Are the Rangers F**king Everything Up?

[Morphinity 2.0]

Something that was brought up on the Steve Dangle Podcast - which is a good podcast for anyone that's never heard it - is that Lias Andersson refused to play for the Rangers because of what he says was a bullying issue.

 

Now, most of us here swept that under the rug and called him a pussy, but they made the point that the Rangers took no responsibility in that. Instead of trying to fix the issue they shipped him to another team. Who knows what Andersson will become but that was the 7th overall pick that felt ostracized in the room and the team chose the room over him.

 

If I'm not mistaken, didn't Kravstov ALSO have quotes about something similar two camps ago?

 

I'm not saying this is Tony but clearly something is/was rotten in the locker room to the point where you have at lease one, if not two, important pieces who are uncomfortable even playing for the organization.

 

Now we go to Kakko where there were no reports of bullying but the Rangers couldn't bring in a Finnish player to help him assimilate. Arguably the future of the franchise and the Rangers did what they normally do with American kids: sent him to live in the suburbs where Brendan Smith picks him up for practice. Smith, who even said Kakko basically didn't talk /or wasn't ABLE to talk because of the language barrier. You know, Federov's rise was in part due to the 4-5 other Russians brought in around him. Why couldn't the Rangers see this? They clearly saw it was an issue mid-season when they had to fly someone in for a week to hang out with him lol.

 

On to Miller: The Rangers did nothing but release a statement when Miller did a Q&A in which "fans" filled the inbox with n-words. That was his first taste of the NHL. Racism. then he's brought onto the team and within 8 games he's in the news again because of alleged racism. JD swept it under the rug and clearly they want this whole thing to disappear, but Adam Herman stands by his report which is fucking interesting and terrible all at once.

 

Clearly, the Rangers organization have not supported these young players properly. This is a rebuild in which your 7th overall refuses to play for your team. The 10th overall has yet to play a game. the 22nd overall is entangled in two potential racist events, the 2nd overall is homesick and struggles to even be in the lineup.

That's without talking about Lafreniere who so far through 8 games has played on 3 different lines and 2 different positions lol.

 

Call me crazy, but it doesn't really seem like the Rangers know what the fuck they're doing.

 

Listen, I love Dangle's podcast but they vastly over-simplified the Andersson situation. Andersson's bullying allegations came out one time, but Andersson himself did not bring them up and, instead, in an interview with Swedish media, said it was moreso him being homesick:

https://www.dailyrecord.com/story/sports/nhl/rangers/2020/04/20/lias-andersson-opens-up-reasons-leaving-ny-rangers/5164012002/

A translation of the interview, which was provided by reporter Johan Rylander, revealed that Andersson was feeling lonely and having sleeping issues.

 

"It wasn't just something that happened overnight, but it sneaked up on me," he told Rylander. "I had a hard time. ... I was injured, couldn't do anything about it. There were many small things that made it weigh. I started to get (into) bad habits off the ice."

 

...

 

"I sat playing video games all night, just waiting for the Swedes to wake up to go to work at home so I could call," Andersson said. "I had trouble sleeping and started taking a sleeping pill every now and then. ... It could have been worse if I let it continue."

 

So maybe there was some issue with him fitting in in the room, sure. But they made it seem so much worse on the podcast. They failed to factor in that Andersson absolutely fucking sucked and continues to suck on the Kings.

[Scott]

I'm in the middle of the road here. To me it's a combination of things I think there's 4 current cornerstones they should at least be able to count on night after night. Panarin, Zib, Kreider, Trouba - outside of Panarin they haven't done that this season (wanna still give Zib a pass for now-ok). I think the Trouba and Kreider contracts are troublesome.

 

I don't blame all the struggles the kids have on Quinn although I'm certainly not a huge fan. I can think of two kids who were over hyped as NHL ready and ones that were going to make a big impact from day one. One was the literally a bottom feeder in the entire league. The other not shown a whole lot in a miniscule sample but at the same time no real signs of being that advertised game changer. There's never any guarantees that any kid is going to turn out to be anything special until they actually do it. That's the harsh reality.

