Rangers' goaltender Mackenzie Skapski reflects on his first professional hockey season and his surprise call-up to the NHL.
"I could use a full year in the Coast."
It's what goaltender Mackenzie Skapski said to me in October, referring to the East Coast Hockey League, where the New York Rangers sent him - the Greenville Road Warriors specifically - to begin his pro career. The 2013 sixth-round pick was coming off a successful campaign in the Western Hockey League, but the jump to professional hockey is a big one for any player; let alone a 20-year-old goaltender.