Mercogliano What Happens at Center?

[jsm7302]

Chytil has never has never reached 25 points in 4 full seasons. How can he be the answer at 2c?

[Br4d]

2 minutes ago, jsm7302 said:

Chytil has never has never reached 25 points in 4 full seasons. How can he be the answer at 2c?

 

He's 23 in Sept.  If the Rangers go that way it will be a nod to his youth and to his successful playoffs.  He certainly showed better against a tough lineup than we have come to expect.

 

Part of the Ranger's problem right now is that half the team is ridiculously young to be in the positions they are in.   This is mostly due to the Rangers getting fortunate with draft position over a period of several years and the young guys clearly being better options than an average vet FA or trade target.

 

Last year the youth factor forced the Rangers to make several deadline deals to flesh out the first two lines while hoping the young guys could raise their level of play in the post-season - which they mostly did.

 

The best way to describe the roster right now is Gorton/Drury's Frankenstein Monster.  Lots of talent and very little of it seems to fit naturally either from a talent perspective or from the cap perspective.  The talent is an overload though and whatever the Rangers do they are likely to be very relevant in 2022-2023 and 2023-24.

[The Dude]

8 hours ago, RJWantsTheCup said:

According to Br4d Schneider is playing with Trouba after Lindgren is traded and Miller moves up to the 1st pair with Fox. 

Oh yeah. Why was that again? Lol, kidding.  

[The Dude]

7 hours ago, rmc51 said:

That’s why they need another center. In the event either Chytil or <insert name here> gets hurt, Goodrow slides back to center to cover. That doesn’t mean they need to sign or trade for a high quality 2C though.

 

The idea of Stastny for a year has been growing on me. Can still put up 40 points. Great on faceoffs. Even with his age, he has enough skill to play 17-18 a night if Chytil isn’t cutting it enough, or can slide up if (when? Lol) Chytil gets hurt.

I'm starting to think Stastny is the most logical option. Won't be here to take anyone's job, but could slot up or down in that middle 6.

 

Won't break the bank,  won't want term, has playoff experience with mild numbers (69 points in 103 games) and is great in the dot. Only concern is age and maybe injury history (if you consider he's always missing about 10 games a season a problem)  

 

Rydahl may just be the next Meskanen (yes i know totallydifferenttypesofplayers(. These signings never really work out. Guy is going to be 28 when the season starts.

 

I'm not seriously including that guy on any roster. I'm assuming either Rooney is back or they sign Colin White or an equivalent. 

 

[Cash or Czech]

I mentioned Stastny a few weeks back. He's the lowest risk, lowest reward option in my mind. 36 years old, so a 35+ contract which is risky over one year. Coming off a one-year, $3.75mil contract. 45 points in 71 games. If he'd take the same contract, he'd be a great option assuming we strike out on the trade front. 

[The Dude]

6 hours ago, jsm7302 said:

Chytil has never has never reached 25 points in 4 full seasons. How can he be the answer at 2c?

Because he has Stastny on standbye if he falters. Then you make a trade or wait till the offseason where there will potentially be much better options as UFAs (Mackinnon, Miller, Killorn, Larkin, O'Reilly, Monahan, Horvat, Toews, Suter) and more cap space to work with as dead space coming off the books (right?). You then try to trade Chytil and whomever has run out of chances.

 

I think they have to give Chytil that chance though. If he works out. That's huge savings and a building step. Yes, it's a big If, but worth a shot IMO.

[mRanger48]

[jsm7302]

5x5, welcome to NY Dylan!! Chicago is solving everyone's problems. And for anyone going to say this isn't the answer because he isnt gritty enough or whatever.  This is beyond a small upgrade of trying Chytil at 2c. Go get em Chris!

[Pete]

1 hour ago, jsm7302 said:

5x5, welcome to NY Dylan!! Chicago is solving everyone's problems. And for anyone going to say this isn't the answer because he isnt gritty enough or whatever.  This is beyond a small upgrade of trying Chytil at 2c. Go get em Chris!

I think it would be a very good move.

 

But like I said earlier, you're still going to get the same exact whining about baby bro. 

 

It's almost like these mid-range players all have similar faults in their games, and that's why they make five or six million dollars instead of nine or ten million dollars.

[Capt]

The guy was a healthy scratch on an awful team for stretches of the season.  They are now not qualifying him and obviously there was no trade market for him.  So 30 NHL Gm's think he's not worth a $3M gamble.  I would think that there might be some validity to people "whining" about him not being the solution to the center problem.  

[LindG1000]

23 minutes ago, Capt said:

The guy was a healthy scratch on an awful team for stretches of the season.  They are now not qualifying him and obviously there was no trade market for him.  So 30 NHL Gm's think he's not worth a $3M gamble.  I would think that there might be some validity to people "whining" about him not being the solution to the center problem.  

Dude was a point-a-game player in the second half of last season on that awful Blackhawks team. There's something worth investigating with him. I don't know if he's the solution to the center problem, but he's probably worth giving a chance at the rumored price tag.

 

I don't know how he ended up in Chateau Bow Wow as often as he did, and I don't know why 31 other GMs wouldn't take him on if the Blackhawks were content to just not qualify him. Bluntly, based on the last few days, I think the Blackhawks are just on crazy pills.

[Br4d]

If you have to give him $5M+ you're talking to Copp until the last minute he signs before you do that, right?

 

Neither Strome looks like a better bet than Copp and if they're all signing similar deals you want the guy who is a two-way C and wins face-offs, yes?

