The outlook is better, but there’s still heavy lifting to be done.That was the prevailing sentiment among the NHL talent evaluators we asked to assess the state of the New York Rangers’ pipeline, with those opinions helping inform this year’s top-10 prospect rankings.The depth is clearly improved thanks to nine new draftees, most notably No. 5 pick Alberts Šmits, as well as through trades that added a couple of past first-rounders in forwards Cole Beaudoin and Liam Greentree. That helped the Rangers ascend from a bottom-third pool, in the eyes of many scouts, to middle of the pack, with The Athletic’s Corey Pronman and Scott Wheeler both ranking them 18th among 32 teams. But a lack of high-end skill, particularly up front, remains the most glaring drawback.“Other than Šmits, you don’t have any others that you can say with certainty will be a core guy,” said one Eastern Conference scout, who was among multiple league sources granted anonymity to speak freely about New York’s prospects for our series.Šmits was the unanimous choice for the No. 1 spot, where he succeeded last year’s top prospect, Gabe Perreault. The latter was no longer under consideration for our list — I’ve always graduated players once they exhaust NHL rookie status, which Perreault did while netting 27 points in 49 games last season — but would have been no worse than No. 2 had he remained eligible. That left Greentree and Beaudoin vying for the title of New York’s best forward prospect, with opinions fairly split among those polled. In the end, colleague Peter Baugh and I gave Greentree a slight edge due to a higher offensive projection.“Everything is there for (Greentree) to have that potential to be a middle-six player — and be an impactful one,” another Eastern Conference scout said.It got a bit jumbled after the top three, which at once speaks to an abundance of prospects with a chance to eventually crack an NHL lineup and a dearth of surefire talents. The question is whether a few potential bottom-six forwards and third-pair defensemen can exceed those expectations for a last-place team that desperately needs difference-makers at the top of its lineup.There’s healthy skepticism about that, but the general feeling regarding the system is more positive than it was at this time last year.“I actually don’t mind it,” a Western Conference scout said. “Their wingers have size, and they all look like they have some touch and some skill, which is positive. I don’t mind some of their center depth. The D look good, too.”A few sources pointed to team context as an important part of their evaluation. New York has been in go-for-it mode since Rangers president Chris Drury took over in 2021, dealing away 20 total draft picks on player acquisitions, plus the Patrik Nemeth salary dump, between then and the 2024 trade deadline. They went without first-round picks in 2022 and 2025 while never selecting higher than No. 23 in that four-year span. The merits of those decisions will be an ongoing source of debate, but there’s no denying it left director of amateur scouting John Lilley with limited working capital.It’ll take years for that pendulum to swing back, but the last six months have served as a start.“New York’s in a position where you can’t really expect them to have a deep pool,” the second Eastern Conference scout said. “Having tried to basically win the last few years, they haven’t had the picks to really do that.”This is my second year doing this series at The Athletic, but the eighth offseason total in which I’ve spent significant time analyzing the Rangers’ pipeline. In my estimation, this is the strongest it’s been in five years.