Chris Kreider in the June 12 trade<\/a> with the Ducks. \u201cCarey\u2019s one of my closest friends. He usually spends time at my house during the summer, and will come down and hang out. And beyond hockey, we\u2019re just really, really good friends off the ice. So, for me to be in an organization where I have one of my best friends there, it\u2019s a pretty cool feeling, knowing that I get to be there with Carey on the daily. Just like I did the past three years, it\u2019s pretty remarkable. Really excited to see him.\u201d<\/p>\nMalcolm Spence of Erie skates without the puck during a game between Erie Otters and Saginaw Spirit at Dow Event Center on November 15, 2024 in Saginaw, Michigan. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Most \u2014 if not all \u2014 of the Rangers\u2019 picks this weekend are expected to report to development camp on Tuesday. That includes Spence, who said he thought the plan was for him to fly to New York on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Having developed a reputation of taking over games and being built for the playoffs, Spence scored the game-winning goal in overtime with seven seconds remaining to win gold for Canada at the 2023 Hlinka Gretzky Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In 65 games this past season, the 6-foot-2, 201-pounder posted 32 goals and 41 assists for 73 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rangers director of player personnel and director of amateur scouting John Lilley said the organization\u2019s selection of five defensemen was more about the players who were available at that time rather than the club specifically targeting blueliners.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s certainly not an area that you could ever have enough of,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Rangers made two selections in the third round, picking up 6-foot-5 defenseman Sean Barnhill at 70th overall and Russian blueliner Artyom Gonchar at 89th overall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Malcolm Spence stands onstage after being selected 43rd overall by the New York Rangers during Rounds 2-7 of the 2025 NHL Draft at Peacock Theater on June 28, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Committed to Northeastern University, Barnhill is coming off a 12-point campaign with the Dubuque Fighting Saints in the USHL last season. Gonchar, on the other hand, is the nephew of longtime NHLer Sergei Gonchar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After taking center Mikkel Eriksen at 111th overall, the Rangers added a player to the prospect pool with a familiar name. Left-handed defenseman Zeb Lindgren \u2014 of no relation to former Blueshirt Ryan Lindgren \u2014 was selected with the 139th pick.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eriksen has been playing in the Swedish Junior League, where he recorded 43 points in 40 games for F\u00e4rjestad BK last season. Skating is considered to be Lindgren\u2019s strongest asset.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With two picks in Round 6, the Rangers took right wing Samuel Jung at 166th overall and defenseman Evan Passmore at No. 171. Defenseman Felix F\u00e4rhammar capped off the Rangers\u2019 eight selections in this year\u2019s draft at 203rd overall in the seventh round.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re happy with the draft,\u201d Lilley said. \u201cWe have a process in place. We prepare as if we\u2019re going to pick No. 1, because you never know what can happen on draft day. So our process takes the entire year all the way through yesterday, we were still debating players and talking about players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of picks, and the first one started at 43 and our job is \u2014 whether we\u2019re picking No. 1, 15 or 43 \u2014 be prepared. I think we were prepared for picks we had in every round.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2014 With Elite Prospects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rangers\u2019 first pick of the 2025 draft came in the second round, but the player they got…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,7800,405,403,1302,5226,5225,293,8993,5228,5227,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-23925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-michigan-wolverines","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-rangers","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-nhl-draft","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114765480998497182","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}