By Warren Kozireski —
The New York Rangers began the rebuilding of their blueline of the future selecting defensemen with two of their three first round draft picks last June in K’Andre Miller from the University of Wisconsin 22nd overall and Sweden’s Nils Lundkvist 28th overall.
Three months prior to that, they made young defensemen key components of two trade deadline deals in getting Czech Republic-born, WHL-developed second round draft pick Libor Hajek from Tampa Bay in the Ryan McDonagh deal and University of Minnesota product Ryan Lindgren from Boston as part of the Rick Nash trade.
Since then, Lindgren left the Golden Gophers after two years and is now with the Rangers’ American Hockey League affiliate in Hartford.
“It’s going good; learning a lot and it helps a lot having these older guys, you learn so much from them,” Lindgren said in late December. “Having a d-partner like John Gilmour, who knows what it takes to play in the NHL and I can feed off of him so it’s been a lot of fun so far this year.”
The defensive-defenseman had five assists over his first 30 games with the Wolf Pack and was one of only three defensemen on the team, and the youngest, to be on the plus side of the plus/minus scale.
“I know what my role is and it’s not a role that you get a whole lot of glory (or) a whole lot of fame for, but I take pride in the way that I play and I think at least your teammates and coaches respect how I play.”
The 2016 second round draft pick will turn 21 years old in February and was a two-time medalist as part of Team USA for the IIHF Under-20 World Juniors taking bronze last year in Buffalo and gold the year prior.
Before college hockey, he played forward in junior at Shattuck St. Mary’s before being transitioned to defense while with the U.S. National Development team. He likes to model his game after Detroit’s Nicholas Cromwell, who plays a physical style.
Lindgren did play ten games in the AHL on a tryout contract late last season after his collegiate season ended, which has helped with his start to his first full year as a pro this season.
“Coming in to this year, playing those ten games helped me know what I was coming in to and you get to know the guys too was huge for me.”
A few years of development at the AHL level and Lindgren hopes to become a part of the next d-corp to complete the Rangers current rebuild.
“Absolutely. They got a lot of great defensemen in this organization right now and I need to keep working and keep getting better and better to hopefully, eventually play for the Rangers. We’re pushing each other, but I think the Rangers are in a great spot right now.
“Being a defensive-defenseman, you can get overlooked or not talked about as much as a guy who puts up a lot of numbers, but I think a lot of teams need “D” like that and that’s what I do.”
