Br4d

If I'm Drury I'm going with "have a chance every season". When the stars align we'll get there. As the kids grow up there will be less and less of a need to rent a star every season at the trading deadline.

7, 9 and 10 is pretty good given the talent on the team. Hopefully we can navigate the NMC's well enough to keep all of them and get their prime seasons also.

Laffy was sparking last night. Canadiens are the team he grew up rooting for and you know they're his dream destination when his Rangers days are over - whenever that is.

Maybe the PP1 configuration is to force some of the usual suspects to stop with the pass-pass-pass and start shooting? For a lot of this season and last the Rangers were a pass too many and a shot short.

The problem with players like Panarin is that their contribution is sharply delineated by a few things that they do exceptionally well. In Panarin's case he sets up his mates very well for good scoring opportunities and he's really devastating on the PP when there are fewer defenders on the ice to hinder this primary ability. He's excellent when the Rangers have the puck, albeit probably shooting less than he ought to. However matched with that contribution are a lot of things that lesser players do better than him. He's a very non-physical player who avoids using his body to set the play. He's an uninspired defensive player who makes an occasional play but often just oles when in a critical situation in his own zone. He's not particularly good as a forechecker although he's great in the offensive zone *when the Rangers already have the puck*. When Panarin is motivated and skating hard he's one of the best players in the NHL however it feels like he is going at 90% most of the time. One of the problems with having a great player like this on your roster is that other players look to him for leadership and to set an example and if you can't do the things he does, which most players can't, you wind up emulating an imperfect play style and maybe not doing some things that you can do better.

The real question come early May is going to be whether the Rangers are getting pushed around on the ice. Teams don't win cups getting pushed around on the ice no matter how pretty the passing is. Eventually they run into a team that has real skills and can push them around and the parade comes to a screeching halt.

It always takes a few games to put things together after a trade and the Rangers have made two big trades in the last month. That said, there is a qualitative difference in the Bruins and Rangers play that is hard to miss. It's been there through all 3 games they have played this season. The Rangers leave opposing forwards alone in front of their goalkeeper and the Bruins do not. That will lose you games every day in the NHL and especially in the playoffs. The Rangers seriously need to tighten up their defense or this is just going to have been a splashy sequence of trades to no great purpose.

There's just no way this team is beating the Bruins this season. We don't play good enough defense. Period. Hopefully somebody else knocks them off before the finals because watching the Rangers get there and lose 4-0 is going to totally suck.

The Bruins will be hitting our defensemen all day. If Igor is very sharp we can stay in the game otherwise it is going to be 6-3 Bruins.

Every time you make a move it takes a few games to get everything rolling smoothly. With the Rangers shorthanded right now that is likely to be the case.

The Rangers shorthandedness the last few games and tonight is purely based on wanting Kane here. The NHL is right to enforce the cap to the best of their ability and when you jump through hoops to clear small amounts of cap space there has to be a price.

I don't know if the Rangers will have the cap space to swing it but K'Andre Miller at 26 is likely to be a solid all-around LD with high upside on offense. There aren't a lot of those guys around.

This is the best argument for having your breakaway threats on the PK. That said Zibanejad is a good defensive player and likely the #1 forward on this team you would like defending against the powerplay.

Obviously the Rangers defensive problems stem from playing too many and too good defenseman. They really just need to play a guy from each of their top 2 pairings and 2 guys at random for things to work.

Why do I feel like this trade might never happen unless the Rangers decide to play a game with 8F and 3D and maybe no backup goalie?

Fox and Lindgren go way back. Multiple levels of play.

Kravtsov has been nothing but trouble from a developmental point of view. That the Rangers held on to him this long was the surprising thing. He should have been gone early in the season when it became apparent there were no minutes for him and he was not going to accept a move to Hartford. You can't let a non-productive player hold up your processes the way that Kravtsov did. At some point you have to part ways and consider it addition by subtraction.

The Rangers got approximately Kravtsov's value for him. If they'd traded him last year when he refused to report to Hartford they'd probably have gotten more. Sunk costs.

The Rangers BTW are the prettiest passing team I have seen in a longtime in NY. They really have the technical assets of the ring of pickpockets in a crowd thing down.

The Rangers coaches aren't inept they just have an over-reliance on chemistry and don't do enough systemic work to back that up. It is probably exhausting for the players who are shifted from line to line over the weeks as GG tries to find the right combos. Then he hits on good groupings and the team takes off and everything is good. Then the Rangers trade for Tarasenko and weeks of settling in are suddenly disrupted again as the frantic line shifts continue.

The only way a Lindgren injury helps us is... There's no way a Lindgren injury helps us.

The Rangers were just fine until they traded for Tarasenko. I think Drury did not consider what trading for Tarasenko would do to GG's lineup manipulations.

So at what point are we going to recognize that coaches don't get fired for .65 performances over a couple of seasons? I think it would take a grievous personal event or a fast uncompetitive exit in the playoffs for GG to get fired after this season. He's not perfect by any means but the Rangers have been better over the last two seasons than they have since the mid-10's and the balance between offense and defense has been better also. You can point at the trade deadline moves last year as key in the long run in the tourney but the Rangers were a top 4 team before those moves.

GG really liked Laffy going after Wallman. Body language is clear.

If I was a Redwings fan I'd be annoyed at that call. Lindgren's stick was in the face and that's supposed to be 5 minutes.