Alexis Lafreniere’s breakout this season may be the key to the New York Rangers’ future success
On Feb. 8, 2018, the New York Rangers shocked the hockey world. In a rare instance of transparency, the team released a letter to their fans stating their intention to enter a rebuild.
On one hand, it was a surprising move considering the team had just reached the second round of the playoffs the previous season and had made the playoffs seven seasons in a row. But on the other hand, they were only 25-24-5 at the time of the letter, had just lost their fourth game in a row after a 6-1 blowout loss to the Boston Bruins, and were in 10th place in the Eastern Conference.
It made sense with the team looking like they’d lost a few steps from their stretch of three Conference Finals appearances in four seasons from 2012-2015, and with Henrik Lundqvist at the age of 35, Ryan McDonagh at 28, Mats Zuccarello at 30, and Derek Stepan already dealt in the offseason, the main group responsible for those runs that wasn’t already gone was exiting their prime windows, so moving on from this group and building a new one seemed like the best course of action.
And so they did. That season, they said goodbye to McDonagh, J.T. Miller, Nick Holden, Michael Grabner and Rick Nash, and the following season they did the same with Zuccarello, Adam McQuaid, Cody McLeod and Kevin Hayes, accumulating 18 draft picks for 2018 and 2019 including 10 picks in the first three rounds.
Enter the 2019-20 season, and the Rangers were already starting to piece their team together. On top of Chris Kreider; committing larceny before the rebuild by getting Mika Zibanejad and a second-round pick from the Ottawa Senators for only Derick Brassard and a seventh; and owning a couple of decent prospects that already existed in the organization at the time of the rebuild in Igor Shesterkin and Filip Chytil, the Rangers flexed a couple other muscles outside of their draft capital: their legacy and their wallet.
Before the draft in 2019, the Rangers acquired what would become the two pillars of their defense corps, trading two second-round picks for Adam Fox and a first and Neal Pionk for Jacob Trouba. While they certainly had to sell assets to get those players, both came at a bit of a discount due to the team on the other side being a bit tied up with both players wanting to join the Rangers in part due to their legacy with American hockey fans, the market that comes with it, and just wanting to live in the city of New York.
Later that offseason, that came to fruition again along with their financial muscle when the team added another key piece to the current team in Artemi Panarin. He was the top free agent on the market in 2019, and few teams had the cap flexibility and the financial backing to sign what was at the time the second-largest contract in the league. Oh, and Panarin also liked the market.
Already the Rangers had a strong core set up that they could then surround with the picks and prospects that they were adding to the fold. That (and a pandemic) allowed them a taste of playoff action in their 2020 play-in series against the Carolina Hurricanes, even if they were swept quite easily. They still sold off their fair share of pieces that year too, including Vladislav Namestnikov and Brady Skjei, but the Blueshirts were definitely more competitive already.
The Rangers barely missed the playoffs in 2021 but made it the following year and went on a run to the Eastern Conference Final. 2023 saw them lose in the first round, but that’s still back-to-back playoff seasons, and now they look poised to do so again, leading the NHL with an 18-5-1 record. Just two uncompetitive seasons, and they’d already become a consistent playoff team not even six years removed from releasing that letter to the fans.
However, it’s tough to fullly call what the Rangers did a rebuild. Yes, they did suck for a few seasons and then rebound to become the team that they are right now. But a lot of that came through their aforementioned financial flexibility and the legacy that the team has. In terms of the main part of a rebuild, which is to put together a young core to build around through draft picks and acquiring prospects, they weren’t quite as successful.
If you look at a lot of the moves made by the Rangers during their rebuild phase that involved selling off pieces and bringing in picks and prospects and then converting on their top picks, their resume is a bit inconsistent.
| Player | Acquired by | Result |
| Tony DeAngelo | Return for Derek Stepan & Antti Raanta trade | Bought out after locker room problems |
| Lias Andersson | Drafted with 2017 1st rd. pick from Stepan/Raanta trade | Traded after three underperforming seasons for 2nd rd. pick |
| Filip Chytil | Drafted with Rangers 2017 1st rd. pick | Become a reliable 3C for Rangers |
| Joey Keane | Drafted with 2018 3rd rd. pick from Nick Holden trade | Traded before NHL debut for Julien Gauthier |
| Yegor Rykov | Return for Michael Grabner trade | Yet to play in the NHL |
| Ryan Lindgren | Return for Rick Nash trade | Become a reliable Top 4 D for Rangers |
| Chris Bigras | Return for Ryan Graves trade | Yet to play a game for the Rangers |
| Brett Howden | Return for Ryan McDonagh & J.T. Miller trade | Traded to Vegas after three underperforming seasons for Nick DeSimone and 4th rd. pick |
| Libor Hajek | Return for McDonagh/Miller trade | Wasn’t given qualifying offer after five mediocre seasons |
| Nils Lundkvist | Drafted with 2018 1st rd. pick from McDonagh/Miller trade | Played 25 games with Rangers before requesting trade |
| Vitali Kravtsov | Drafted with Rangers 2018 1st rd. pick | Never established NHL game and was traded for William Lockwood and a 7th rd. pick |
| K’Andre Miller | Drafted with 2018 1st rd. pick acquired from trading up with 1st rd. pick from Nash trade | Become a reliable Top 4 D for Rangers |
| Ryan Strome | Return for Ryan Spooner | Become a reliable 2C for Rangers for four seasons before departing for free agency |
| Matthew Robertson & Oliver Tarnstrom | Drafted with 2nd and 3rd rd. picks acquired for Mats Zuccarello | Yet to play in the NHL |
| Brendan Lemieux | Return for Kevin Hayes | Traded after three mediocre seasons with plethora of locker room issues |
| Julius Bergman | Return for Adam McQuaid | Yet to play in the NHL |
| Adam Fox | Acquired for two 2nd rd. picks | Become an elite #1 D for Rangers |
| Jacob Trouba | Acquired for Neal Pionk and 1st rd. pick | Become a reliable Top 4 D for Rangers |
| Kaapo Kakko | Drafted with Rangers 2019 2nd overall pick | Has yet to establish NHL game |
| Nick Ebert & Kalle Vaisanen | Return for Vladislav Namestnikov | Yet to play NHL games |
| Alexis Lafreniere | Drafted with Rangers 2020 1st overall pick | May have finally established NHL game this season |
| Braden Schneider | Drafted with 1st rd. pick acquired from trading up with 1st rd. pick from Brady Skjei trade | Become a reliable bottom pair D for Rangers |
| Will Cuylle | Drafted with 2nd rd. pick acquired from Lias Andersson trade | Still undetermined but has cracked NHL roster this season |
On the surface, landing on eight, possibly nine, out of these 23 moves so far isn’t too bad. Strome and Trouba were players I was on the fence about including because they both arrived at the age of 25, but both were meant to be more established pieces to their rebuild, so I’ll allow it.
