Rangers president John Davidson, GM Jeff Gorton, assistant GM Chris Drury and much of the franchise’s scouting staff are in Buffalo, N.Y., at the NHL Draft combine.



Kaapo Kakko is not.



The big Finnish winger, who will be a Ranger, or perhaps a Devil, by the second pick of the NHL draft in Vancouver on June 21, has decided to skip the combine. After a whirlwind year that included gold medals at the World Junior Championship (in which he scored the winning goal in the final) in Vancouver and the just-completed World Championship in Slovakia, Kakko has nothing to prove and no reason to be in Buffalo this weekend.



And the Rangers are perfectly fine with that. Kakko doesn’t need to be flying from the ongoing party in Finland after the Slovakia trip, then returning home, only to fly to Vancouver in less than a month. The Rangers don’t need to see how much weight he can lift, how high he can jump, how fast he can skate around the rink or what his...