There was a lot of hype when the New York Rangers won the NHL Draft Lottery to select Alexis Lafrenière first overall. Expectations were too high for the teen coming out of the QMJHL, who hadn’t played a hockey game in over 9 months due to the pandemic.
On February 20th, with Alexis having only one goal in 15 games TSN made comparisons to him with other first round busts like Nail Yakupov and Patrik Stefan. Not only was that unfair, it was ridiculous. Never were considerations like dealing with a pandemic, playing home and home series in the most brutal division in hockey ever properly weighed.