The New York Rangers have secured the first pick in the 2020 NHL draft by winning the draft lottery on Monday.
That means that they will most likely be welcoming Alexis Lafreniere to the team, who is the consensus No. 1 pick. This bodes very well for a Rangers team that began a rebuild in 2018 and has had a surprising amount of success in speeding up the process by making a string of very smart roster moves.
New York had the second pick in the 2019 draft and selected lauded Finnish winger Kaapo Kakko. After that, they picked up star free agent Artemi Panarin, who had a brilliant season this year and was one of the finalists in the run for league MVP.
Asked about the proposition of playing in New York, Lafreniere seems to be completely on board, stating that the Rangers are “an unreal team” and that he is “really happy” that they have the first pick.
Lafreniere is an 18-year-old winger from Quebec. He’s 6-foot-1 and he led the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League this year with 112 points in 52 games before the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lafreniere and Pittsburg Penguins star captain Sidney Crosby are the only two players in history to win the QMJHL MVP awards in back-to-back seasons.