 

On the flip side there's the other side of the coin with guys like Fox and so far Miller. It's also that same miniscule sample size with Miller. Shesty was very very good last year and hasn't been the same so far this year so let's see.

 

It's great having all these "pieces" but the older I get the less excited I try to be about them until they prove themselves at this level. I did get reeled in with the Kakko and Laf hype so maybe that's why I'm gun shy. The one consistent has been Quinn the last few years and the kids with the highest ceilings haven't done much while there have been some surprises. But again does he really get any credit for say Miller other than not ruining him?

 

There's hope though for guys like Kakko, Jack Hughes has been an absolute stud this year after blowing the same goat as Kakko last year so there's that.

[MuddyInTheMiddle]

Something that was brought up on the Steve Dangle Podcast - which is a good podcast for anyone that's never heard it - is that Lias Andersson refused to play for the Rangers because of what he says was a bullying issue.

 

Now, most of us here swept that under the rug and called him a pussy, but they made the point that the Rangers took no responsibility in that. Instead of trying to fix the issue they shipped him to another team. Who knows what Andersson will become but that was the 7th overall pick that felt ostracized in the room and the team chose the room over him.

 

If I'm not mistaken, didn't Kravstov ALSO have quotes about something similar two camps ago?

 

I'm not saying this is Tony but clearly something is/was rotten in the locker room to the point where you have at lease one, if not two, important pieces who are uncomfortable even playing for the organization.

 

Now we go to Kakko where there were no reports of bullying but the Rangers couldn't bring in a Finnish player to help him assimilate. Arguably the future of the franchise and the Rangers did what they normally do with American kids: sent him to live in the suburbs where Brendan Smith picks him up for practice. Smith, who even said Kakko basically didn't talk /or wasn't ABLE to talk because of the language barrier. You know, Federov's rise was in part due to the 4-5 other Russians brought in around him. Why couldn't the Rangers see this? They clearly saw it was an issue mid-season when they had to fly someone in for a week to hang out with him lol.

 

On to Miller: The Rangers did nothing but release a statement when Miller did a Q&A in which "fans" filled the inbox with n-words. That was his first taste of the NHL. Racism. then he's brought onto the team and within 8 games he's in the news again because of alleged racism. JD swept it under the rug and clearly they want this whole thing to disappear, but Adam Herman stands by his report which is fucking interesting and terrible all at once.

 

Clearly, the Rangers organization have not supported these young players properly. This is a rebuild in which your 7th overall refuses to play for your team. The 10th overall has yet to play a game. the 22nd overall is entangled in two potential racist events, the 2nd overall is homesick and struggles to even be in the lineup.

That's without talking about Lafreniere who so far through 8 games has played on 3 different lines and 2 different positions lol.

 

Call me crazy, but it doesn't really seem like the Rangers know what the fuck they're doing.

 

I don't think the Lias Andersson situation is a very fair measuring stick. Almost nobody defended him as much as I did, but there were clearly maturity issues there which were exacerbated by over-hyping him and unrealistic expectations. Right now he is playing 4th line center in LA and has 1 goal to show for 7 games played. Unfortunately the reality is that he is a 4th liner/AHL in betweener and will probably be playing full time in the SHL by the time he is 25 years old.

 

https://www.capfriendly.com/players/lias-andersson

 

Same thing for Kravtsov, but I do think that he has the talent to develop if they are half as patient with him as they were with Buchnevich.

 

Lafreniare is going to be fine; it would help to staple him to Panarin's off wing though to see if they can get him going as he gets more comfortable. Not sure if anyone else read the article from the Athletic about the billet family that is putting him & Miller up, but it seems like they have absolutely given him the structure away from MSG to succeed.

 

Miller already is succeeding racist stupidity or not; very excited to see what he looks like in another 40 games.

 

The only point that I agree with above is Kaako. There definitely should have been a much better plan in place than having Brendan Smith trying to figure out what he is saying. While another Finnish veteran would have been ideal, even someone on the staff would have been better considering he was "the future" pre-Lafrenaire.