Sod16

Much as I am enjoying this and as strong as the Canes have been on home ice, I expect the bubble to burst and the Islanders to break out with a scoring barrage. McElhaney apparently played pretty well this year, but come on, he's a 35 year old journeyman whose ears are ringing from all of the posts he heard getting hit today. The Islanders have had a bad ice home advantage at Barclays and have always had a good record there, even when there were about 5,000 in the seats. It will be nice to have some of this series played at an NHL arena.

Neither one of your scenarios treats the possibility that Columbus and Carolina both lose their current series, in which case they both pick before the Rangers. You also don't treat the possibility that Colorado loses to SJ, in which case Colorado picks before the Rangers. As I said, Colorado, Dallas/StL, Columbus, Carolina, and Vegas are all non-division winners with fewer points than Winnipeg. That makes five teams that would pick between 16 and 20, before the Winnipeg pick, if none make the conference finals, which is perfectly possible. That would make the Winnipeg pick No. 21. As explained earlier, it can go as high as 18 if Colorado, Columbus, and Carolina all win their current series and make the conference finals.

At the end of the day, Canadian generational talents are going the CHL route. Kane is the only non-Canadian on the your list, and he's from Buffalo, which should have long since be forced to secede to Canada.

20 not locked. If SJ beats Lanche, Isles beat Carolina, and Bruins beat Columbus, then Vegas, Lanche, Dal/StL, Columbus and Carolina pick between 16 and 20, and the Winnipeg pick is at 21.

There was a very sad and touching story about one of the Ferraro brothers, I forget which one. He was somewhat socially withdrawn, having concentrated on hockey growing up, and married a very outgoing classmate at U. Maine who sort of brought him out of his shell. She died of cancer at about age 30 and he was devastated.

We've been through the age thing before and determined that several of us are old enough to remember Harry Howell, that is as a player as opposed to a sweater in the rafters. It's a good thing Marc Staal chose to go UFA and sign with Carolina to play with Jordan and Eric, otherwise we would have been stuck with a fat contract for longer than a 34 year old can remember. Oh, you say that's not what happened? Memory gets a little faulty with time.

With Columbus where it is in the playoffs right now, I doubt Team Panarin is giving off any signs as to who is the front runner. Unless Team Panarin is something like Team Mike Keenan, 1994.

The pick will now be somewhere between 18 and 21. If the Canes, Jackets, and Lanche all win, is 18. If two of those win, 19. If one wins, 20, if none win, 21.

Best trade the Islanders ever made was probably for Jean Potvin at the deadline in their first season. They knew Dennis would be the No. 1 pick and that the WHA would be waiving money at him.

Hughes has only solidified his No. 1 position and there is no reason to believe the Canucks want to trade for Kakko. End of story.

Vegas losing will drop the Winnipeg pick down one.

Leafs not authorized to win the Cup by Rangerdom until 2022 (1967 + 55).

Starting with the 16th pick, the next group of teams to pick are teams who lost in the first two rounds who did not win a division. Among the teams in this group, it's by reverse order of points. Winnipeg had 99 points, so they will pick at least before Pittsburgh, Islanders, Boston, Toronto, TB, Wash, SJ, Nashville and Calg. Columbus, StL, Vegas, Dallas, Carolina and Colo had fewer points (or ROW) than Winnipeg, but at least one and probably two of those teams have to make it to the Conference finals. That means two more teams that pick after Winnipeg. That would make the Winnipeg pick no worse than 20. No team that would pick before the Winnipeg pick is out yet and guaranteed to be in the first group. Carolina picks before the Winnipeg pick unless it comes back to beat Wash and wins the next series. 18-20 is looking like the most likely spot! Should be no problem finding the next Hugh Jessiman from that position!

Good for him. I have a feeling he is going to do quite well in this position. They may be set in goal for a change and have some very skilled players as a starting point.

Gabby had excellent hands. At his best, he was the closest thing to Bure in terms of a package of speed and hands. A lot of that was wasted with his prime played under the thumb of Jacques and Torts. I really like Kreider as a player and hope he is signed, but he has no hands. Gabby's five goal torching of Hank was a microcosm of his career. After he scored the fifth goal early in the third, Jacques gave him one more shift. I was at the game and outraged.

In other words, we had a 33% chance of getting the 31st pick, which is historically a low percentage proposition for getting a significant NHL player. We've all wasted time worrying about this pick.

This organization has been stuck in 1975 for so long, they need to get over it and take a different approach, which AV would certainly represent.

I have to believe that Lundquist is making more off endorsements in NY than he would if he had played his career in FLA.

Incredible. Our first top 3 pick ever! (pre 69 was not a true amateur draft). In what would appear to be a good draft year no less! Nothing is a given, and many top 2 picks have been busts, but this is a fabulous chance to have our first elite skater from the get go since Leetch joined the team in 1988. I just turned on the NHL network when I got home and saw "Devils get first pick" in the corner and was pissed and convinced the world is against us. I spent several hours gnashing my teeth before going on line and getting this shocking news!

OK, if Panarin's age is a worry, as is/was Kreider's and McDonaugh's, we can just play with a roster full of unproven players on entry level contracts. Unfortunately, today's NHL requires you to sign 27-28 year old players to longer terms than you would like if you ever want to contend.

A good point has been made about the impact of NOT signing Kreider. Add him to McDonaugh and Hayes and you see a real trend of not extending players who are due a good contract. I think Uncle Larry's talk of Hayes is possibly wishful thinking on his part, or at least an attempt to push the Rangers in that direction, as was his report that the Rangers were having preliminary talks with Hayes a few weeks before the deadline. Without Panarin or Kreider, this would just be a flat out bad team next year, and they really can't afford that three years in a row. When you've been bad three years in a row, UFAs don't want to sign with you and existing players don't want to extend.

I completely agree. Any team that gets McDavid will have so little left that they will be looking at a five year building process, which is not what McDavid would want to go to in the first place. It would be tempting to give up whatever you have for him. It would be a disaster to give up future daft picks.

I would favor a new forum rule that any poster advocating trading Georgie in favor of Shestokyin must preface his remarks by disclosing exactly how many games he has seen Shestorkin play. Fair?

Something is clearly amiss in Hartford that must be rectified in the off season. We can't have a situation where we don't want to send Shestyorkin, Kravtsov and various others down there for a little time at the start of their North American pro careers because no one seems to be improving down there.

In 50 years since the true amateur draft started in 1969 (it wasn't a real draft before that), the Rangers have succeeded in drafting a total of three truly elite players: Middleton, Leetch and Hank. There have also been some "near elites," like Vickers, James Patrick, Sandstrom and Beezer. Point is, you don't win cups without some elite players, and you can't rely on the draft to get them.