NEKRanger

Proud of the team this postseason. If the salary cap were allowed to grow at its normal rate, we'd be talking about a NYR future dynasty. Key was Tampa Bay's goalie got out of his funk in game 3, this got the Lightning back to playing their defensive game and changed the whole series.

I think Strome will be missed when/if he is gone. He is one of the more underappreciated players on the team. I was/is hoping he would/will take a "home-town" discount and stay. It is unlikely that, given cap issues, that the Rangers will be replacing him with someone better (I'd say Copp is about equal, and will cost roughly equal, but that's not really a replacement since we already have him), unless a prospect comes in and does amazingly well right off the bat.

he was pushed, but we'll see

You make use of Murphy's Law to the team's advantage. You know that if you cash out now, the Rangers will go on and win the Metro. So take the $1K and help the team win. {If you hold out for the bigger payout, Murphy's law will kick you and the Rangers in the ass.}

Interesting since Trouba is having his best year as a Ranger this season. How much is Trouba and his improvement helping Miller and, maybe a little bit, is Miller's maturation benefiting Trouba as well?

At this point everything is so crazy that the Rangers might finish first and the Penguins might drop to a wild card so we still might get NYR-PIT in the first round that way.

Of course there was a period last season where Panarin was out and Strome managed to produce without him. Small sample sizes aside, Panarin is a great player and Strome is a good player. They work well together, the only problem here is the salary cap.

Tuned in just in time to see the tying goal and OT. Wow. Deadline deals coming through, and this team does not get rattled!.

The definitive statement on the success of the GM's deadline moves: fewer poop emojis in the blueshirt brotherhood lineup.

Think of it from Braun's point of view. First game with a new team: should he play on the opposite side with a rookie or play on his familiar side with a veteran? I think this is a good way to start with Braun, but not necessarily the lineup from here on out.

Good point. They needed this one with @TB and @CAR up next. OTOH, It's going to be tough down the stretch for the Rangers because the schedule is loaded with division games and (a) they are in a tough division and (b) the three bottom feeders in their division, games that they should expect to handle, happen to be long time rivals that hate them (Philly, NJ, NYI).

Yeah, they pretty much hover around 10% throughout the second round, go down to 6% by the end of the 3rd round, and then 4% in round 4. The nice thing about the draft is that teams can sign the players cheaply, if they do land a good one. Just for giggles, here are the first round picks for the Rangers since they started trading off starters, and their probabilities of being top 6/4/1. . The sum is 3.3, meaning that if the Rangers had drafted like an average team, they would get three starters (top two offensive lines or top two defensive pairs) out of this group. 7 Anderson 0.48 21 Chytil 0.20 9 Kravtsov 0.44 22 Miller 0.20 2 Kakko 0.88 1 Lafreneire 0.84 19 Schneider 0.28 SUM 3.32

There was a paper I downloaded that gave the probability of getting a top 6 forward (or top 4 defenseman) from each position in the draft. The table looked like this (I'm averaging groups of 3 picks cuz I'm a little lazy): Picks #1 to #3 = 84% Picks #4 to #6 = 53% Picks #7 to #9 = 41% Picks #10 to #12 = 40% Picks #13 to #15 = 34% Picks #16 to #18 = 22% Picks #19 to #21 = 27% Picks #22 to #24 = 28% Picks #25 to #27 = 19% Picks #28 to #30 = 16% So I'm thinking with the Rangers first round pick they have a 25 to 30 percent chance of getting a top-six player with it.

This was a fun thread to go through after seeing the game. Thanks to everyone from a long time lurker (1st post here). This game was a classic example of why statistics (Corsi, Fenwick) based on counting shots can be misleading, as the Capitals probably lead in both but the Rangers clearly dominated the game.