BURLINGTON, Vt. – Glen Sather doesn’t have to answer for drafting Manny Malhotra, Pavel Brendl or Jamie Lundmark. There aren’t hidden agendas in evaluating talent or in promoting the advance of one player rather than another. There isn’t any turf to defend. There aren’t any shoulders to look over. These are the most important cleansing aspects of the changing of the Ranger management guard.
And so while Malhotra, Brendl and Lundmark will all be given the opportunity to make the team during the exhibition season that commences Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia, they all will have to play their way in, not out. That’s as it should be.
“We’re going to give our young players the chance to make the hockey club and if they’re ready to help the club, we’ll likely have to move some of our older guys,” Ron Low said yesterday. “We’re not going to do anything to make ourselves worse.
“But they’re going to have to make it.”
Malhotra is in a different category than Brendl and Lundmark, the latter two the 1999 first-round choices who each have a season of junior eligibility remaining. The Rangers can send Malhotra to start the season in Hartford if they believe he’d be better served with more ice time in the AHL than he would be able to command in the NHL; they can’t do that with Brendl or Lundmark.
“Manny has to be a very aggressive forechecker; a basic, in-your-face, knock-down type of guy who reacts when confronted,” Low said. “If he can do that, if he becomes a player, that makes us better. If he can play, we’ll make room for him.”
Brendl, who never gave himself the chance to make the team last year after reporting in abysmal condition, worked hard over the summer, and it shows. But the winger hasn’t displayed the type of offensive ability that prompted Neil Smith to deal Dan Cloutier, Niklas Sundstrom and a first-rounder to Tampa Bay in order to draft him fourth overall last June. In scrimmages against players both older and younger and with both fatter and thinner resumes, Brendl has been nearly invisible in the offensive zone. It’s surprising.
“When I saw him play in junior he was very dynamic; he scored goals for fun,” Low said. “He has all the tools, but he has to prove he’s ready to play here. I’d like to see him shoot the puck and not pass it when he gets inside that 20-foot area.”
Brendl won’t remain with the team as a part-time fourth-liner. He’d have to be good enough to force his way into a top-three on the left side that now includes Adam Graves, Jan Hlavac and Valeri Kamensky. It’s possible, of course, but not at all likely; at least not as of today.
The same holds true for Lundmark’s prospect of avoiding a return to junior. No better than sixth on the depth chart down the middle behind Mark Messier, Petr Nedved, Mike York, Tim Taylor, and Malhotra, Lundmark has clearly been set back by the broken thumb that kept him out of the final two months of last season and prevented him from joining Hartford for the AHL playoffs. He’s struggled to create the magic that opened everyone’s eyes here last September.
“It’s very hard for a guy to lose what most likely is his most important development year,” Low said. “But he still has a chance to make the team.”
The decision on Malhotra likely will go down to the wire. Unless Brendl and Lundmark seize their opportunities with two hands apiece, their fate will likely be decided far earlier than that.
“I have mixed emotions about keeping guys around if it’s obvious they’re not going to make the club,” said Low. “I wonder if it’s not more constructive that they go right back immediately.
“As of now, it’s all hypothetical, anyway.”
