The New York Rangers may have uncovered one of the biggest steals from the 2024 NHL Draft, with prospect Nathan Aspinall receiving a major boost in his stock after a breakout season in junior hockey.
Aspinall, a towering 6-foot-6 forward, was originally selected by the Rangers in the fifth round with the 159th overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft. However, his impressive development has dramatically changed how he is viewed around the league.
In The Athletic’s recent 2024 NHL re-draft, conducted by prospect analyst Corey Pronman, Aspinall was selected 34th overall. That represents an extraordinary 125-position jump from where the Rangers originally drafted him and effectively moves him from a late-fifth-round selection into the early second-round range.
Only three players in the entire re-draft climbed more spots than Aspinall, making him one of the biggest risers from the 2024 class.
The dramatic improvement in his draft stock can largely be attributed to his outstanding 2025-26 season with the Flint Firebirds of the Ontario Hockey League. Aspinall, who served as Flint’s captain, exploded offensively and finished second in the OHL scoring race with 94 points in 65 games. His production included 33 goals and 61 assists.
That performance represented a massive leap from what he had produced during his first several seasons in the OHL. Before his breakout campaign, Aspinall had never scored more than 18 goals in a season, a mark he reached in 2023-24. He had also never surpassed 47 points, which he recorded during the 2024-25 season.
The sudden offensive explosion has transformed Aspinall from an intriguing depth prospect into a player the Rangers have legitimate reason to be excited about.
His size is naturally one of his most noticeable attributes, but his development goes beyond simply being a large forward. Aspinall has shown an improved combination of skating, puck skills, offensive awareness and scoring ability, giving him a much higher ceiling than his original draft position suggested.
His progression is particularly encouraging because the Rangers already identified some of his potential before his breakout season. At the conclusion of the 2024-25 campaign, the organization signed Aspinall to an amateur tryout agreement that allowed him to appear in five games for the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League.
At that stage, however, there was little indication that he would rapidly emerge as one of the organization’s most intriguing prospects.
His 2025-26 season changed that perception.
Aspinall’s performance has generated praise from scouts and prospect evaluators, who now see him as a player with legitimate professional upside. Chris Peters of FloHockey previously suggested that Aspinall could benefit from starting his professional career in Hartford and gradually working his way into a larger role.
Rather than immediately expecting him to become a high-scoring NHL forward, the idea is to allow Aspinall to continue developing his game while adjusting to the pace and physical demands of professional hockey.
Peters also emphasized that Aspinall’s breakout should not necessarily create unrealistic expectations. Producing 94 points in junior hockey does not automatically mean he will become a 60-point NHL player. Still, his combination of size, skill and offensive ability gives the Rangers plenty to work with.
For New York, that makes Aspinall particularly valuable.
The Rangers selected him 159th overall, meaning the organization did not have to spend a premium draft pick to acquire him. If his development continues at its current pace, he could eventually become one of the better value selections from the Rangers’ 2024 draft class.
Aspinall was also ranked eighth in a recent list of the Rangers’ top prospects, further illustrating how quickly his reputation has changed within the organization and among those who closely follow the team’s prospect pool.
Prospect analyst Jess Rubenstein has also been particularly high on Aspinall. His rise is notable because he has not simply benefited from playing alongside more highly regarded prospects. Instead, he has consistently driven play himself and produced at a level that exceeded expectations based on his draft position.
The next major challenge for Aspinall will be translating his junior success into professional hockey.
The 2026-27 season could therefore become one of the most important stages of his development. A strong transition to the AHL would further strengthen his case as a legitimate NHL prospect and potentially put him on the organization’s long-term roster radar.
The Rangers will likely be patient with him, especially considering how dramatically his stock has risen over the past year. The goal will be to continue developing his skating, decision-making, defensive responsibilities and offensive consistency while gradually increasing the level of competition he faces.
EJ Emery Goes in the Opposite Direction
While Aspinall’s rise provided a major positive for the Rangers in The Athletic’s re-draft, the organization’s 2024 draft class also produced a less encouraging development.
Defenseman EJ Emery experienced a significant drop in the re-draft.
The Rangers originally selected Emery in the first round with the 30th overall pick in 2024. At the time, he was widely regarded as the organization’s most promising player from that draft class, particularly because he was the team’s only selection in the first three rounds.
However, Pronman’s re-draft placed Emery 63rd overall, representing a 33-position drop from his original draft slot.
That means Aspinall, who was originally selected 129 spots later than Emery, is now ranked 29 positions ahead of him in the re-draft.
For Emery, the 2026-27 season could therefore be extremely important. He will have an opportunity to reverse some of the concerns surrounding his development and remind scouts why the Rangers viewed him as a first-round talent.
Emery has spent his collegiate career at the University of North Dakota, and continued improvement could help restore his standing among Rangers prospects. The organization will be hoping he can turn the page on an inconsistent stretch and re-establish himself as one of the team’s premier young defensemen.
Rangers Still Have Two Other 2024 First-Rounders
The Rangers’ 2024 draft class also includes Cole Beaudoin and Liam Greentree, although both players arrived in New York through trades rather than being originally drafted by the Rangers.
Beaudoin was selected 24th overall by the Utah Mammoth in the 2024 draft. In The Athletic’s re-draft, he slipped only one position and was selected 25th overall, suggesting that his stock has remained relatively stable.
Greentree was originally selected 26th overall by the Los Angeles Kings. He dropped five spots in the re-draft to No. 31, another relatively modest change compared with Emery’s decline and Aspinall’s enormous rise.
Taken together, the re-draft paints an interesting picture of the 2024 NHL Draft class from the Rangers’ perspective.
Aspinall has gone from a relatively obscure fifth-round selection to a player viewed as an early second-round talent. Emery, meanwhile, has fallen from a first-round selection to the third-round range in the revised rankings. Beaudoin and Greentree have remained close to their original first-round valuations.
For the Rangers, Aspinall’s development may ultimately prove to be the biggest positive takeaway.
The towering forward has already demonstrated that he can produce at an elite level in junior hockey, and his improved skill set has made him far more intriguing than his original draft position suggested. The challenge now is to determine whether that production can carry over to the professional level.
If Aspinall continues progressing, the Rangers could eventually look back at the 2024 draft and view their fifth-round selection as one of the organization’s biggest bargains.
For now, though, the focus will remain on development. Aspinall has earned the attention with his breakout season, but the next step proving himself against older, stronger and more experienced competition will determine just how high his NHL ceiling can ultimately become.
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