Drew a Penalty

I would, but Kakko feels totally inappropriate in the bumper. He's not a quick shooter and is more of someone who needs space to control the puck. He works better on the wall.

Kreider Zibanejad Trocheck Keller Fox Cuylle Panarin Chytil Kakko Jones

https://www.capfriendly.com/armchair-gm/team/4225488 If the cap goes up more than $1M, you can put someone more appropriate than Othmann on the third line to let him develop. Or get a better option than Mikkola so Jones isn't thrown to the wolves.

Absolutely. $7.1M is $600k more than Kreider gets but for a P/GP player. Keller is more of what the NHL is trending toward with speed and skill. He's Kane-lite. He's the type of player you take a risk moving someone like Miller.

He should try switching teams. They should also trade him.

I've been a big proponent of Keller's since before he was drafted so I'd be interested just because of that. 15th in the league in 5v5 points and solves the RW problem. His $7.1M cap hit is honestly a bargain if he produces at P/GP or above. If the Rangers can find a way to make the move for him, they should.

He can finally get laid.

Nothing has been quite right since Anders Hedberg retired.

The scoring prowess he developed in Finland never quite carried over to North America, and while he displayed some improvement this year, I don't think he has enough to his game to warrant much of an NHL look. He'll do well back in Europe, but the Rangers aren't really losing anything here.

Right. He's probably just keeping track of how they're measuring.

Prentiss is a consultant, yes, but the team utilizes his facilities. I'm sure Czech and Prentiss are in communication with each other. A lot of their prospects especially get to work with Prentiss. There's nothing mandating they work with Prentiss, though. Chytil used to use him and now mostly trains with his brother. Kakko is part of a training group back in Finland.

Most train with Ben Prentiss during the summer, Kreider most notably is always with him, and they brought in Kyle Czech from BU to be a full-time strength and conditioning coach.

That might bode well for a potential expansion franchise, but the NHL is in need of a quick solution. Houston metro is 5x the size of Salt Lake City. There's an arena already built that seats nearly 18k. A Texan team might win the Stanley Cup this year. Houston just seems far more appropriate given the circumstances.

The two most recent expansion franchises play in 17.1k (Seattle) and 17.5k (Vegas) — Vivint, where the Jazz play, seats just 14k for hockey. Houston with 17.8k seats and a larger city/population is far more attractive.

That even Julien Gauthier can pull off.

Yep. He played 2 shifts before getting knocked out immediately into his 3rd.

They all spent little time doing much of anything? Verbeek had 4 years as a scout, 2 years as director of scouting, and 8 years as an AGM. Yzerman had 4 years as VP of hockey operations. Blake had 4 years as VP of hockey operations and AHL affiliate GM. Fitzgerald had 2 years as director of player development, 11 as an AGM and GM of AHL affiliate. Drury had a year as director of player development, 5 as an AGM and GM of AHL affiliate. Guerin had 3 years as a development coach, and 5 years as an AGM. Grier had 4 years as a scout, 3 as an assistant coach, and 1 as hockey operations coordinator. Roy had 7 seasons as a head coach, and also served as GM and AGM throughout his time with Quebec. St. Louis at least served a skills coach at the NHL level. Gretzky is the greatest player of all time and had ownership stake in the Coyotes. Everyone listed had an actual job with actual responsibilities. Messier was special assistant to the GM. There's no actual weight to that role. Did you actually look any of these people up?

I hate that I have to say this every time there's any kind of vacancy... Messier is not an option. He won a cup with this team nearly 30 years ago as a player. Not a coach. Not a GM. As a player. In the 30 years since he won the cup as a player for the Rangers, he has done absolutely nothing to warrant any sort of coaching or executive position. Despite throwing his own name into contention, he has demonstrated zero willingness to actually earn any of the positions he wants. He's been an assistant coach at a peewee tournament. That is it. They made up a Special Assistant to the GM position for him to feel like he contributed to the organization. If he ever had a shot at GM or president of the organization, he'd follow a track like Drury and Gorton who both rose from Player Development to then Assistant GM and so forth. There's nothing that qualifies Messier as a coach. He's known as a leader. That's his rep. That's it. He's not a progressive thinker, a known strategist, or something that gives this team the coaching edge that it's been missing. He's a guy who won a cup 30 years ago as a player and that's all he'll ever do for this organization. He did his job. Be thankful for that. But he's not going to do anything else. He's a Mickey Mouse fantasy option for any legitimate position.

The 4th line was cumulatively -3 in the playoffs. They were out for 2 goals against. They didn't look good, but I'd wager that had something to do with coaching. All three of those players are more than capable fourth-liners who've worked well together and separately before. The elephant in the room, to me, is how fucking bad Braden Schneider is. Yes, he's young. Yes, a new coach will also likely help him. But holy fuck did they force this kid to play long past the point of him needing to sit. He is a free zone entry for the opposition and just clueless when it comes to coverage. Get this kid some help. Please.

If we had a sad reaction, this is where I'd use it.

This is fair. Much in the way I think Jacques Martin only had so much influence on defense under Quinn.

Given Hartford's play of late, Knoblauch intrigues me. If not for their playoff run, I'm not sure he'd even really cross my mind. His relationship with Gord Murphy also worries me. I've seen enough from Murphy over these last two years to think he's not the guy who should be running the defense at all, but he and Knoblauch have a running working relationship. You might not get Knoblauch without having to keep Murphy, and that might be too much for me.

I don't know that the Rangers can't, it's that they haven't had any system in place to support it. Telling your players to "be hard on guys" is different than knowing exactly where you should be to support your teammate on pressure plays. In the case of the Rangers, they genuinely don't know how to support each other properly. They're probably thinking or asking, "Where should I be here?" I don't get that impression with the Pack right now, but I have in the past. Previously they'd been emulating the Rangers pond hockey approach which doesn't work without talent. Now they're relentless in the offensive zone to the point that they're forcing turnovers on plays you think are going to get out.

Cuylle and Jones are undeniably in the best positions for promotion. Both have gotten significant usage from Knoblauch in all situations and have mostly done well. Cuylle has been getting PK time to shoulder more responsibility and has looked good there. Hartford's PK has been particularly dangerous lately in its attempts to score shorthanded. I'd like to see more flash from Jones on PP which is supposed to be his bread and butter. It feels like he's not fully in command of his unit as a QB and is more reliant on the veterans he's out there with like Brodzinski and Carpenter. He's been solid otherwise aside from the occasional lapse in judgment. I particularly like the small worker bees in Hartford. Henriksson and Trivigno both really grind it out and have some extra skill to show here and there. Trivigno especially seems to enjoy being a nuisance and mouthing off. Henriksson, who is clearly one of Knobluach's soldiers, is super steady and often seems to be doing little things to help turn play the other way. There are a lot of little details to appreciate in Henriksson's game that remind me of Fast, but the comparison ends there. Fast is considerably larger and a more physical wing while Henriksson is a diminutive center with a good stick. Garand has been really good since he's had a chance to run with the starting position with Domingue in NY. He was already picking his game up around the New Year, but this is obviously a more stark improvement, at least statistically. The Pack are playing a super tight game, though. They're the complete opposite of the Rangers in that they're winning a large percentage of puck battles, clogging up the neutral zone, and turning pucks back in the other direction quickly. They killed off a 5 minute major in the last game with seemingly very little difficulty. That's not to say Garand hasn't played well, he has, but he's not getting shelled or facing extreme danger shots. Scanlin has been fine. He's steady. Emberson has definitely stuck out to me more, but he plays the opposite side.