Rangers need young players to be more than just prospects

Another one of the prospects derived from the Purge of ’18 has arrived on Broadway. Ryan Lindgren, the 20-year-old defenseman acquired from Boston in the Rick Nash deal, joined 20-year-old center Brett Howden, obtained from Tampa Bay in the Ryan McDonagh-JT Miller extravaganza, in the lineup and did just fine in Tuesday’s 6-2 Garden victory over the Same Old Candy Canes.

But why, when it comes to the Rangers and their kids, am I just about always reminded of Casey Stengel’s withering observation of the Mets’ highly touted catching prospect Greg Goossen in 1966, when The Old Perfessor said, “Goossen is only 20 and in 10 years he has a chance to be 30”?

Maybe because Lias Andersson is back in Hartford again. Maybe because Libor Hajek, the purported prize of the package obtained from the Lightning last February, has labored through the first half of his first pro season with the Wolf Pack. Maybe because Tony DeAngelo hasn’t been able to earn a steady spot in the lineup on Broadway, though he did score twice against Carolina sieve Curtis McElhinney. Maybe because Joe Balej and institutional memory.

Or maybe it’s because Jimmy Vesey has made scant progress on Broadway this season, maybe because Brady Skjei seems as confused this year as last, and maybe because Pavel Buchnevich, who scored a pair on the power play, is back to being a fourth-line guy and it isn’t even Alain Vigneault’s fault this time around. Maybe that’s it.

I know. Patience is the byword. And I believe in it. I believe it is going to take time for the young guns — not one of them a top-five pick — to develop, and I believe in not placing undue expectations and pressure on even the best and the brightest in the pipeline. But once in a while, or maybe even just once, wouldn’t you like to see one of the yoots burst onto the big stage and unexpectedly claim it?

Just once, could a Daniel Goneau not score eight goals in his first 15 games and then four in 38 over the rest of his NHL career, but instead score eight goals every 15 games of his career, at least maybe for a few years? Just once, couldn’t a Ranger kid just sprint out of the starting blocks instead of being wrapped in the perspective of patience?

This is not, of course, meant to disparage Lindgren, the U of Minnesota lefty who brought his calling cards of fiber, character and leadership with him to Broadway. The Rangers had been losing nearly every puck battle they had managed to create and hemorrhaging goals against throughout the 1-6 and 6-12-5 slides that preceded this one. So this might be just the time for a fresh face in the room and on the back end.

The B&D Program (Build & Develop; what else?) is well underway on Broadway, and that is unambiguously good news. But devising and even carrying through the strategy were always going to be the easy parts of this necessary reboot following a half-dozen years in which the future was sacrificed in order to try to put a consistently very good team over the top. The tough parts are, a) Choosing the correct young players; b) Developing them correctly; and, c) Did I mention, choosing the correct young players?

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The accountability — hard practices punctuated by whistles and loud, sharp commands (or rebukes); in-game benchings of marquee guys, most recently of Chris Kreider in Brooklyn on Saturday following a bonehead offensive-zone penalty; and targeted healthy scratches — ushered in by David Quinn have been welcomed and hailed. But while the first-year NHL head coach has presided over a significant culture change whereby the Rangers no longer reflexively turn the other cheek, Quinn has not been able to transform finesse players into grinders. Scorpions being scorpions, and all that.

And again, neither has the coach been able to coax more out of Buchnevich than did his predecessor behind the bench. No. 89’s pair of goals against Carolina equaled his production in the 15 games he had played since returning on Dec. 14 after missing five weeks with a broken thumb. Maybe this was a start for the talented winger with uncommon skill, but there have been teases before. So we’ll wait before rushing to judgment.

The Blueshirts still drool over the 23-year-old’s talent. They aren’t rushing to conclusions, either. But they are nearing a need-to-know moment on Buchnevich, who is a pending restricted free agent and will certainly draw interest as the Feb. 25 trade deadline approaches. They need to know there is more to Buchnevich than the chance to be 10 years older a decade from now.