The New York Rangers will get clarity on an important aspect of their future on Tuesday when the NHL Draft Lottery is held. The live televised event is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. ET in Secaucus, N.J., at the NHL Network studios.<\/p>\n
New York has the third-best lottery odds in the league: an 11.5 percent chance at the No. 1 pick and a guarantee to stay in the top five.<\/p>\n
Once the draft order is set, team president Chris Drury can fully take stock of the prospects that could be available to him. Let\u2019s go over what\u2019s at stake.<\/p>\n
Where will the Rangers pick?<\/p>\n
After finishing with the worst record in the Eastern Conference and the third-worst overall record this season, New York knows it will be drafting in the top five on June 26. Despite having the third-best odds, the No. 3 pick is actually the one the Rangers have the lowest chance of getting: 7.8 percent. They are most likely to get the No. 4 pick (39.7 percent) or No. 5 (29.8 percent).<\/p>\n
There\u2019s an 11.5 percent chance they get the No. 1 pick and 11.2 percent at No. 2.<\/p>\n
Who will be available?<\/p>\n
The Rangers obviously want to pick No. 1 and have their choice of the lot. In its final draft ranking<\/a>, NHL Central Scouting ranked winger Gavin McKenna (Penn State) as the top North American Skater and Swedish winger Ivar Stenberg (Fr\u00f6lunda) as the top international one. Colleague Corey Pronman, meanwhile, ranked<\/a> defenseman Chase Reid (OHL\u2019s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds) as his top prospect with McKenna as the only other player in his top tier, which he described as \u201cBubble NHL Star and top of the lineup player.\u201d All three of those players will be worth watching if available when the Rangers are on the clock.<\/p>\n Many of the top-ranked players in the draft are defensemen. Of the North American skaters, Nos. 2-5 in the Central Scouting rankings are defensemen: Reid, Carson Carels (WHL\u2019s Prince George), Keaton Verhoeff (University of North Dakota) and Daxon Rudolfph (WHL\u2019s Prince Albert). Latvian defenseman Alberts \u0160mits, who played in the 2026 Olympics, is No. 2 behind Stenberg in the international rankings.<\/p>\n The Rangers, of course, have a need up the middle in their prospect pool. Yet most of the top players in this draft are not centers. If New York has one of the top couple picks in the draft, it should take the best player available, regardless of position. But if the Rangers are at No. 4 or 5 \u2014 which they have nearly a 70 percent chance to be \u2014 then they could look at the center crop. Caleb Malhotra (OHL\u2019s Brantford) is the top-ranked center in the North American rankings. He\u2019s committed to Boston University next year, and his dad, Manny, was the No. 7 pick by the Rangers in 1998. Boston University\u2019s Tynan Lawrence is Pronman\u2019s top-ranked center.<\/p>\n Could the Rangers trade a first-round pick?<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to envision the Rangers trading their top pick, unless it\u2019s just moving down a spot or two for additional picks. The franchise needs high-end skill, and the draft is the most sustainable way to obtain it. Drury presumably won\u2019t pass up a chance at an elite talent.<\/p>\n New York also has a late first-round pick from Dallas, acquired in the K\u2019Andre Miller trade. The team could perhaps explore moving that selection, or Drury could take another swing at a player with skill.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the Rangers history with top-five picks?<\/p>\n The Rangers have only made three top-five picks since 1970.<\/p>\n \u20222020: Alexis Lafreni\u00e8re, No. 1 Brendl never appeared in a game for the Rangers. He was eventually traded in a package for Eric Lindros and finished with only 78 career NHL games played.<\/p>\n Kakko was a part of two teams that made the Eastern Conference final, and he had a 40-point season with the club in 2022-23. But he didn\u2019t develop into the top-of-the-lineup player teams expect from a No. 2 pick. The Rangers traded him to Seattle in December 2024 for a Will Borgen-led package.<\/p>\n Lafreni\u00e8re is still with the organization. He\u2019s played a top-six role and had a pair of 57-point seasons. But he too has not become the player the Rangers envisioned with a top draft pick.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Rangers will get clarity on an important aspect of their future on Tuesday when the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4823,385,99],"class_list":["post-624506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u20222019: Kaapo Kakko, No. 2
\u20221999: Pavel Brendl, No. 4<\/p>\n