The Rangers announced a rebuild (or reshape if you like) in 2018. In fact they already had made one move by trading Raanta and Stepan for the 7OA (their actual pick was 21st) and Tony D'Angelo. Then they picked a guy 7OA who was out of the league in a couple seasons.
They then had the 9OA the next year and got Kravtsov, who was also a huge dud.
So then at the 2018 TDL, they traded McDonough (who had a year left and therefore was like the Rasmus trade people wanted last season) along with JT Miller for Brett Howden, Vladislav Namestnikov, Libor Hajek, a 2018 first-round pick and a 2019 second-round pick. They drafted duds with those picks. And traded away the two players for peanuts.
They didn't tank, but managed to win two lotteries to get Lafrieniere and Kakko. Their actual success was not in building through getting draft picks and prospects, but rather from signing big money UFAs Panarin and Trocheck, stealing Fox, and stumbling into Shesterkin in the 4th round back in 2014.
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