Rangers Offseason

In the inaugural season of the PFHL the New York Rangers had a decent run. The team boasted a few all-stars and went on little playoff run ultimately crashing out of the Eastern final in spectacular fashion. The sting of the 3rd round loss was soothed a bit by the playoff revenue filling up the bank account.


So, what happened after that? Well, you’d have to go back to the PFHL pundits offering up their opinions on the state of the Rangers. After the owner caught wind of those musings, she immediately passed the orders down to GM Richter – tear it down and build up a perennial contender. Sounds easy right? Now it’s not like those opinions were completely out of left field. To start with the goaltending situation was horrible coupled with the fact the prospect pipeline was near empty. It was going to be a massive challenge upgrading the goaltending and defense without negatively impacting the rest of the team. And although the forward group caught lightning in a bottle last season the depth just wasn’t there after the few top tier talents.


Where does the team stand now? One benefit to rebuilding this year is selling high on a number of players that improved significantly through the re-rate process. This meant Brendan Gallagher and Tomas Hertl were prime targets. At the other end of the ice Aaron Ekblad drew interest after his all-star season. As it turned out the Philadelphia Flyers came calling and scooped up the three aforementioned players, and Ryan Suter, for a bevy of prospects and youngsters. Some of the talent joining the Rangers includes Joel Farabee, Peyton Krebs, Mason McTavish, and Sebastian Cossa. The Rangers also say goodbye to Adam Pelech, Evgenii Dadonov, and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare in other moves. Returns again were centered around prospects and draft picks and supplemented with both youngsters and veteran players. Now the organization will wait to see growth over coming seasons within the prospect pool along with the high end youngsters scattered across the farm and pro teams.


As the team prepares for the upcoming preseason the fate of Brayden Point remains a question. The player has not requested a trade and the organization has not yet decided his future. Point would undoubtably be a benefit in mentoring some of the young forwards if he were to remain the first line center. On the other hand, the trade return would be significant and would further accelerate the rebuild in the big apple. Discussions regarding Point will likely continue into the PFHL preseason.