This was another summer of change for the Rangers, even more so than in the recent past. Yet general manager Jeff Gorton made it clear he is not done revamping, even if he’s preparing to go into training camp to see what happens before making any rash decisions.
“I’m never comfortable with anything,” Gorton said Friday, when the Rangers began on-ice testing at the practice facility in Tarrytown before the first real practice Saturday. “I think you’re always looking to get better at all positions. You want to be deeper. So we’ll always look to get deeper and see what we can do. But for now, we have some players we want to look at. We have two first-round picks we want to look at in camp, we have a bunch of different things we’re working on, so we’ll see where it takes us in camp.
“Everything right now is on paper. We haven’t even seen pucks. It’ll be nice to see some pucks.”
For now, Gorton is hoping patience is a virtue, which is most apparent in his lack of depth down the middle. Gorton traded No. 1 center Derek Stepan to the Coyotes at June’s draft, a deal he reiterated was made in large part to clear salary-cap space in order to sign the biggest name on the free-agent market, defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk. Now the Rangers are relying on Mika Zibanejad and Kevin Hayes to move up the depth chart and prove themselves worthy of that confidence.
“We’ll see what [Zibanejad and Hayes] can do,” Gorton said. “I know they’re both looking forward to their opportunity. This is the NHL. Let’s see if they can step up.”
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Gorton also is hoping for a successful preseason experiment, moving J.T. Miller back to the middle after the vast majority of his five-year NHL career has been spent at wing. The 24-year-old Miller said he’s comfortable with the move and even more comfortable moving into a bigger leadership role.
“When I was 19 and I first got here, it’s a little different now,” Miller said. “It happens fast, but I feel like that was one of the things I was worried about coming into the season. I want to be more of a leader and lead by example, be a consistent 82-game player. I think I can do that, and I think it’s time I stepped up a little bit more in that category.”
As confident as the Rangers are in Miller, Hayes and Zibanejad, that doesn’t mean Gorton is going to sit on his hands and hope it all works out. It might help if some of his young defensemen — like Anthony DeAngelo, Neal Pionk, Sean Day and Ryan Graves — prove themselves in training camp, thus giving him some good assets in the market.
“We all know that defensemen and centers, they’re a pretty good commodity in this league right now,” Gorton said. “Finding [a center], we’re not the only team looking. I’d like to think that some of the guys we have here can do the job. We’re going to give them the opportunity. Right now, that’s where our focus is — on the ice here and see what these guys can do.”
Gorton also mentioned the No. 7-overall pick from this year’s draft, Lias Andersson, as a possible piece that could fit down the middle.
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“We like him a lot,” Gorton said. “He’s a real character player. He’s got skill, he has a passion for hockey to be really good. He’s 18 years old, so it’s probably unfair to put too much expectation on him, and we’re not going to do that. We’ll give him some games, he’ll be in our camp, and we’ll see where it takes us.”
It’s still early, and there are a lot of pieces up in the air. But the onus remains on Gorton to figure it all out, even if he doesn’t think it has to happen right away.
“I think that a lot of times when people have to forecast what’s going on and who’s going to be good or whatever, you’re looking at it on paper and you’re planning on what we’re going to be like on Sept. 1 or Oct. 1,” Gorton said. “And we’re not thinking of it like that. I’m looking at training camp, look at everybody, see how we look on the ice, then we kind of can adjust from there after camp.”