Who will Rangers select with 30th pick in first round of NHL draft?

NORTH LAS VEGAS – Macklin Celebrini and some of the other highly-touted players available for selection when the first round of the NHL draft takes place Friday night at the futuristic Sphere in Las Vegas, will be long gone by the time the Rangers’ selection comes around, at No. 30 overall.

But that doesn’t mean the Rangers, winners of the Presidents’ Trophy and Eastern Conference finalists, who lost to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, won’t be able to get a good player when it’s their turn to pick.

“Listen, there's a lot of players,’’ ESPN in-studio analyst P.K. Subban said Thursday from an NHL Player Inclusion Coalition Ball Hockey Clinic at a Boys and Girls club in North Las Vegas. “I mean, I have to believe that. I was selected 43rd overall.’’

Subban, 35, played 12 seasons in the NHL and won a Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman in 2012-13. He finished his career with 115 goals and 352 assists in 834 games for Montreal, Nashville and the Devils.

Anson Carter, a forward who played 11 seasons for eight different teams, including 54 games with the Rangers in 2003-04, was drafted in the 10th round of the 1992 draft, 220th overall.

“You can get a good player anywhere. That's how I see the draft,’’ said Carter, who is an analyst for TNT. “There's all these different metrics they measure in guys -- they want (them) to jump, see how explosive they are, their bench press.

“But you can't measure this’’ he said, pointing to his chest, “a guy's ticker. A guy's heart, desire. How much you're willing to push through, how much you want to overcome adversity.’’

The two analysts, both of whom are Black, were at a clinic teaching children of color about the game of hockey, trying to help increase the diversity in the sport. They were there along with other former NHLers, like Georges Laracque and former goalie Al Montoya, who was picked sixth overall by the Rangers in the 2004 draft.

Montoya, who now works in the front office of the Dallas Stars, never made it with the Rangers – he was buried in the minor leagues after Henrik Lundqvist came over from Sweden and became the team's No. 1 goaltender – but he played parts of nine NHL seasons with six teams, including two seasons (2010-12) with the Islanders.

“The young me thought I should have been in the NHL right away,’’ Montoya said. “I came out flying my first year. I think I was on the All-Star team in the American League. Second year I think I got injured, tore the shoulder up, missed a good six months. And (I learned) you’ve got to get lucky. A spot's got to open up and you got to get into that position. And when that spot does open up, you got to take advantage of it.’’

The Rangers didn’t make general manager Chris Drury, or anyone from their front office, available to the media before the draft. Subban, who saw a lot of the Rangers in the conference final against Florida, said in drafting at the bottom of the first round, the Rangers should look to fill organizational need. And he thinks they need to get bigger.

“I'd like to see them get a little bit more size up the middle,’’ Subban said. “You look at the Stanley Cup Final – (Edmonton centers) Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid, as great as they are, they're big players as well. You saw that the physicality in the Finals… so you need to have size still.

“You see the team that won,’’ he continued. “Defense wins championships. You have the best goaltender in the league (in Igor Shesterkin). That's a great piece to have… And as long as you have him in there and he's playing the way that he's playing, you have a chance every year. So you have to insulate him so that you can win games 1-0, 2-0, and not rely heavily on your power play as much.’’

Notes & quotes: The Rangers announced Thursday they have hired Grant Potulny to take over as head coach of their AHL affiliate, the Hartford Wolf Pack. Potulny, had been the coach at Northern Michigan University. He replaces Kris Knoblauch, who left in November to take over as coach of the Oilers.

Panarin named first-team All-Star

The Rangers didn’t earn any individual honors at the NHL Awards Show on Thursday, but Artemi Panarin, who scored 49 goals and 120 points in the regular season, was named to the NHL All-Star first team, and defenseman Adam Fox was named to the second team.

Panarin was selected as the first team left wing, with Hart Trophy winner Nathan MacKinnon at center and Nikita Kucherov, the league’s leading scorer, with 144 points, at right wing. Quinn Hughes, the Norris Trophy winner, and Roman Jodi of Nashville, were the defensemen, and Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck, of Winnipeg, the goalie.

Fox was joined on the second team by Conn Smythe winner Connor McDavid, at center, flanked by wingers David Pastrnak and Filip Forsberg. Cale Makar of Colorado was the other defenseman, and Vancouver’s Thatcher Demko was the goalie.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.