NHL Mailbag: Reviewing NY Rangers rebuild, New York Islanders, and more

This week’s NHL mailbag features questions about the NY Rangers rebuild, the New York Islanders, award ballots, and more!

After a brief hiatus, the Puck Prose NHL mailbag is back. This week, we’ve got some interesting topics to discuss. How is the NY Rangers rebuild going? Are the New York Islanders ready to be taken seriously as Stanley Cup contenders? What about hypothetical NHL award ballots? And just how darn bad are the Ottawa Senators?

All of those questions, and more, will be answered in this week’s mailbag. To submit a question, just tweet at us on Twitter (@Puck_Prose) and use the hashtag #PuckProseMailbag. You can also submit questions via email (fansided.dave@gmail.com) with “Puck Prose Mailbag” as the subject.

Rangers Rebuild

Q: How would you grade the New York Rangers rebuild so far?

Frankly, the New York Rangers get a C at best. It’s been a solid rebuild, but there’s still a bunch of really weird stuff going on with the Rangers. There’s much more to a rebuild than getting prospects and draft picks. Just ask the Edmonton Oilers.

Prospects

K’Andre Miller was a bold draft choice, as was Vitaly Kravtsov. Both were upside picks. Thus far, both guys are making the Rangers look really smart. Nils Lundkvist hasn’t done as well as expected, but I still love him as a transitional/puck moving defenseman.

Joey Keane’s been a nice surprise, but other than him, the rest of the 2018 draft class wasn’t that great. Brett Howden’s been a pleasant surprise. Hopefully, the Rangers get their act together and try giving guys like Liam Andersson and Filip Chytil more playing time as well.

Young Players

Here’s where things get dicey. The Rangers are overworking Henrik Lundqvist (a proud tradition in Madison Square Garden). Marc Staal is getting the third-most five-on-five ice time per game among blue shirts defensemen, which is suboptimal to say the least.

Rebuilds are about figuring out what you’ve got in your young players. There’s no reason Anthony DeAngelo should be in the press box, yet he’s been a healthy scratch at least 15 times. That’s at least 15 times too many. Also, it’s not good for a rebuilding team to be committing over $20 million to their blueline when their blueline is arguably their biggest weakness.

Culture

In order to build a consistent winner, you need a winning culture. Take a look at the Capitals, Penguins, Predators, Lightning, etc. I’m not sold the Rangers have done much to change that. Veterans are still playing over young players.

The front office is still making some questionable moves, like not trading Mats Zuccarello during the offseason. Quinn was supposed to bring in a culture of accountability. Things have gotten slightly better there, but the issues that were there under Alain Vigneault are still there under Quinn.