Br4d

How would things look if the Rangers found a way to trade Panarin for some value and keep Tarasenko?

Yes but you couldn't say that at all as of their 21 years. We just played a guy in Hischier who had everybody guessing after 3 seasons in the NHL.

It's definitely more the talent than the coaching. I'm not saying GG didn't have something to do with the loss to the Devils but the Rangers just looked outmanned, outhustled and generally outplayed for much of the series. The Rangers are a mediocre team at even strength and that is where playoff games are generally won and lost because the refs keep the whistles in their pockets in most games.

You can't build a cup contender based on the way the Rangers are built right now. We've seen the high water mark on that team and it was last season, not this season. For the Rangers to advance to a final and win it they need to be better than the team was this year and the only way to do that with this personnel group is for the young guys to become at least the co-leaders of the team. If the personnel is going to get switched up it is glaringly obvious that the guys that need to go are in the NMC group not in the young group. The cap won't allow the team to get better by replacing the young guys and the NMC guys are getting older and less moveable every season. We look at Panarin and Kreider and Trouba and see guys that are going to be hard to trade because of the NMC's and their cap numbers but these guys are going to be impossible to move when they're 33/34 and have the same cap numbers. Their production isn't going up from where it is right now but the AAV will stay the same. We took the latest build and we added Tarasenko and Kane to it and arguably become a worse team in the process. How are we ever going to take the model and make it seaworthy if adding that duo didn't get it done this season?

Obviously he's in Kreider's spot. And yes, this has nothing to do with the Rangers being better in 2024 and everything to do with them being better from 2024-2029 or whatever.

They found out the next season. Obviously if Lafreniere slides backwards instead of progressing next season it will answer some questions. If he gets line 1 minutes and PP1 action he should get 25+ goals and 55+ pts next season.

Laffy's kind of at the point in his career where it's all on him. If he's given the keys to the Kingdom and he doesn't come through it will be easier to accept that it's time to get what we can for him and move on with the logjam at LW. This includes LW1 or LW2 and definitely PP1. Just want to add that this same thought process was undoubtedly going through the Ottawa collective decision process on Zibanejad.

The idea of Lafreniere getting the 1st LW with a commitment to keeping him there is kind of exciting. For all the griping about lack of #1OA production his progression has been pretty steady and he's got to mature some time. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the upside possibilities are fairly strong.

The issue isn't really moving Kreider specifically. It's breaking up a logjam at LW while putting a group of veteran players on notice that if they are not playing every game like it might be their last as a Ranger it might be their last as a Ranger. Kreider is one of two guys on the roster you can do that with.

The way he plays is fine as long as his passes don't turn into cycling because other key players want to pass first also. The whole team minus Kreider, Chytil, Trocheck and Lafreniere are too deferential to the "open guy".

You could quantify that with an Expected Goals Allowed stat that took all the context into account and then gave the award to one of the top producers in the category among defensemen each year. The eye test could be a small part of that. The major factors would probably be goalie quality and how the player's production compared to his peers both on the team and in the league. The algorithm would undoubtedly be very complex because you'd have to factor out all the stats that were saying the same thing for the same reason so they didn't double-weight a single contribution.

Makar is a great player. That type of player is always going to get a call when they have anything resembling one of their top seasons and he did that this year over 60 games. Fox is there for the same reason. Really did not have a great season by his standards but it was close enough that he gets the checkmark. The numbers looked ok but he was very sloppy at times this season.

Bertuzzi is a LW. Acquiring him would be a lot like the Trocheck acquisition in that we would get a known quantity but then be vulnerable to having somebody else (Laffy, Othman, Cuylle) step up making him a luxury not a need. The Rangers really need to acquire this type of player on the RW, not another on the LW.

The Rangers were not a better team after the two trades. Tarasenko was maybe an even transition but maybe not. The kid line shut down for the season when they made the deals.

Player's coach with structured system is a young player's coach. Not exactly vet friendly because if you don't skate in his system you're not going to be around for long. But NMC's so just totally fucked. "It's my way or sitting in the pressbox not earning your pay!"

The Rangers really underwhelm at 5v5.

With Mika the answer was 4. After 4 seasons Mika had 43 goals. Kakko has 44 after 4 seasons. Laffy has 47 after 3.

