Sod16

Agreed. Wheeler is more the kind of guy I'd like to get at the deadline, give him some smelling salts, and see if he might find the inspiration of his youth at few key moments in the playoffs. At least don't have to watch him dragging through 82 games that way. Ah, when Blake was young:

It's kind of like adopting a 10 year old dog. You may get a wonderful year out of him, but you are guaranteed of having to deal with his decline and demise. A brief beneift from Wheeler is not worth having to deal with his decline and demise. It may be that 20 other teams would have taken him at that price, but this league is filled with GMs and coaches trying to milk something out of has beens, and 90 percent of the time, it isn't productive, whatever the price.

I think there's a big difference with a guy like Fox who eschewed signing for 3 years, taking the risk of injury in the interim, and earned his free agency. He didn't sign with Nashville or Carolina because he was on the verge of free agency. That's very rational.

The Rangers are 8-7-1 in the fake standings in their last 16; 6-7-3 by the real measure (regulation record). I shutter to think what their overall goal differential and 5v5 differential have been over those 16 games. In the old days, there would be a trade to shake up such a team, but in the cap/no trade world, the only significant in-season trades are deadline deals, and those involve a limited universe of players based on their contract status.

It's big disappointment when he's getting substantial time on the top line. Here's the problem with getting a 37 year old guy like Wheeler: whatever benefit you get from him will be offset by having him hurt you in his inevitable decline. If a guy like Wheeler has a good spell, even for a whole season, he'll be around the next year, when he will be cooked and a drag on the team. They won't get rid of him as soon as he becomes a drag; he'll get a chance to turn it around and won't. At the risk of offending those who loved MSL, even if he helped the team get in the finals in 2014 (somewhat debatable) he was a terrible drag, pulling down his whole line, in 2015 and probably kept them out of the finals that year. A guy like Wheeler will thus be, at best a wash, and likely not that.

Comic relief? The man turns 37 this month and was slow at 27. He had one point in 21 games and was -11 with a good team before getting hurt this year.

Well, exactly, but no one else is going to feel comfortable paying what he makes or swallowing his cap hit either. A fourth line player in decline, with a $3.6m cap hit and a 15 team no trade list can't be moved without retaining half his cap hit, and maybe not even then. If you are retaining half his cap hit, that plus the cap hit of his replacement on the roster would probably be close to your cap hit if you keep him. It's just a bad situation and there's no easy way out. It may be similar to the Brendan Smith situation, where they ended up keeping him for the duration of his contract and taking a $4.2m cap hit for what became a 4th line forward.

With 12 seconds left in OT, the camera cut away as Miller took the puck safely behind the net. He was so bad tonight that I knew he wouldn't come out with it. When the camera came back after missing two seconds, sure enough, he had turned it over and was committing a penalty to try to get it back. I just don't think he will ever be reliable defensively on a consistent basis.

This one always bothered me the most. Some people act like Anderson was a great addition. The Rangers were in dire shape until they kicked Anderson off Messier's line and replaced him with Kolalev. Gartner still had gas in the tank (and jets in the skates).

I've never seen a Rangers team whose loses are seemingly all so decisive. There must be something deceptive or emphemeral in the good overall record when the loses are so decisive. There is, however, an apparent consensus that a 3rd line center and 1st line RW at the deadline may change things considerably. Isn't it irritating that we have this $3.6 m per year gritty player who's supposed to play wing or center and when you get an injury you can't use him as your third line center?

I think we'll probably see him again, but not this year. Taking a year off did not help Lindros or LaFontaine.

I have my doubts about an 8 year contract for Sheshy lasting until he is 38, but I look at what so many other teams are going through in terms of goalies and I don't want that, either.

Houston, of course, by far the largest metro without a team, makes the most sense. I question NC. The Canes only draw when they are very good. Within a few years of winning the cup they had crowds of 8K.

There's no reason that done right a team in Atlanta shouldn't succeed. But how many teams is enough already? More than half the teams are going to have 54 year cup famines going. What the league has tolerated in Arizona demonstrates that they are just not going to move teams again, ever.

I'll throw in an unusual one. In early 1977 a Canadiens team more mighty than anything the NHL has seen in recent times had not lost a game at home in over a year. The Rangers, a non-playoff team in an era when almost everyone made it, wearing embarrising Johnny Ferguson sweaters, walked into the Forum and started in goal one Hardy Astrom, essentially never heard of since, and put a licking on the Habs. Genuinely astounding. 1974 pivitol Game 5 at forum where MacGregor tied it with 16 seconds left and Ron Harris won it in OT. Going back a little earlier than the mid-70s, you have to throw in the highly unusual 9 goal outburst game against Detroit that put the Rangers in the playoffs in 1970. Another out of the box one: New Years 1988 or 1989 when the Rangers beat the Islanders in OT at MSG, and the "festive" Rangers crowd just about tore the place down. The Rangers, who had always played a New Years Eve game at the Garden for over 50 years, have never played one since. Perfect capsulization of the way it "usta be" at the Garden.

Trivia: Kappo Kakko and Greg Jolly.

No thread about Ovie should be absent a snarky comment about Putin. So here, Putin!

I don't really subscribe to the old chestnut that refs put their whistles in their pockets during the playoffs. To the contrary, powerplays in OT, which were once a rarity, are pretty common now. However, even if a reasonable amount of penalties are being called, if you are overly reliant on the PP and you go cold for a few games, which you probably will over 25 games, it will may mean losing two, or even three, straight. Being overly reliant on the PP will not keep you from a President's Trophy, because losing two or three straight is not fatal to having the best record over 82 games the way it often is in a best of seven series.

There are 32 teams, of which 6 or 8 are legitimate contenders. The Rangers are one of them, meaning they have something along the lines of a 1 in 6 or 8 chance, or perhaps slightly better as they have the most points, or winning the cup. I worry about PP reliance more than anything else. Over the 25 games of a cup run, a PP is going to run dry at some point for a while. If that means losing two straight, that could be it.

If it's true that he was concussed at the start of camp, and it probably is, and then suffered another 10 games in, he should sit for the year. Thankfully, the attitude of teams has changed and no one is pushing for his return.

They need to think about trading some of the surfeit of talent among the forwards for help on D.

Not sad to think that the Flyers did not get any of the above. Patrick has a hereditary problem with migraines, not an issue with concussions.

Completely correct, and it was obvious when we were up 3-1.

With better sightlines and seats closer to the action than the next generation of arenas.

Caps have a bad arena deal in a bad location. Their fan base would no doubt prefer Alexandria. It's the usual shakedown of a political entity, in this case the state of Virginia.