Boy there sure were some dark times. It’s why I cringe now when people say the Rangers can’t develop forwards and we are great developing goalies. That wasn’t always the case and the recent drafted forwards seem to be doing much better than previous ones.
Fun facts:
From 96-03 the total number of games played by all of our 1st round picks combined is 1,429. Malhotra alone counts for 991 of those games. And Lundmark for 293. Ouch
32 picks; only 9 played more than 500gp. I believe only Kreider and Staal did that with the Rangers
[2023](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-23 [**Gabe Perreault**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabe_Perreault) GP 0
[2021](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-16 [**Brennan Othmann**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brennan_Othmann) 0
[2020](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-1 [**Alexis Lafrenière**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Lafreni%C3%A8re) 216
[2020](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_NHL_Entry_Draft)119[**Braden Schneider**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braden_Schneider) 124
[2019](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-2 [**Kaapo Kakko**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaapo_Kakko) 239
[2018](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-9 [Vitali Kravtsov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitali_Kravtsov) 63
[2018](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-22 [**K’Andre Miller**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27Andre_Miller) 214
[2018](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-28 [Nils Lundkvist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nils_Lundkvist) 85
[2017](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-7 [Lias Andersson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lias_Andersson) 110
[2017](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-21 [**Filip Chytil**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filip_Chytil) 327
[2012](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-28 [Brady Skjei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brady_Skjei) 529
[2011](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-15 [J. T. Miller](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._T._Miller) 718
[2010](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-10 [Dylan McIlrath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_McIlrath) 72
[2009](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-19 [**Chris Kreider**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Kreider) 733
[2008](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-20 [Michael Del Zotto](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Del_Zotto) 736
[2007](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-17 [Alexei Cherepanov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Cherepanov) 0 🙁 RIP
[2006](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-21 [Bob Sanguinetti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Sanguinetti) 45
[2005](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-12 [Marc Staal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Staal) 1101 (2nd)
[2004](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-6 [Al Montoya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Montoya) 168
[2004](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-19 [Lauri Korpikoski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauri_Korpikoski) 609
[2003](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-12 [Hugh Jessiman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Jessiman) 2
[2001](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-10 [Dan Blackburn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Blackburn) 63
[1999](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-4 [Pavel Brendl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Brendl) 78
[1999](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-9 [Jamie Lundmark](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Lundmark) 295
[1998](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-7 [Manny Malhotra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manny_Malhotra) 991(3rd)
[1997](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-19 [Stefan Cherneski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Cherneski) 0
[1996](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-22 [Jeff Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Brown_(ice_hockey,_born_1978)) 0
[1994](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-26 [Dan Cloutier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Cloutier) 351
[1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-8 [Niklas Sundstrom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklas_Sundstr%C3%B6m) 750
[1992](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-24 [Peter Ferraro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Ferraro) 92
[1991](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-15 [Alexei Kovalev](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Kovalev) 1300 (1st)
[1990](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_NHL_Entry_Draft) 1-13 [Michael Stewart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Stewart_(ice_hockey)) 0
​
by blueshirt11
4 Comments
The answer is and probably always will be Dylan McIlrath in 2010
Cherepanov
How much worse is the Rangers draft performance than other teams? Lots of teams have hits and misses, I’m curious if we are measurably worse.
Jessiman was bad because of how many HoF players were chosen after him. McIlrath was bad because he was a dumb pick at the time and guys like Cam Fowler and Vladimir Tarasenko were still on the board and Ranger forums were giddy with excitement that the Rangers could get one of them. Bobby Sanguinetti was bad but at the 20-25 range you’re not expecting to get a game breaker, but Giroux went right after. Can’t remember if there was hype surrounding him or not but hindsight. Cherapanov is sad because he had a whole life ahead of him if not for an undiagnosed heart condition, that one hurts more on the human side than the hockey side