Waiver Wire Worries, Budding Young Talent, and the Case for a 23-Man Rangers Roster
The Rangers suddenly have a logjam of fourth-line centers, and a wave of young talent forcing some tough choices.
When I was doing my Offseason Questions series in the very early days of summer, there was one story I had planned to write but didn’t get to. Ironically, it became a bit of a hot topic in the early stages of training camp, and it has to do with a role the Rangers have never seemed to have trouble collecting players to fill.
That’s right folks, we're talking the fringe fourth liner, the utility man, the extra forward. Or in this case, forwards (plural). Let's get into it.
The main point I wanted to make in the unreleased fourth Offseason Question story was that the Rangers have too many guys on their roster filling just one role: Jusso Parssinen, Jonny Brodzinski, and Sam Carrick.
If you’re constructing a hockey team and want to use those players in a role they are best suited for, all three of them would slot in as your team’s fourth line center. In a pinch, Brodzinski can bump up to the third line, but that is absolutely his ceiling. Carrick is a textbook fourth line center, one I would say could even be the fourth line center on a very good hockey team. The second you expect any more from him is the moment he is being overused.
Lastly, Parssinen very well may have some untapped potential that we haven’t seen before. That’s probably what everyone is hoping for since right now, he’s seems to be the team’s third line center by default. If that becomes the case, fantastic. But as it currently stands, right in this moment in time, he, too, is best used in a fourth line role.
Overusing depth players has been a Rangers problem for as long as most of us can remember. So why is this such a topic of discussion right now? Well, everything we’ve seen so far in preseason has been the answer to that question. The Rangers have several younger players who are not only homegrown talent, but are turning some heads and making every case they can to earn an opening night roster spot.
Sounds like a good thing right? Problem is, there are only so many roster spots and historically speaking, the Rangers only like to carry a 22-man roster.
