With the Rangers having…. uhhh….. let’s call it an up and down season, I threw out the idea on Twitter a few weeks back about having a prospects mailbag piece where myself, George Obremski and Rich Coyle tackle some of our followers questions in a dedicated article. Needless to say, you are currently reading this, so we got a good amount of questions that allowed us to proceed with the piece. Below we take turns answers the questions we received, with a few questions warranting responses from all of us. Going forward, please don’t hesitate to reach out to any of us if you ever have questions or ideas of prospect content you’d like to see from us in the future (beyond rankings of course). Time permitting, we will try to get to as many of the ideas you all have as possible!
And with that, let’s get this show started.
Drew Way Answer:
I like this question a lot, mainly because it gives me a great excuse to plug our February rankings, which I highlighted Aatu Räty as one of my early front runners for the Ty Smith Memorial Trophy. For those of you that are unfamiliar with my silly award, the tl;dr version means I like him a lot, and more than the general consensus.
First, to provide a bit of background to JBFazz’s question, Aatu Räty is a Finnish center that, early on in his career completely took the prospect world by storm, and as early as age 14 was considered the gem of this draft class when he put up 57 points in 40 games playing for Kärpät’s U16 team across both the full year. At age 15, he put up video game like numbers, dominating the league, posting an absurd 96 points over 39 games at the U16 level before being promoted to the U18 level at the end of the year, where he capped off the dominant season with 9 points in 6 games as a 15-year-old in the U18 league. The 2018-2019 season Räty picked up right where he left off, posting 18 points in 6 games before quickly finding himself as a 16-year-old being called up to the U20 league. He played the remainder of his D-2 season playing at the U20 level and posted 17 goals and 14 assists (31 points) in 41 games, very impressive numbers for a 16-year-old playing at the U20 level.
The 2019-2020 year painted a very different picture for the young phenom however. He earned a promotion to the big leagues and posted 4 points across 12 games for Kärpät, no small feat for a teenager getting limited minutes. However, after being sent back down to the U20 club, he just didn’t look that same—and flat out looked disinterested at times—and did not take the leap anyone thought he would, and ended the season with just two goals and 19 assists in 30 games. He then started this season incredibly slowly, leading many to believe last year’s struggles were not a blip on the radar. He has since turned it around a bit, but his play is still a bit inconsistent for someone of his pedigree, and he is not showing up on the score sheet nearly enough, with just 5 points (3 goals, 2 assists) in 26 games for Kärpät at the Liiga level as I type this.
That roller coaster of a ride is why JBFazz and many others have seen opinions that are all over the place on Aatu Räty.
Now, to actually answer the question. Personally, I like what I see a lot out of Aatu Räty’s game this year, and despite the box score production not being there, I still have him ranked at 5 overall in my ranks, and on my top tier. As I said in the February article, I feel that when everyone in this class plays their A game, Räty is comfortably in the conversation for the best player in this class.
He is a powerful center who, in my opinion, is the most likely to maintain his position as a center at the NHL level out of any of the other top centers in this class, which also includes the likes of Kent Johnson, Matthew Beniers, William Eklund and Cole Sillinger. He is an excellent two way player and I am confident his defensive abilities will translate to the NHL and make him at worst a reliable, middle-6 two-way center that can play in all situations. However, I also feel he has the ceiling to become a first line center in the NHL. I don’t think he has it in him to be a no-brainer, top-10 1A center in the NHL, but I can certainly see a Derek Stepan type career where he is a 1B center that can play on your power play or penalty kill and drive possession on any line he’s on. I would also add that he’s a considerably better skater than Stepan and has a much better shot, so insert that into this equation as well.
So, in terms of tools what you get from Aatu Räty is powerful, strong-skating two-way center with a fantastic wrist shot. Sure, there are some warts in his game, but this is a draft class that is weak at the top, and not a single player exists that does not have a wart or two in their game. Personally, I put Räty in the same conversation that many are putting Matthew Beneirs when discussing the players most likely to make an impact at the center position in the NHL.