Along with that, this is just looking at the prospects they acquired and their first-round picks in that time span. A quick look at their draft record overall, and it gets a lot worse. In those three big draft years from 2018 to 2020, they made 27 picks and so far only a third of them have played NHL games at all, with only five of those players establishing consistent roles in the NHL (maybe six if you count Cuylle making the NHL roster this year), only four of those doing so with the Rangers, and only one or two of those actually living up to their draft potential, so far. And that’s not including the six picks they traded away as well, although the only ones of significance were to acquire Fox and Trouba.
I say “so far” because there is one player who might be finally creating some more hope for the young core on the Rangers. In a group that has only consisted of Fox in terms of their elite talent, the misses on Kakko and Lafreniere were glaring issues for the future of this team. Kakko continues to be a concern, but Lafreniere may have finally established himself as a higher-end talent.
I won’t dive too much into how good Lafreniere has been this season because my colleague Steven Ellis already did so a few weeks ago, but I’ll give a bit of an update at least since he basically nailed the same points I would make about Lafreniere here.
Since that article was published, Lafreniere’s point pace has slowed down a bit with five points in 10 games in that span that now only has him on pace for 27 goals and 54 points, and that’s despite his dynamic linemate Panarin having eight points at 5v5 alongside him. Lafreniere’s shooting percentage has dropped down to 14.55%, so some of that’s due to regression, but his assists per 60 have increased to 1.06, his primary assists per 60 continue to hover around 0.62, and his points per 60 have increased to 2.31.
If there’s one thing I’ll add to Steven’s case, it’s to help alleviate any concerns that Lafreniere’s success is due to playing alongside Panarin. That’s certainly helped, but according to Evolving Hockey’s Regularized Adjusted Plus-Minus model, Lafreniere’s success has also been due to his own play, as the numbers indicate his ability to drive offense and play solid defense even when it’s isolated from his linemates.
It can’t be overstated how important Lafreniere finally figuring out his NHL game is to the future success of the Rangers. That’s not to say that they have problems right now, because their main core at the moment is doing just fine. But by the end of this season, Kreider will be 33, Panarin will be 32, Zibanejad and Trocheck will be 31, Trouba will be 30, and Shesterkin will be 28.
Once those six players’ games start to fall off, the Rangers will need that young core that they spent most of the late 2010s rebuilding for to take over, and right now, the only game-breaking player they have from that group is Fox, who will be 26 at the end of the year. Miller, Chytil, and Schneider certainly have the potential to improve towards elite/top of the roster level of play, particularly Miller, but a lot of that rests on if Lafreniere’s play this season is legit, and if there’s any chance that Kakko can become the player he was drafted to be, although that seems like a longshot at this point.
This feels like an awkward time to make this argument considering the success the Rangers are having this season, but there’s always been talk about their successful rebuild when the rebuild technically wasn’t successful – they just succeeded at rushing it. Of the current group generating their success, Kreider, Shesterkin and Zibanejad were acquired before the team even announced their rebuild; Panarin, Trocheck and Trouba were acquired during their primes; and Fox was actually a prospect at the time he was acquired.
The result of that rebuild that the Rangers so dramatically announced nearly six years ago, however, has yet to be determined. Obviously Fox is going to be a staple on their blueline for years, Shesterkin will still be a top-end goalie until he does the thing goalies do and suddenly not be good, and Lafreniere, Miller and Chytil have been contributing to the team for the duration of their playoff success, but take away that main core above them (which will happen sooner than you think), and this team might be a fringe playoff team at best.
Lafreniere’s breakout is a sign that there may still be some hope for the long-term future of this team. It won’t change their current success, but if there isn’t more to surround Fox in the long-run, this competitive window will slam shut, and suddenly the Rangers will be right back to where they started six years ago.
Then again, who knows? It’s the New York Rangers. They could just as easily cheat the rebuild again and acquire elite talent using the same methods that got them their current group once the older guys fall off.
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