This is a player's coach progression. He is a breath of fresh air for all the vets when he gets to a new team. That only takes you so far though and it's human nature for some of the guys you're coaching to lose their edge when they have no professional fear going on because that's not the way you coach. Then many of the players get comfortable with the arrangement and comfortable is always bad in professional sports. Professional sports is a knife fight without visible blades and the costs can be in the millions for the losers and you don't know you're losing until you're flat on your ass and the other guy just took your lunch money. The guys on the edge are working all the time, the Veseys and the Mottes, because as soon as they let up they are out of the NHL. But everybody else has the choice to make of whether they're going to work as hard as they can or as hard as they can get away with and not lose their jobs and Gerard Gallant doesn't retire people prematurely because they're not playing hard. Also, the NMC's. What a disaster those are en masse.

Looking back at the two seasons post-Covid the thing that stands out to me is how much the Rangers lived and died by their powerplay. I think you have to be a better even strength team to be seriously in the conversation. Last year Shesterkin carried the Rangers on his back for a lot of the year. This year the Rangers took half the season to get going and then promptly got disrupted after the two RW acquisitions that shifted the dynamics again. I'm not going to blame Kane for the disruption because after a few good games with Tarasenko the Rangers had a bad streak also just before Kane arrived. Edit: I just realized that Chytil went cold right after Tarasenko got here and never picked it back up this season. It was like the kid line and Chytil were in the spotlight and the Rangers were sizzling and then suddenly the focus shifted and all the sizzle was gone.

There's no window for a cup right now. The window was *if* the kids turned out to be a good 2nd line+. Mika is the Rangers best player right now and he's Jacques LeMaire not Bryan Trottier. I recognize there's a size difference between Mika and LeMaire but they are the same kind of player. Good responsible defensive players who pivot excellently for their wings and are fairly soft non-contact players. What Mika needs is for Laffy to turn into Steve Shutt and Kakko to turn into Guy LaFleur. That's what gets the Rangers over the top. What he has instead is Chris Kreider who is an excellent journeyman LW at this point in his career (1 All-star appearance in his 11 year career) and a RW to be named later because that's always what the Rangers have going into the season. Seriously, the Rangers are a good team but they have no business being in the top 4 conversation even if they keep making trades at the deadline to try to fake it.

Strome was injured basically the entire playoffs last season. It was easier to give Panarin a pass for the subpar playoffs then because his partner was really hobbled. This season Panarin didn't really click with anybody. Yes he got the 90+ points but it felt like he showed up as a star player maybe a dozen times all season and not at all in the playoffs. I feel like I've seen Panarin play to his reputation about 25 times in the last 2 seasons. That alongside 25 disappearances weighted heavily in the post-season. I see the points and I understand why people think that is valuable but the guy drives *nothing*. He is totally dependent on who he is playing with to make the numbers really good and to me that is not a star. It's just a good player accumulating stats. I did see a few games this year that he actually took over and was the #1 star. He was shooting and scoring in those games. You can't just turn that on and off. That's where the value is.

This also describes Fox too from a slightly different perspective. They share similar skill sets with Fox being more responsible defensively and Panarin more active in the offensive zone. One of the things I was thinking along about 10 minutes into the 2nd period in game 7 was that Fox looked pretty hopeless in the offensive zone. He'd make a pass across ice and Panarin would send it down low and 5 seconds later it was on Fox's stick again and there was Panarin to his left and the whole goddamn setup was around the perimeter again and like rinse and repeat and somebody shoot the fucking puck! But no, 5 seconds later it was on his stick again... What I'm trying to say is you can't have two Magicians on the ice at the same time because all the magic evaporates unless somebody finishes the play.

Drury probably does not know what he wants to do yet. His coach and becoming his team over the last two seasons. Lots of decisions made before he took top job are becoming questionable at this point and he probably genuinely does not know how to handle some of the interactions necessary at this point.

There's some starry-eyed evaluations in my opinion. No way does Patrick Kane belong above Barclay Goodrow in the final rankings.

I really think you're selling Lafreniere short on the physical aggressive scale. He's actually a pretty good checking forward. Obviously we want a lot more out of him but unwillingness to throw his weight around hasn't really been the problem so far.