Rangers select local talent Drew Fortescue in third round of draft
Drew Fortescue celebrates after being selected 90th overall by the Rangers during the 2023 Upper Deck NHL Draft at Bridgestone Arena on Thursday in Nashville, Tenn. Credit: Getty Images/Bruce Bennett
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Drew Fortescue sat at the podium at Bridgestone Arena proudly wearing a blue Rangers’ jersey with No. 23 for his draft year.
But he admitted he grew up in Pearl River, New York — about 35 minutes north of Manhattan and even closer to the team’s practice facility in Greenburgh — as a huge Islanders’ fan.
“Not anymore,” the Rangers’ third-round pick said on Thursday. “Being picked by them, I’m so grateful and super excited and being close to home is awesome and I’ll have all those people that are here be able to watch my games hopefully someday in the future.”
Fortescue said he’s been to multiple Ranger-Islanders games at Madison Square Garden, Nassau Coliseum and UBS Arena.
Nearly 50 of Fortescue’s family and friends cheered loudly from stands as the Rangers sent a seventh-round pick in 2024 to the Penguins to move up from the 91st pick to 90th to take him.
“We just didn’t want to lose him,” said John Lilley, the Rangers director of scouting and player development. “It just wasn’t worth not getting him if that was the case. We don’t think it was a big price to pay. To lose the player would have been a lot worse because that list dropped off at that point where we valued him that much more than the next player we had.”
Lilley praised the 6-1, 176-pound Fortescue’s puck-moving abilities and the physical edge in his game.
The two-way defenseman spent two seasons with the U.S. National Development Team with two goals and 11 assists in 56 USHL games and will be a teammate of Rangers’ first-round pick Gabriel Perreault this fall at Boston College. Fortescue was the first of four Rangers’ selections as the NHL Draft concluded with rounds two through seven.
The Rangers also selected Swedish defenseman Rasmus Larsson in the fifth round and left wings Dylan Roobroeck of Oshawa (OHL) and Muskegon’s Ty Henricks (USHL) in the sixth rounds.
All add size to the organization with Larsson being 6-3, Roobroeck 6-7 and Henricks standing 6-4.
“You want to be big, you want to be heavy for playoff-style hockey,” Lilley said. “There was a little bit of an emphasis on size yet you take the best player with the most skills a lot of times. I think we got a little bit of everything. We got skill. We got size. We got good defenders. I think we just checked a lot of boxes.”
Rangers’ 2023 draft picks
No. 90 (third round): D Drew Fortescue, USA Under-18 – The 6-1, 176-pound left-handed shot, who plays with some offensive instincts, is from Pearl River, New York, and is headed to Boston College.
No. 152 (fifth round): D Rasmus Larsson, Vasteras Jr. (Sweden) – The 6-3, 200-pound Larsson’s game blossomed in his second season in the Swedish junior league as the left-handed shot compiled 16 goals and 18 assists in 50 games.
No. 178 (sixth round): LW Dylan Roobroeck, Oshawa (OHL) – Roobroeck, at 6-7, 204 pounds, certainly has size as an asset. He had 15 goals and 38 assists in 68 games last season.
No. 183 (sixth round): LW Ty Henricks, Muskegon (USHL) – Another big wing at 6-4, 205, Henricks had three goals and seven assists in 19 games.
Andrew Gross joined Newsday in 2018 to cover the Islanders. He began reporting on the NHL in 2003 and has previously covered the Rangers and Devils. Other assignments have included the Jets, St. John’s and MLB.
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