Gravesy

I said that in the heat of the moment (watched it in the morning here local time). Watched it back and agree with you. It’s 100% on Fox. The general point stands though, that goal is a microcosm of the Rangers last 3 games. A cavalcade of ineptitude.

Can the human mind imagine a goal more descriptive of the current state of affairs than the 3rd Devils goal? The game is in the balance. The PP has already had a couple of opportunities without paying off, at which point the PP is 0-13 or something like that. We get back on the PP, and it starts with over passing the shit out of the puck. Two guys, I think Fox and Kane, pass up the most obvious shooting opportunities of all time, opting to instead try a fancy, cross ice pass - both too loose to cause any problems. The puck ends up with Panarin, who dilly dallys on the blue line like a fucking moron, loses the puck and of course the Devils go straight down the ice and clinically dispatches the shorty to effectively end the Rangers chances. I literally did this:

But we've known for a very long time that our picks are nothing to write home about, and that they aren't anywhere near what their draft pedigree told us they were. The other teams picks are their leading scorers because they are legit top 6 players. It seems pretty ridiculous to keep expecting these kids to be something that they are evidently not. So whilst it would be helpful if our 3rd and 4th line could chip in with secondary scoring, the real problem over the last two games is that our top guys got 10 tries at the PP and scored 0, and can barely produce anything at all 5v5.

I mean, sure. It wasn’t a defense of Laf. My point was, watching the game I knew I’d come in here and see tons of posts about how great Hughes is and how shit our high picks are. And whilst that is undoubtedly true, it doesn’t even merit mention in the game thread because a) it’s old news and b) the real problem isn’t that our disappointing kids on the third line look meh, it’s that our actual good players were completely outclassed by theirs.

Focusing on Laf/Kakko and bemoaning the fact they’re nowhere near as good as Hughes seem wide of the mark after the last two games. We’ve known they’re not in his stratosphere for a long time, and we were never riding them to the Stanley Cup anyway. What you should be worried about is Jack Hughes dominating and completely outshining everybody in our top 6.

And it's not like he's prime Dom Haseking them either. Not to take anything away from him, he's been very solid, but they've made it incredibly easy. All perimeter stuff, no traffic, no crashing the net, literally nothing bar the Trochek goal from high danger areas. The bottom line is when your highly paid stars go 0/10 on the pp and do the square root of fuck all in two straight home games you're going to be in trouble.

This guy is getting lit up tonight. Pulled before we reach the halfway point tbph.

Are they not people of culture and class, i.e. Rangers fans?

Nope. Lost game 1. Then won 2 straight and had a chance to take it back to the Garden 3-1. Instead they didn't show up and lost the next 2, facing elimination in g6 which was the guarantee. I don't want to get cute here, but I don't see it happening. A split at the Garden at the worst.

You have to pinch your nose and hope the Fish Sticks take it to 7.

A deeply impressive road playoff win against a team that had to have it. The way the Rangers have played in these 2 games has got my belief level pretty damn high. Bar that little flurry to start the 3rd we've given them absolutely nothing. It sort of reminds me of the play in V the Canes, where the Rangers were a fast, offensively talented team that was unable to get anything at all going against a smarter, heavier opponent. Also, Pat Fucking Kane. Where did that come from?

His “effort” tracking back on the ot goal last night was utterly pitiful to be fair

Fuck that. He knew what that guy did to the poor kid, and kept quiet about it. An absolute gormless prick, I’m not letting him anywhere near my team.

.

Laffy took that guy’s lunch money

imo

I don't think their success with homegrown players compares particularly favorably with any of the successful organizations in the past couple of decades. But that's not really the point here. The point is that the two guys were drafted by a good team, who are trying to win now, who aren't really in the business of sacrificing short term success for the development of young players and where they subsequently were never going to be handed anything. As opposed to most other top 2 picks who typically get long leashes on the 1st line and PP1, which has a tendency to fast track development. That being said, I feel pretty comfortable in saying that regardless of who drafted them, these two guys were never the franchise altering pieces they were sold as. They probably have absolute ceilings of good to very good 2nd line wingers.

I'm not sure your definition of slam dunk vs consensus is the dictionary version of not, but I would've thought my point was pretty clear. There's no point going down the road of "The Rangers should've taken player X instead of Kakko" or "player Y instead of Lafreniere" with the benefit of hindsight. Because, when the Rangers were on the clock, taking anyone other than the players they took would've been insanity and would've gone done as something like top 10 reaches of all time. The fact neither of them has panned out so far is a combination of bad luck, situation and the Rangers as a developmental organization. And possibly also the hockey community as a whole under rating the importance of skating and foot speed for prospects in the modern game. But like I said, literally every GM past and present would've taken those two when it was time to turn the card in. Whether or how you pay them is a separate discussion, and one where I think we're aligned.

If the Rangers hadn't taken Kakko and Lafreniere with those two picks there would've been legitimate calls for everyone involved to be institutionalized. Slam dunk picks, the fact they have yet to break out properly is down to a load of factors that have been covered ad nauseum. Revisiting those two decisions is completely pointless.

Ok, I must have skimmed a bit too hard. Don’t really disagree with any of this.

Lafreniere is a complete outlier in that he had historical production in juniors yet it hasn't really translated at all. In any case, this isn't about Lafreniere as much as it is about Othmann. Expecting him to "blow the doors off" Laffy's production means, what, 50+ points in his first year? That just seems like a lot to ask from a guy who isn't dominating juniors the way you typically have to in order to get anywhere near that sort of production in the pros.

I mean, Othmann may have more translatable and dynamic traits. But production in junior is highly indicative of NHL performance, and Othmann isn't able to use his traits to dominate a vastly inferior league. So the idea he's going to come in and "blow the doors" off Lafreniere who outproduced him by a factor of 2 as a younger player just seems very unlikely. Not impossible, certainly, but you're hoping for a lot here.