NHL insider Darren Dreger of TSN reported this week that the Rangers may be reluctant to trade their 2024 first-round pick due to owner James Dolan wanting his team to have a pick at the draft in his new creation, The Sphere, in Las Vegas this summer.
Evan says, if that is true, Dolan deserves to be dragged.
“I would make the argument that the Rangers are the New York sports team closest to a championship,” Evan said. “You’re telling your general manager you can’t trade a first-round pick this year…because the NHL Draft - an event no one gives a rat’s ass about except for Shaun and two other people - because it’s at The Sphere??
“If an owner in this town is refusing to allow his general manager to do his job because of a show that’s taking place in June, that’s a disgrace.”
If the Rangers, still first in their division, don’t make a notable addition before the deadline because of an apparent reluctance to lose their place in the spotlight of the owner’s new building, Evan says it would be an atrocity of epic proportions.
“If this owner is telling his general manager, ‘You can’t use that pick because I have people coming to my living room in late June,’” Evan said. “That is ownership malpractice.”