NEW YORK \u2013 As one of the most disappointing seasons in the history of the New York Rangers franchise starts to wind down to its final weeks, it only becomes natural to start looking towards next year to start rebuilding some hope.<\/p>\n
This weekend, some pieces of that puzzle potentially started to fall into place.<\/p>\n
Rookie goaltender Dylan Garand, a 23-year-old who had played in 148 American Hockey League games with the Hartford Wolf Pack since being drafted in the fourth round by the Blueshirts in 2020, finally made his long-awaited NHL debut on Sunday afternoon, earning first star honors in stopping 35 of the 37 shots he faced before ultimately falling to the Winnipeg Jets, 3-2, in a shootout.<\/p>\n
There were numerous chances, including this season, for Garand to have finally received that opportunity in the NHL much earlier, but he\u2019d either been curiously passed over for veteran Spencer Martin or recalled without actually getting to play. Although Sunday\u2019s performance came against a nearly equally abysmal Jets team, the Canadian-born netminder showed he can, at minimum, compete for the backup job behind Igor Shesterkin next season with 40-year-old Jonathan Quick\u2019s contract set to expire.<\/p>\n
To finally get the opportunity to show what he could do at the game\u2019s highest level meant a lot, as he beamed with pride in the back right corner of the Rangers locker room while meeting with the media despite the tough loss.<\/p>\n
\u201c(It meant) everything,\u201d Garand said. \u201cEverything. I don\u2019t even remember the last time I didn\u2019t want to be a hockey player, and this is my life\u2019s dream. It\u2019s pretty cool to accomplish that. Hopefully it\u2019s just the beginning, but it\u2019s a dream come true for sure and an awesome experience that I\u2019m glad my family is here for too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The comments will likely be the same soon for defense prospect Drew Fortescue, the Rangers\u2019 third-round draft pick in 2023 who signed his three-year, entry-level contract on Saturday shortly after his Boston College Eagles were eliminated in the Hockey East Tournament semifinals.<\/p>\n
Listed at six-foot-two and 194 pounds, the 20-year-old lefty shot blueliner is likely to see time in the NHL as soon as later this week barring a change in plans, and also figures to factor into next year\u2019s plans as some opportunities appear to be available on the bottom defensive pair.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re excited to have Drew,\u201d said Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan. \u201cI\u2019ve heard a lot about him.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t seen his game a whole lot, obviously\u2026we\u2019re looking forward to working with him. What I\u2019ll tell you is that I would envision him playing some games here moving forward.\u00a0 He has good size, he skates well, I think his defensive capability is his core strength based on the conversations that I\u2019ve had. He\u2019s got a little bit of edge to him and he\u2019s a competitive guy.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to try to help him get a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger, as with most young players that\u2019s one of the challenges of making the jump to this league\u2026but the attributes that he has, we\u2019re real excited about and we\u2019re looking forward to working with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
MERRIMACK CAPTURES HOCKEY EAST TITLE<\/p>\n
For the first time ever, an eight seed won the Hockey East Tournament. The Trentonian was on hand on Friday for the semifinals at TD Garden in Boston, and it was eventually Merrimack which came out on top one day later over UConn to win their first ever conference crown and advance to the NCAA\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Undrafted goaltender Max Lundgren was a unanimous selection to the All-Tournament Team with a dazzling showing in back-to-back games including Friday\u2019s win over UMass, while Boston Bruins first-round draft pick in 2024, Dean Letourneau, also made the team with a two-goal performance in Boston College\u2019s Friday night loss to UConn.<\/p>\n
Letorneau is expected to return to school for his junior year, but the status of skilled forward James Hagens, who went seventh overall to the Bruins in 2025 and had two assists on Friday, remains undetermined. Just 19 years old, Hagens would make an immediate impact on a Bruins team that\u2019s just one point up on the New York Islanders and two points ahead of the Detroit Red Wings in a wild race for the final two Eastern Conference playoff spo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2013 As one of the most disappointing seasons in the history of the New York Rangers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5121],"tags":[5,78,4,43,5366,77,18,5288],"class_list":{"0":"post-518795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-winnipeg-jets","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-jets","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-top-stories-trt","13":"tag-winnipeg","14":"tag-winnipeg-jets","15":"tag-winnipegjets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116279665436509538","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}