Rangers Ryan Strome has silenced the haters for now

Heading into this season, New York Rangers fans had some reservations about the team’s depth at center. Ryan Strome has silenced the critics.

It is quite delightful to hear crickets from the crevices of the Twitter world. An unrelenting place that was happy to pile on the criticism of New York Rangers center Ryan Strome. Six weeks into the new season, Strome has replied to the haters with high-quality results. In other words, he’s shut them up for a while.

It wasn’t easy for fans to forget that Strome, the former 2011 fifth overall pick, who had pit stops with the Islanders and Oilers, started his career at an underwhelming pace. Even after arriving on Broadway, almost a year ago to the day, his steps in the right direction didn’t seem to merit enough the trust for him to be the Blueshirts number two pivot. But now, due to Strome’s great start to 2019-20, that conversation is long gone.

I’ll take this opportunity to pat myself on the back because I said he was the most reasonable choice to be the Rangers second line center over the summer when it was so preposterous to say so. Many argued he didn’t have a right to the first shot at the opportunity coming out of training camp. They wanted one of the Blueshirts young guns to win the job.

Contrary to the predictions of naysayers, he has taken on the responsibility and ran with it, especially in the absence of Mika Zibanejad. Strome has been playing on the top line, servicing the talent of the team’s big offseason acquisition, Artemi Panarin.

In fact, he sits only behind Panarin on the Rangers leaderboard with 16 points, including five in the last four games.