of the season on the same night he was named the Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award winner for the third time, captain J.T. Miller finished a pretty power-play passing sequence to tie his season high with a four-game point streak, and rookie forward Jaroslav Chmela\u0159 continued to be a bright spot.<\/p>\n
Oh, and there was an epic goalie fight<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it sends a message about the Rangers,\u201d Miller said from the most jovial Rangers locker room MSG has seen all year. \u201cWe want to keep playing and finish strong and have something to feel good about going into next season.\u201d<\/p>\n Even before Igor Shesterkin throttled Devils counterpart Jacob Markstr\u00f6m \u2014 who knew he had that in him? \u2014 the Rangers (31-35-9) had put together a spirited all-around effort en route to their third straight win. It continued a late surge and spared them the indignity of going 0-fer against their Hudson River rivals after losing the first two<\/a> of three meetings this season.<\/p>\n It also left them with the NHL\u2019s fourth-worst points total (71), which would give New York 9.5 percent odds to win the lottery for the No. 1 overall pick if the season ended today, while guaranteeing a spot in the top six. The Vancouver Canucks have the league\u2019s worst record wrapped up, but the Rangers are jockeying with the Chicago Blackhawks and Calgary Flames for second-worst. They\u2019re one point better than the Flames and three ahead of the Hawks, who lost to the Winnipeg Jets in overtime on Tuesday and currently own the tiebreaker due to two fewer regulation wins.<\/p>\n The players say they aren\u2019t paying attention to draft odds \u2014 \u201cFor us in here, we\u2019re not focused on that,\u201d defenseman Adam Fox said \u2014 and rightfully so. But the difference between picking in the top three versus fifth or sixth, for example, could be significant for a team that desperately needs high-end youth.<\/p>\n The Rangers\u2019 biggest organizational needs are at center, right wing and left-handed defense. Four of the five wingers The Athletic\u2019s Scott Wheeler recently ranked among New York\u2019s top eight prospects<\/a> are predominantly left wings, but a few have experience on the right side and may be capable of making the switch. It\u2019s at center, where the Rangers rely heavily on a trio of veterans who will be 33 next season \u2014 Miller, Zibanejad and Vincent Trocheck, the latter of whom is likely to be traded this summer<\/a> \u2014 and the left D, where there are no proven commodities outside of Vladislav Gavrikov<\/a>, and no surefire prospects on the way, where the bigger concerns lie.<\/p>\n But New York won\u2019t have the luxury of drafting strictly for need. Team president Chris Drury\u2019s gutted roster has too many holes to fill<\/a>, which is why he should select the best player available, regardless of position. Where the pick lands will dictate that.<\/p>\n Both Wheeler and fellow colleague Corey Pronman published new draft rankings last month, with their opinions varying on several prospects. The 2026 class comes with limited consensus and lots of intrigue, but there are a few emerging themes as we sit less than three months away from draft weekend June 26-27 .<\/p>\n Wheeler ranked Penn State winger Gavin McKenna as his No. 1 prospect<\/a>, while Pronman has him at No. 2<\/a>. The early sense is that most teams will side with Wheeler.<\/p>\n While there\u2019s ample time for that to change, it\u2019s important to remember that McKenna has been coveted since he was tearing it up as a 16-year-old in the WHL. He got off to a slower start than those lofty expectations suggested in his freshman season with the Nittany Lions, but exploded down the stretch with 29 points in his final 15 games, reaffirming his reputation as the highest-upside play in this year\u2019s draft. And what the Rangers need above all else is an elite playmaker who drives offense and projects as a top forward on a contending team.<\/p>\n But landing at No. 2 wouldn\u2019t be a bad consolation prize. Wheeler has Swedish winger Ivar Stenberg in that slot, writing, \u201cStenberg is a dynamic left-shot winger who\u2019s comfortable playing both wings and whose statistical track record, skill set and play across levels have made him one of the draft\u2019s clear top-two prospects.\u201d<\/p>\n Where things could get interesting is if New York ends up with pick No. 3 or later. The feeling around the league \u2014 echoed by both Wheeler and Pronman \u2014 is that there\u2019s a group of defensemen that should be tiered above any forwards other than McKenna and Stenberg. The list usually includes two right shots: Chase Reid and Keaton Verhoeff, and two lefties: Alberts Smits and Carson Carels.<\/p>\n The lefties would make more sense for the Rangers, but the righties may have slightly higher grades. Wheeler has Reid as the best defensemen in the class, while Pronman ranks the Michigan State commit as his No. 1 player altogether, writing, \u201cHe projects as a major-minutes NHL defenseman who can run a first power play.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rangers already have a right-handed power-play quarterback in Adam Fox \u2014 but they should make the pick and worry about redundancies later if they believe Reid stands above the other D prospects.<\/p>\n On the other hand, New York\u2019s recent history of valuing size on the back end makes me wonder if Verhoeff (6-3.5, 208 pounds) or Smits (6-3, 205 pounds) might fall more in line with what Drury is looking for.<\/p>\n Another question is at what point would Rangers brass consider other forwards? There are three centers \u2014 Viggo Bjorck, Tynan Lawrence and Caleb Malhotra \u2014 who Wheeler and Pronman each have ranked in the 8-12 range. The 5-9 Bjorck feels least likely, but Lawrence has the Boston University connection with Drury and Sullivan while Malhotra\u2019s stock has been on the rise lately. If New York slips out of the top three, it stands to reason that one of them could be in play.<\/p>\n Maybe there\u2019s a wild card \u2014 6-5 winger Ethan Belchetz is a massive prospect with big goal-scoring ability \u2014 but it goes without saying the higher the pick, the better the chance of coming away with a true franchise-changing player. Top two seems ideal, but the Rangers may be playing themselves out of that range unless they start losing again or get lucky in the May 5 lottery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 It\u2019s not that Mike Sullivan doesn\u2019t care about where the New York Rangers pick in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,24,55,54,541,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-184040","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-city-news","12":"tag-new-york-rangers","13":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}