Off-Topic: NHL Hockey, not College Hockey

The Rangers are so bad.

I'm not talking trash, I'm expressing frustration. [rant]All the talent on that team, and no chemistry. Last year they finally had a line that worked well together so what'd they do? They traded Hlavac away. Don't misunderstand me, Lindros is a great player and if you have a chance to get someone of his caliber, you take it, but I mean... for all the skill they have, they can't work together worth shit.[/rant]

Rich (Rich H, that is, not RichS), feel free to ignore this thread.

Too late.

Although, if we're discussing twinkies, I guess this becomes OK then.

By this time next year, I sure hope we're still focused on what our hockey team could accomplish in Buffalo.

Trust me...I wish I could ignore it too! Thankfully, I was preparing for a trip out of town tonite and was spared watching them lose another "Must" game.

Have they earned even one pt since they made these recent trades?

Yeah, they won in Ottawa... As far as I'm concerned, though, when Richter got hurt that was pretty much the end of their chances of making the playoffs. Blackburn is a great prospect, but he's not carrying them anywhere YET.

no complaints here.
LETS GO DEVILS!

I don't think you can pin last night's loss on Blackburn. Where the hell was the defense all night? Flyers tried to hand them the game on a platter with a bunch of stupid penalties and the disallowed goal. Maybe they can just skate Bure and Leetch around for 60 minutes

Where was the defense last night? Probably the same place it's been all season - not in New York. The Bure pickup and the York trade were perfect Ranger deals. A high-priced forward with surgically repaired knees who thinks the world ends at his own blueline, followed immediately by a trade shipping away their only true two-way forward for yet another mediocre offenseman in Poti. Oh, but I forgot - the Isles and Devils were interested in Poti, so giving up the future of the franchise is so worth it. . .

Have you watched Bure play? He's on the PK and has the speed to get back and play D better that most of the actual defensemen. This isn't the Pavel Bure of 6 years ago. He's probably the best 2-way player on the team and the best player on the ice since they picked him up. As for Poti, I was as pissed as everyone else with losing York, but I agree with Sather. York is replaceable, while players like Poti are hard to come by. Considering they haven't been able to move the puck out of their zone all year, picking up a defenseman who can carry the puck well and make a really good first pass is extremely useful. Leetch is 35, you know. Also, I don't think they gave up very much for Bure. Other than York, the players that went were doing diddly, and Blackburn is the first decent draft pick they've gotten in years. Better to have a known quantity if you can afford it.

The Bure trade was a real coup, since the Rangers gave up effectively nothing for him. Still, despite his speed he is NOT a great two-way player. Anyone else watch Bertuzzi five-hole him on the way to the goal in his first game with New York? Is he better defensively than he was 6 years ago? Maybe, but what does that really say? He's on the PK? Great. Wasn't Jurassic Mark on the PK until he went down? I know Messier was on the PK last year, and he was once a great 2 way player and penalty killer, but he looked awful last year in just about every respect. I hate to say this, but the fact that Bure is the best two-way player on the Rangers is really telling. Mostly, I thought it was funny that the worst defensive team in the league traded for an offensive-first forward and THEN traded away the best 2 way forward on the team.

As for Poti - the York for Poti deal was not really a good one, but that's just my opinion. Poti is a pretty good defenseman, and maybe is not an offenseman to the extent that Leetch (who also plays pretty good defense), Malakhov, or Berard are (which doesn't mean that he's not an offenseman), but just who are you going to get that will replace Mike York? Another solid 2 way forward in his mid-20s? Name one that's there for the asking.

Really, I agree with the jokers who think York is the kind of guy that can be the nucleus of a franchise. I don't feel the same way about Poti, and that's what it comes down to. Maybe I'm wrong about Poti's value and/or York's replaceability, who knows?

The real problem is the trend of trading away promising young talent for old expensive geezers (not that Poti is an old expensive geezer). It's the "win five more games now at the expense of winning many more games later" mentality that has gotten the Rangers into this mess, and I don't see them breaking out of the mold anytime soon. Trading Hlavac and Jonsson for Lindros? I realize the Rangers didn't like Jonsson very much, but that's an awful deal. When Sather learns that building winning teams takes more than a single season of high-priced free agent and veteran acquisitions at the expense of the future of the franchise, the Rangers might be good again. Until then, I hope everyone is ready for a string of 7-10 finishes in the east.

Umm. Sather did quite well with no-name talent, no money, and young kids in Edmonton for how many years? Now that he has resources, I'm confident he'll build a good team, but it won't happen right away. Give him another year or two. I think the real problem is not the team, but the coach. Scotty Bowman can take a bunch of selfish, prissy, overpaid veterans and walk all over the entire league in Detroit. Ron Low may have more talent on his bench in a similar situation and can't even make the playoffs. As much as I hate the bastard, at least Keenan got results, and maybe he's precisely the kind of coach the Rangers need.

I agree that the coach is a huge problem.

I don't agree with many of the moves that Sather has been making (as if that isn't obvious by now). He had success in Edmonton with limited resources. Now that he's got resources, he's building a team that lacks chemistry, leadership, defense, and special teams. He's giving up solid young talent for guys who won't be around in 2-3 years, and guys who might not be around after the next game. I'd like Sather to prove me wrong, and I'd like to believe that a good coach is all it would take, but there are precious few Scotty Bowman's out there. Keenan would be right for *this* Ranger team, since he'd whup all the prissy whiny vets into his system, but it'd only last for a year or two - and then the Rangers will be worse off than before. Like I said, the apparent philosophy in the New York front office is to win five more games now, rather than many more games in the future. Well, 5 more wins is great if you get bounced on the road in game 7 of the conference finals, but for a 10th place team this strategy makes no sense.

If, in two years, Sather has a young (or at least balanced), talented team with home ice in the playoffs and looking to contend for the cup for years to come (a la Colorado), feel free to email me back all of my comments above and tell me that I'm full of it and shouldn't pretend to know about hockey.

Ok, so I'm full of it and shouldn't pretend to know about hockey, but that has nothing to do with this thread.

That's ok. None of us do
You keep bringing up the age thing, though. Where have they gotten so much older in their trade? Unless you mean Lindros will be broken in 2-3 years

That's exactly what I mean. Also, I keep forgetting that Lindros got to the NHL at a relatively young age, so I think he's older than he is (and, in all likelihood, that I think Hlavac and co are slightly younger than they are). I think you're generous giving Lindros 2-3 years, too.