GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Riley Hughes knew there was a possibility he could get selected at last weekend’s NHL Draft, and he knew the Rangers had some interest. But he knew the Rangers didn’t have a pick in the seventh round, so when he didn’t get chosen in the sixth round, he figured that was that.
But Rangers GM Jeff Gorton offered it up to his scouts that he could trade for a seventh-round pick if there was someone the group felt strongly about. Gorton traded one of the Rangers’ seventh-round picks in 2019 to Carolina for the second-to-last pick in the draft and chose Hughes, a 6-1, 174-pound forward from the Boston suburb of Westwood, Massachusetts, and St.