George Obremski Answer:
Normally, I feel the Rangers should always go with BPA. However, due to the talent dispersion in this class, not to mention the general uncertainty surrounding it, this is a rare time I would suggest going with positional need. The team needs help at center as well as left-handed defense. In my opinion, the top 3 centers for this year’s draft are Matthew Beniers, Aatu Räty, and Cole Sillinger.
To be clear, I’m strictly referring to true centers that I feel will wind up as centers in the NHL. Kent Johnson and William Eklund belong in the discussion of top-3 players that are at least part-time centers, but both have played a lot of wing this year and both have skillsets that an NHL coach very well might decide are best suited on the wing.
All three of Beniers, Räty and Sillinger have made appearances in the top-10 across various lists you’ll see. Our aggregate rankings published in February had Beniers at 5, Räty at 8 and Sillinger at 12 overall.
Berniers has been great for University of Michigan and was very noticeable during the 2021 World Juniors Championship. Aatu Räty might have been the top center at the start of last season, but two season’s worth of underproduction relative to expectation has caused him to fall a good amount, but he still absolutely is in the discussion for a top-10 pick. Cole Sillinger has been very noticeable for Sioux Falls Stampede of the USHL. While he’s currently outside of the top 10 of many, I wouldn’t be surprised if he continues to rise in the rankings and winds up hearing his name called within the top-10 on draft day.
If you want a larger profile on Sillinger, check out our February piece linked above, as Drew did a profile on him as one of his early front runners for his Ty Smith Memorial Trophy.
Rich Coyle Answer:
I got a kick out of the way this question was asked. All jokes aside, this is a pretty tough one. Usually, you see someone say this anytime a prospect is above 6 foot, near 200 pounds and is producing halfway decently in their league. If I had to pick a prospect that the prognosticators will say is best suited to adjust to the physical rigors of the NHL immediately, it would be one of the gigantic defenseman at the top of the draft—Owen Power or Simon Edvinsson. They are both pretty raw in other facets of the game and would be best suited playing an additional year or two where they are now, but from a physical perspective, those are the guys I could the pundits saying “has a man’s body”.
Drew Answer:
This is a very interesting question to me. First, let’s remember that the Rangers went into the draft with their own pick (9), Boston’s pick (26) and Tampa Bay’s pick (28). They decided to send Ottawa the 48th pick—the Devils 2nd rounder they acquired for Grabner—in order to move up from 26 to 22 and select K’Andre Miller. So, for the purposes of this exercise, I’m Jeff Gorton and I’ve just taken Quinn Hughes, who fell into my lap at 9, and now I can do whatever I want over the remainder of the draft, assuming the players taken by other teams still go in the same order.
Am I allowed to say trade up to 17 and take Ty Smith?
Kidding aside, even leaning into my Ty Smith schtick I wouldn’t be able to rationally justify that move given I just took a left-handed defenseman at 9. To be honest, knowing what we know now about K’Andre, Nils Lundkvist and the other prospects taken in this range, despite overpaying based on precedent to move up from 26 to 22, the Rangers absolutely knocked it out of the park. I think you can EASILY answer this question by simply saying I wouldn’t change anything, as the Rangers came out of the draft with two of the best players taken outside of the lottery in the entire draft—at worst I’d say they have two of the 4 best players taken after the lottery picks.
