Brennan Othmann’s time with the New York Rangers never really got off the ground, and now the former first-round pick is saying that part out loud.
Before his first game against the team that drafted him, Othmann looked back on a rocky run in New York that ended with a trade to the Calgary Flames just before the deadline. The Rangers took him with the No. 16 pick in the 2021 NHL Draft, making him the first player selected by the Chris Drury-led front office, but the fit never took hold.
Othmann played just 42 games for the Rangers and finished with one goal and two assists in 414:32 of ice time. He was waived before the regular season at the end of training camp, then asked for a trade a few weeks later.
“It was obvious that it wasn’t really gonna work out,” Othmann said after Wednesday’s morning skate at Scotiabank Saddledome, via Vincent Z. Mercogliano of The Athletic (subscription required). “It was kind of a mutual thing.”
That request sat unresolved for nearly five months. Othmann said he started to believe the wait might drag on even longer as the March 6 trade deadline approached, only to get the call while he was on his way to PeoplesBank Arena to join the Hartford Wolf Pack. Calgary sent Jacob Battaglia, a forward prospect, to New York in the deal.
“We don’t know why it took all year, but it took all year,” Othmann said. “Maybe it was the sense that Chris or whatever wanted it to work out and stuff, but I’m happy that he finally just kind of said, ‘There you go.'”
The Rangers had already seen enough over the course of last season to know the relationship was going sideways. Othmann appeared in 17 games and averaged 9:53 per game, and head coach Mike Sullivan said the young forward still had development to do even while praising him.
“When we were working with him, he was still raw from just a player standpoint, but he certainly has a lot of really admirable qualities,” Sullivan said, calling Othmann “a great kid.”
Othmann was even more direct about how he felt the situation unfolded. He said he never got into the coaching staff’s good graces and questioned the way the organization handled his development.
“I hate bringing this up all the time, but being a first-round pick and the opportunity I had in Hartford, and then coming up (to the NHL), it was just, I don’t know,” he said, trailing off. Then he concluded, “The time that I had last year was pretty egregious.”
Now with the Flames, Othmann gets the reset he was looking for after a stretch in New York that clearly never matched the expectations attached to a No. 16 pick.
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