Since Chris Drury issued a letter outlining the New York Rangers’ plan to “retool” the roster in January, his preference to build this retool around already proven young players and pro ready prospects has become clear. 

Retools or rebuilds are often built on the foundation of draft picks. However, Drury has opted to take a different approach with the Rangers. 

When trading Artemi Panarin to the Los Angeles Kings in February, Drury acquired 2024 first-round pick, Liam Greentree, a prospect who is expected to make the professional-hockey jump this upcoming season. 

The Rangers also acquired forward prospect Cole Beaudoin as one of the main center pieces of the trade that sent Vincent Trocheck to the Utah Mammoth last week. 

Drury is also willing to sacrifice draft capital in order to acquire young established talent. 

That was shown when the Rangers acquired Pavel Dorofeyev from the Vegas Golden Knights in exchange for the 26th-and 92nd-overall picks in the 2026 draft and a top-10 protected first-round pick in 2028. 

Despite looking to get younger as a team, Drury defended his preference of acquiring young players and giving up valuable draft capital in return.

“My philosophy, and our philosophy was, if they're for the right player or players that are at the right age with the right contract, that can help our lineup — not just in the next year or two, but for a number of years down the road — that would be worth it,” Drury said about his reasoning of giving up three first-round picks. 

“We were also able to acquire at the deadline a first-round pick that's closer to playing and turning pro this year in (Liam) Greentree, and a little later pick in (Jacob) Battaglia, and obviously Cole (Beaudoin) yesterday was a former first-round pick, so we felt like we plugged some holes with not only real players to put on our roster that can play in key roles, but also added some some other picks and actual draft picks and an actual prospects in those players I mentioned.”