If it wasn't so pathetic it would be hilarious.
First, the pathetic: For the third year in a row Brennan Othmann has failed to make the Rangers varsity coming out of training camp.
The Blueshirts' No. 1 draft pick – 16th overall in 2021 – Othmann either was first or second in The Hockey News Yearbook "Future Watch" over the last three years.
This year THN's Brennan song and dance went like this: "Plays the pacey, straight-line game coaches love." Make that "Hartford" coaches love, because that's where the Scarborough, Ontario product will hang out until Chris Drury can deal him to San Jose, Anaheim or maybe the Utah Mammoth.
Utah would be appropriate because Othmann has been a mammoth Ranger (Dury) failure.
Coach Mike Sullivan tried to explain the demotion in the kindest possible terms – describing the one-way Amtrak ride to Connecticut as an "exploratory process," or finding "what style of game" can make Brennan a big-leaguer.
A hat trick of failures should tell what Sully already knows; Othmann is a 22-year-old, 6-0, 192 pound minor leaguer, still young enough to be trade bait.
Now for the hilarious part of the Young Ranger story. For that we have to step back in time for fictional Rumplestiltskin who wove straw into gold.
Straw into gold? It could happen to the Rangers, before our very eyes. Just imagine that Mike Sullivan is Rumplestiltskin and Matt Rempe is the gold.
Remembering the Blueshirts Broadcasters
The <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/new-york-rangers">Rangers</a> Centennial Season Theme Nights, which begin on October 20 (vs.Minnesota), will be an all-inclusive tribute to just about everything and everyone of note connected to the franchise.
Man Mountain Matt becomes gold because he was plucked way-way down,165th overall, by a previous Blueshirt high command and now Rempe is emerging as a certified, Yankee-Doodle-Ipsy-Pipsy big leaguer. (And I don't mean 6-8 big either.)
No "exploratory" process is necessary with Rempe. He either bulldozes rink or casts heavy shadows over enemy goalies by screening them on Rangers power plays. It's that old, black magic that Rempe has in his spell.
Go figure! Hockey magic, Rumplestiltskin-style!