Offseason Thoughts Pt. 1: The First Round Pick, Coach Sullivan, & The Core

Hey all,

Welcome to a series I'm going to do as we roll through the offseason. It's brilliantly and creatively named "Offseason Thoughts!" Each will have a theme, but they'll be about mostly anything on my mind. Sort of scary! Anyway, enjoy.

• The New York Rangers did not win the NHL Draft Lottery, and actually dropped a slot to 12th overall. The organization has until 48 hours before the NHL Draft to inform the Pittsburgh Penguins if they will be relinquishing this pick to them as part of the conditions of the J.T. Miller trade. If they do not do that, they will forfeit an unprotected 2026 first round pick to their division rival. Don't love that.
• The idea would really be: Which pick has more value right now? Brilliant, I know, but I don't mean it in the way you might think. I don't think the Rangers use this pick to make a selection if they keep it. I think what Drury is weighing right now is if the 12th overall pick will have enough juice to move or acquire a player he wants—rather than the (hopefully) 20-30th pick in next year's draft. I personally do not subscribe to the idea that you can simply keep passing up on prospects, but I think the Rangers are in that mindset so hopefully they take some swings on talent in the later rounds.
• The good news from a timing perspective is Chris Drury would be doing work before he gets to the draft floor. Teams love to let the board shake out in a draft like this where the top three picks can sort of go in any order, and see how things fall before they make a move. That complicates things a little, but I think Drury might be dealing with teams drafting in the teens and later anyway in terms of looking to weaponize the 12th overall if he wants.
• Which brings us to Mr. Sullivan and the impact he's going to absolutely have on this lineup—which might mean keeping some faces around we thought were going to be kicked to the curb.

More after the jump on all that.