Larry Brooks

Larry Brooks

NHL

The Rangers’ greatest strength has become a 12-year dilemma

It was Lou Lamoriello, then my boss when we worked for the Devils and now the general manager of the Maple Leafs team the Rangers face Friday night at the Garden, who counseled by offering this adage from time to time: “Your greatest strength can be your greatest weakness.”

Lamoriello had — and I imagine, still has — many adages at his disposal. But this one applies to the Blueshirts. For while it is indisputably true that the Rangers’ strength rests with their depth and concept of team, it is concurrently their weakness as a putative contender that they don’t have a legitimate game-breaker among them.

No Crosby. No Ovechkin. No McDavid. No Toews. No Kane. No Doughty (no, doubt). No Malkin.

No Auston Matthews. (And no Mitch Marner.)

They don’t grow on trees.

They are, instead, spawned by the entry draft, as first-rounders (Ranger fans can be forgiven for scratching their heads while attempting to research the meaning of that term), and more specifically, as top-end picks.

Alex OvechkinGetty Images

You know the last time the Rangers had a top-end pick? In 2004, when they had the sixth-overall selection after their seventh straight playoff miss. They used that pick to draft Al Montoya out of Michigan after the Wolverines’ sophomore goaltender had led Team USA to its first World Junior Championship in history.

It was the wrong pick, quite obviously, with Montoya never playing so much as a single game for the Rangers before constructing a credible career as an NHL backup with the Islanders, Jets, Panthers and, currently, the Canadiens.

But it was also the wrong year, for there wasn’t a single impact player chosen within proximity of Montoya on the board when it was the Rangers’ turn. Or maybe you think that overlooking Rostislav Olesz, Alexandre Picard or Ladislav Smid had a deleterious effect on franchise history.

The Blueshirts did blunder badly later in the first round, trading up to select Lauri Korpikoski at No. 19, one slot ahead of where another center named Travis Zajac was scooped up by Lamoriello’s Devils, but that’s part of a different narrative.

The thing is, you have to be lucky as well as bad to get the kind of franchise player the Blueshirts haven’t had in eons. That is aside from Henrik Lundqvist, one of the greatest players in franchise history. But a great goaltender alone isn’t enough.

Al Montoya in 2011 with the IslandersNeil Miller

Dominik Hasek, whom The King just surpassed to become the winningest European-born netminder in NHL history, was at the height of his powers throughout the late 1990s in Buffalo, but couldn’t win a Cup until he joined the overloaded Red Wings for their 2001-02 championship march.

Plus, you have to be bad for a long time to get the multiple game-breaking stars who have led the Penguins, Blackhawks and Kings to multiple Cups over the last decade. And you have to be bad for a long time and hope the lottery balls break your way.

How about those Sabres, finishing with the league’s worst record in both 2013-14 and 2014-15, but failing to come up with the first overall pick either year? How about Buffalo having Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel — terrific young players, don’t get me wrong — instead of Aaron Ekblad and Connor McDavid?

You hear it all the time: tear it down, tear it down, bottom out, do it the right way, presumably as opposed to being close enough to the Cup to sniff the champagne and trading four straight first-rounders in order to get it. Sound familiar?

Auston MatthewsGetty Images

But you can spend years as bottom-feeders and be, well, you can be the 2016-17 Islanders.

This is the quandary and this is the challenge for the Rangers, who, once they had Lundqvist — and their first wave of young Bluebloods that included Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky, Marc Staal and Dan Girardi — were never going to plummet to the depths the way the Penguins, Blackhawks and Kings did.

The way the Maple Leafs, bursting with young bucks Matthews (first overall last year), Marner (fourth overall in 2015 behind McDavid, Eichel and Dylan Strome) and William Nylander (eighth overall in 2014), did in missing the playoffs in 10 of the last 11 seasons.

The Rangers don’t have those guys coming. They don’t have Crosby, McDavid, Ovechkin, Doughty, Toews or Kane. What they have is depth up front that runs for miles.

That is the Blueshirts’ greatest strength. As Lamoriello might say, that is also their greatest weakness.