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Brendan Smith's Season is Over; Breaks Hand Fighting Vinni Lettieri in Practice

Scott

By Scott
in New York Rangers

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Respecttheblue BSBH Mite

Respecttheblue

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I guess many things balance themselves out. On one hand, we totally lucked out in aquiring McD and his services rendered for many years AND landing us those prospects/players.

We took major hits on Sauer, Klein and now Smith in ways we didn't see coming.

 

Difference being Sauer was a growing success story out of nowhere, cut tragically short. Can't blame that on management.

Klein was a good signing, he worked for the most part, until he finally didn't. No criticism of management on my part with Klein; he contributed well for a while.

Smith was an money-fist grab at a flash in the pan that turned into a kitchen fire. But he could have been the difference maker to stabilize the defense. Honestly I loved his playoff performance, abd I'm not sure who could have seen a hangover like that one coming.

 

Compared with SNAFUs/self-inflicted wounds/system depletion that dug the organizational hole deeper, where we traded picks and assets and paid top dollar and got bad, underwhelming, or mediocre return like Boyle (over the hill, bad defensive fit), Ryane Clowe (concussion risk signing), and Yandle (poor value, mediocre defensive fit), and Eric Staal, to a degree, where the team arguably handled the player's role in the lineup badly and let him (Staal) become productive elsewhere.

 

Maybe I am too hard on the Yandle signing, but it irked me, but maybe Duclair was no bargain in the locker room and the rangers were onto this.

 

You see Anthony play and his speed and skill is obvious to everyone. There's some things that I think should stay behind closed doors. It was a long process. We went through a lot of different approaches and a lot of different things through two different [coaching] staffs here, and at the end of the day just felt that for both sides it was best to move on."

 

"It's gone back for a few years now where the team wasn't particularly happy with the player and the player wasn't particularly happy with the team and we worked through some things, tried a lot of different approaches in a lot of different ways,"

http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/22030428/chicago-blackhawks-acquire-anthony-duclair-4-player-trade-arizona-coyotes

.

 

Anyway I digress, we're kind of out of there, now and moving on. Hopefully to a brighter future.

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Gravesy BSBH Rising Star

Gravesy

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As someone said. Brian Boyle had a fight in practice as a Ranger. He was a locker room darling. Tempers flair and shit happens. I don't think its as detrimental as you do, npr do i feel its indicative of good or bad discipline.

 

We don't even know the full story. What if he broke his hand prior to the fight due to a slash? What if it was a scrum and they fell on his hand? Can we get the entire story before we point fingers?

 

Like I said, my take on this is from my experience as a player in a couple of very different hockey clubs. I appreciate that others may have different experiences and different opinions. Personally I never really experienced a place where dropping gloves and throwing punches at a teammate was ok. The fact Boyle did it as a Ranger is neither here nor there. Nobody likes it. If you're Smith it's a bad idea. If you're Boyle you can probably get away with it.

And you're absolutely correct in that we don't know what happened. My points are based on the assumption that Smith did drop his gloves and swung at Lettieri.

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The Dude BSBH Legend

The Dude

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Like I said, my take on this is from my experience as a player in a couple of very different hockey clubs. I appreciate that others may have different experiences and different opinions. Personally I never really experienced a place where dropping gloves and throwing punches at a teammate was ok. The fact Boyle did it as a Ranger is neither here nor there. Nobody likes it. If you're Smith it's a bad idea. If you're Boyle you can probably get away with it.

And you're absolutely correct in that we don't know what happened. My points are based on the assumption that Smith did drop his gloves and swung at Lettieri.

 

Its happened a bunch of times and with different types of players. From Eric Cairns and whomever he fought, to Sean Avery, and Mike Sauer, to Brandon Dubisky and Brian Boyle, to many other occasions. It happens and I really don't think its a huge deal, nor does it lead me to believe in any kind of character flaw.

 

Being out of shape to start the season says more about his character than this fight does.

 

Obviously you don't want your own players fighting each other, but imo this nothing huge or damning.

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