Edited July 11, 2022 by Br4d

[Pete]

Copp is not a good defensive player. Certainly in the ballpark of Ryan.

 

If you sign Dylan, that's not the expectation, so Goodrow needs to be the 3C on a more defensive until that might also chip some in. Chytil would be the odd man out, again.

 

Also not sure how anyone can say "30 GMs don't think he's worth $3M gamble"...Why trade for someone you can have as a UFA and not give up any assets for?

[LindG1000]

46 minutes ago, Br4d said:

If you have to give him $5M+ you're talking to Copp until the last minute he signs before you do that, right?

 

Neither Strome looks like a better bet than Copp and if they're all signing similar deals you want the guy who is a two-way C and wins face-offs, yes?

 

Probably, yeah.

 

My understanding is this:

• Copp wants 7 years at or around 5.5M a year. The market for him may extend up as high as $6M+ a year in UFA. He will want no-move/no-trade protection for at least half the contract. Drury remains in frequent contact with his camp. There's also the somewhat uncomfortable reality that if we give him a contract, he needs to play center and he played RW for almost his entire time here.
• Ryan Strome wants something similar to that, but we're not talking to him. 
• Dylan Strome? Not a clue, but you have to figure that the market for a 50-ish point center is about what Copp or Strome would get.

Copp offers more of the playstyle diversity we likely need, but the term, positional uncertainty, and the lack of sample size (his production in NY is an outlier against his career stats) make me hesitant to give him that contract. Ryan Strome is what he is. Dylan Strome is the most interesting of the three to me - he has proven productive on far lesser teams in the past, he seems to have figured out how to win faceoffs, gets the sort of sheltered starts that we'd probably want for a Panarin-x-Kravtsov/Kakko line, and he probably isn't going to be asking for term just yet. 

 

I think he's the smartest play on the table for this season. 

[Pete]

5 minutes ago, LindG1000 said:

he has proven productive on far lesser teams in the past, he seems to have figured out how to win faceoffs,

Great point, 52.6% in the dot after Jan 1.

[Cash or Czech]

4 minutes ago, Pete said:

Copp is not a good defensive player. Certainly in the ballpark of Ryan.

 

If you sign Dylan, that's not the expectation, so Goodrow needs to be the 3C on a more defensive until that might also chip some in. Chytil would be the odd man out, again.

 

Also not sure how anyone can say "30 GMs don't think he's worth $3M gamble"...Why trade for someone you can have as a UFA and not give up any assets for?

 

We kind of saw the opposite with Georgiev. Colorado identified him as 'their guy', so they threw resources to secure him before he (most likely) when UFA.

 

D Strome is definitely nobody's first choice. Why not kick tires when he'll be a UFA for sure?

[Pete]

Just now, Cash or Czech said:

 

We kind of saw the opposite with Georgiev. Colorado identified him as 'their guy', so they threw resources to secure him before he (most likely) when UFA.

 

D Strome is definitely nobody's first choice. Why not kick tires when he'll be a UFA for sure?

 The goalie market was getting thin and what does Sakic care about picks? He just won a Cup and is still a favorite to win more.

[LindG1000]

Just to calibrate some here, Evolving Hockey pushed its FA projections today - https://evolving-hockey.com/blog/evolving-hockey-nhl-free-agency-preview-2022/  and has Dylan Strome at 3 years, 4.6/y as the most likely contract. 

[jsm7302]

3 minutes ago, LindG1000 said:

Just to calibrate some here, Evolving Hockey pushed its FA projections today - https://evolving-hockey.com/blog/evolving-hockey-nhl-free-agency-preview-2022/  and has Dylan Strome at 3 years, 4.6/y as the most likely contract. 

This is a no brainer. We need centers. Panarin likes Strome. Panarin is our star. We can't afford Ryan so we bargain bin shopped his brother who could potentially eclipse Ryan due to career numbers thus far. This makes more sense than anything proposed thus far due to our needs, our current lack of center depth, our cap issues etc. This is a deal; sign him to a show me contract. 

[LindG1000]

16 minutes ago, jsm7302 said:

This is a no brainer. We need centers. Panarin likes Strome. Panarin is our star. We can't afford Ryan so we bargain bin shopped his brother who could potentially eclipse Ryan due to career numbers thus far. This makes more sense than anything proposed thus far due to our needs, our current lack of center depth, our cap issues etc. This is a deal; sign him to a show me contract. 

 

I'm gonna go on one limb that's a bit of a complicator here:

 

I don't think Ryan gets that much more.

[Ozzy]

I really don't think Ryan Strome is going to stick it to his brother by signing here. 

[BrooksBurner]

I don’t see Dylan signing here after the Rangers moved on from his brother.
 

But in before the Rangers trade a couple of kids and sign both of the Strome

brothers

[BrooksBurner]

7 minutes ago, Ozzy said:

I really don't think Ryan Strome is going to stick it to his brother by signing here. 

I’m guessing you meant Dylan, and you beat me to it!

[Ozzy]

2 minutes ago, rmc51 said:

I’m guessing you meant Dylan, and you beat me to it!

 

Yeah, I meant Ryan RMC....It's Monday!  LOL  But yeah, I'm not seeing him steal his brother's thunder here.  It might be more likely we move Chytil to Chicago and get both Ryan and Dylan here! 

[Drew a Penalty]

I can't see why Ryan moving on would influence Dylan to not come to New York. Unless there's been a complete burning of bridges, which I doubt, the Rangers have been nothing but good to Ryan. Ryan is going to get paid somewhere and I doubt he'd discourage his brother from mimicking his route.