However, for the sake of having a bit of fun with this, I’ll change things up a bit. If I’m not allowed to use hindsight and apply what we know now to the decisions, than given my ranks in 2018, I sit pretty, take Joe Veleno at 26 (whom, at the time, many had ranked as someone that could’ve gone in the lottey), and then I still select Nils Lundkvist at 28. I had Lundkvist ranked in the early 20s in my ranks, and we actually had the Rangers taking him at 26 in the mock draft we did that year. If I’m allowed to use what we know today, I take Lundkvist at 26, and then I trade 28 back to Tampa Bay in exchange for their 2018 2nd round pick and them removing the condition on the 2019 pick, thus guaranteeing another first rounder in what was, in my opinion at least, a much deeper talent pool than 2018 (if you need to throw in other pieces to balance out the value than fine). Then, with the 2019 Tampa Bay first rounder, I take Arthur Kaliyev or Nils Höglander—yes, they are wingers and the Rangers are loaded at wing, but they are both great young players that, at the very least, would be an extremely valuable commodity on the trade market in search for a player at a greater position of need (like, say, Jack Eichel).
George Answer:
With the Rangers 2nd of three first round picks (26th overall- Before trading up), I would select Nils Lundvkist. This pick would still stand even with a perfect world where Quinn Hughes failing to 9th overall. Nils would be a great top-4 option for the Rangers on the right side, and is a good enough prospect where you take him if he’s there, regardless of what you did earlier in the draft.
With the 3rd pick (28th overall), I’d take Rasmus Sandin. He was picked 29th in our mock draft and was someone I was targeting with our third first round pick at the time. He would be able to slot in as the 2nd LHD behind Hughes and make a solid top 4 with Fox & Trouba. This would be 3 defensemen in the 1st round and I would be perfectly fine with that as it would allow us to have two top-4 on the left side with Quinn and Rasmus and a top-4 on the right side that includes Nils. Even with drafting all defenesmen in the 1st round, it would create a top 4 of Quinn Hughes, Adam Fox, Nils and Sandin.
Rich Answer:
I change nothing. The Rangers two biggest holes at the moment are left defense and center. If the Rangers were to draft Quinn Hughes at #9 in 2018, then I would still draft K’Andre Miller and Nils Lundkvist. We need to remember that at that point, the Rangers had not traded for Adam Fox yet. So, for me to come out of a single round of a single draft with what could potentially be my top-3 defenseman for a very, very long time, it’s a no brainer for me. That would have hammered out what is now a critical need for the Rangers. The only other player that would have changed my mind is Joel Farabee, but it is unlikely that he would have fallen to where the Rangers picked next in the early 20s after their decision to trade up.
Drew Answer:
I’m grouping these questions by Sam Stern and G Buckley together as they both in essence are asking the same thing: acknowledging the fact there is no consensus top few guys in this draft, when does drafting for positional need come into play?
This is a great question, and questions like this are a BIG part of my methodology behind ranking prospects into tiers. The way my tiers work, is that every player on a particular tier are more or less interchangeable to me. If I have 5 players on a tier, then you can rank those 5 in any order and I would not argue it. Sure, I might have my own personal biases and preferences, or I might feel one player has slightly more upside or a slightly higher floor, and those factors go into the exact order I eventually place them in. But, at the end of the day, all players on a tier can be selected in any order, and I won’t take any issue with it.
Let’s create a hypothetical scenario using names and pick slots to make the answer a bit more straight-forward shall we. I just updated my rankings a bit, and I now have 8 players n my top tier (in my February rankings I had 5): Owen Power, Brandt Clarke, Luke Hughes, Kent Johnson, Aatu Räty, Fabian Lysell, Matthew Beniers and William Eklund. Let’s say the Rangers are selecting at 3, and Owen Power and Matthew Beniers went off the board with the first two selections. So, there are now 6 players left that, according to my tier methodology, I think are all perfectly fine selections, in a vacuum, for the Rangers at 3.
Brandt Clarke, a right-handed defenseman, is the top player left on my list, so if I’m going strictly by the “take whoever is at the top of your list” adage, he’d be the choice here. But again, back to the importance of tiers, I view him to be more or less comparable, all things considered, to five other guys on the board. This includes Aatu Räty, who I am extremely confident will be a center in the NHL, Kent Johnson and William Eklund, both of whom play center and wing and who are 50% likely at best to be centers at the NHL level, the left-handed defenseman Luke Hughes and pure winger Fabian Lysell.
So, the long story short here is using the hypothetical I outlined, if you are someone that thinks center is absolutely the spot that is the largest area of need for the Rangers’ pipeline, I think this is where you could “reach” a few spots and take Aatu Räty and be 100% justified in doing so. Likewise, for selecting Luke Hughes if you feel that left handed defense is the greater area of need in the pipeline. If you want to shoot for the moon with the highest upside given the depth of quality prospects the Rangers have, then you can’t go wrong with Lysell, Eklund or Johnson.
If it’s me making the decision, and I have to make the decision right now given the information I have at hand, I will ever so slightly lean Luke Hughes, who I have at 3 overall currently, over Brandt Clarke who I currently have at 2 overall. I feel the left-handed positional value could be more impactful for the Rangers who currently have Adam Fox and Jacob Trouba who presumably both will be on the team for years to come, and also have Nils Lundkvist (who might be joining the team as soon as this year) and Braden Schneider as two prospects on the right side with very high likelihoods of becoming meaningful contributors at the NHL level. But again, I would not argue in the slightest if you are reading this and you’d prefer any other player I listed above.
Rich Answer
This is an excellent question. Fortunately, we have past examples of top prospects all playing on the same team. The 2019 U-18 NTDP was an absolutely stacked team with Jack Hughes, Trevor Zegras, Alex Turcotte, and co. all on the same team. Questions were raised about whether or not they are actually *that* good or if they are a product of the team and what not. Seeing as how they have progressed, it has certainly affected how I view top prospects playing on the same team.
It’s important to look at several factors. Do they drive play? Do they drive offense or does it look like they are just passengers? Who are their points coming with? In addition, it is immensely helpful to look at any data that may help you make the determination.
In this case, you have Kent Johnson and Matthew Beniers playing with a pretty loaded forward group that also includes Thomas Bordeleau and Brendan Brisson. Kent Johnson often played on Matthew Beniers left wing this season. I would have liked to see better primary point production from Johnson this season, but I don’t think either player’s production was the product of playing with one another. I think both players are capable of driving offense on their own if they played on different lines. They are both immensely talented forwards with little to separate them in my draft rankings.
With regards to Owen Power, I think this is less of a “concern” for a defenseman. It’s not that production isn’t as important for defenseman, but their ability to play defense is equally as important. I don’t think playing with this group has changed things one way or another for Power. Most of his points are primary points and he has a good GF%Rel (the percentage of goals his team scores compared to the opposition when he is on the ice, relative to how his team does when he is off the ice), so statistically he looks the part of a top prospect. His decision making is a little raw and leaves room for improvement, but that has a lot more to do with himself and not so much his teammates.
All in all, there isn’t anything to suggest that any of these players are a product of one another. If there was, they are usually pretty evident.
George Answer:
I don’t even know. Then again, I have yet to meet Drew in person. Hopefully I could meet Drew at some point after this end of the world phase at a Blueshirts Breakaway event.
Rich Answer:
It’s simple. My ego is lowkey equally as large. Thus, they cancel each other out.
Drew Answer:
George Answer:
Matt Kiersted is an NCAA player that has really stood out this season. He was the best defensemen at the NCAA level last season as a Junior, and decided to return for his senior season with University of North Dakota. He was considered a top NCAA free agent last year when the college season was cut short due to the pandemic, and now that his senior year is coming to an end, represents the possibility for a very strong signing for a savvy NHL team.
Given the need for the Rangers at LHD, Kiersted should be a target for them. He could honestly be a top-6 defenseman for the team right now, and I believe he could play on the PK as well as chip in a bit offensively. He’s a solid skater and has the ability to make a very good 1st pass from his own end. He is very sound defensively and he plays in big situations for University of North Dakota and logs top minutes. He also has a good, quick release that can get through traffic and cause havoc for the opposition.
Photo credit for the featured image at the top of the article: Rena Laverty
