Romano will not be back next year

[evilnaturedrobot]

I watched atleast 65 Ranger games last year and probably 120 over the last two years. I'm not telling you what I've heard, I'm tell you what I've seen.  You're  welcome to your own opinion on Malik (would you happen to be an NHL GM looking to take him off the Ranger's hands?), but I've had enough of him.

[Josh '99]

[quote evilnaturedrobot]I watched atleast 65 Ranger games last year and probably 120 over the last two years. I'm not telling you what I've heard, I'm tell you what I've seen.  You're  welcome to your own opinion on Malik (would you happen to be an NHL GM looking to take him off the Ranger's hands?), but I've had enough of him.[/quote]Fair enough.  I don't want to get into a pissing contest about who's seen the most Rangers hockey, but I've watched a pretty fair amount as well.  Believe me, I've seen some boneheaded gaffes, but I've also seen a lot of good defensive positioning that we'd be happy to see in a Cornell defenseman.  

I'd love to see another GM take him off the Rangers' hands, still, but that's because I think he's overpaid ($2.5M/year is a lot for a stay-at-home defenseman, though no worse than Mara or Kasparaitis are overpaid), not because I think we have anybody in the system who'd do any better of a job.

[evilnaturedrobot]

[quote Josh '99][quote evilnaturedrobot]I watched atleast 65 Ranger games last year and probably 120 over the last two years. I'm not telling you what I've heard, I'm tell you what I've seen.  You're  welcome to your own opinion on Malik (would you happen to be an NHL GM looking to take him off the Ranger's hands?), but I've had enough of him.[/quote]Fair enough.  I don't want to get into a pissing contest about who's seen the most Rangers hockey, but I've watched a pretty fair amount as well.  Believe me, I've seen some boneheaded gaffes, but I've also seen a lot of good defensive positioning that we'd be happy to see in a Cornell defenseman.  

I'd love to see another GM take him off the Rangers' hands, still, but that's because I think he's overpaid ($2.5M/year is a lot for a stay-at-home defenseman, though no worse than Mara or Kasparaitis are overpaid), not because I think we have anybody in the system who'd do any better of a job.[/quote]

Well that depends on just how ready Staal is when camp starts up.  If Marc's ready to step in when the season starts then I'd much rather live with his growing pains then Malik's gaffes.  Staal's OHL playoff run was just dominating, and he's probably been the best defensive defensemen in Junior hockey over the last 2 years.  But, considering the the jump between Junior and the NHL, he probably needs half a season in Hartford.


...and I think we're officially off topic (and this is mostly my fault.)

[RichH]

[quote evilnaturedrobot]I watched atleast 65 Ranger games last year and probably 120 over the last two years. I'm not telling you what I've heard, I'm tell you what I've seen.  You're  welcome to your own opinion on Malik (would you happen to be an NHL GM looking to take him off the Ranger's hands?), but I've had enough of him.[/quote]

Well, then I'm really glad that this Malik guy isn't taking the time to play 4 years at Cornell.  ::crazy::

[Beeeej]

[quote dre1614]sadly i was not?
What the hell?

Nice little cheap shot there Beeeej.  Anyways keep thinking Romano was a horrible defensive player, when in reality he was about average with the rest of the Cornell team.[/quote]

Thanks!  Funny, though, I didn't say a thing about Romano's defensive play.  In fact I didn't say anything about Romano at all.

But now that I'm on the subject, he's the only Cornell player in my twenty years of watching Cornell hockey who has ever made me shout, "There are four other skaters on the ice with you!!"  And I did it several times during the season.

Still haven't said anything about his defensive play.

[Cactus12]

Agreed. Malik's pretty solid on the kill too. Now Aaron Ward was a different story- I think he actually scored (deflections) 5 or 6 times on Lundqvist before being dealt to Boston.

[calgARI '07]

You can throw as many stats as you want but it doesn't change what I and most others SAW when they watched him play.  He sucked defensively and made terrible decisions with the puck.  For some reason, Schafer and the other coaches let him get away with his stickhandling around his own net for the entire season and did not hold him responsible for not buying into team defense.  He was still a top notch offensive player at the college level and not one person in this thread has argued that.  I still question how badly his absence will hurt the team.  He recorded points in one of the final nine games.

[evilnaturedrobot]

[quote calgARI '07]You can throw as many stats as you want but it doesn't change what I and most others SAW when they watched him play.  He sucked defensively and made terrible decisions with the puck.  For some reason, Schafer and the other coaches let him get away with his stickhandling around his own net for the entire season and did not hold him responsible for not buying into team defense.  He was still a top notch offensive player at the college level and not one person in this thread has argued that.  I still question how badly his absence will hurt the team.  He recorded points in one of the final nine games.[/quote]

To be fair, this was clearly after the shoulder injury.  He was really picking it up in the middle of the season and then dropped of markedly after the Colgate weekend, I wouldn't be suprised if it happened then.

[wewantmore]

[quote evilnaturedrobot][quote Josh '99][quote evilnaturedrobot][quote dre1614]What i find odd about people saying he is horrible defensively, and is a liability on the ice.

Well why did he have the second best +/- on the team with a +9 behind only Jared Seminoff?[/quote]

Because +/- is the most misleading stat in all off sports.  +/- is a unit stat, not an induvidual stat.  Marek Malik has lead the Rangers (and at times the NHL) in +/-...has anyone here seen Marek Malik play defense?[/quote]I've seen Marek Malik play enough defense to know that he's not NEARLY as bad as he gets scapegoated for.[/quote]

Malik's not Sandis Ozolinsh clueless in his own end, it's rather that he's good for atleast 3-4 bonehead moves a game.  So while he's not an awful defender all the time, he is personally responcible for more goals allowed as any defensemen I've ever seen at the NHL level.[/quote]

You lost all credibility when you claimed +/- was a useless statistic. Look at the top 3 in the NHL last year - Vanek, Alfredsson, Lidstrom ... pretty good two way players.

[calgARI '07]

[quote wewantmore]

You lost all credibility when you claimed +/- was a useless statistic. Look at the top 3 in the NHL last year - Vanek, Alfredsson, Lidstrom ... pretty good two way players.[/quote]

And you just lost all credibility when you called Vanek a pretty good two-way player.  That is the same Vanek who was scratched in the 2006 playoffs because of his horrible defensive play.  Are we to believe that he magically improved to be the best two-way player in the league in just one year?  Vanek finishing with the top +/- shows exactly what the problems are with the stat.  It is definitely not entirely useless as both Alfredsson and Lidstrom are very good defensive players but look at a guy like Saku Koivu who finished a -25.  There isn't one person on earth who will argue that Vanek is anywhere close to Koivu defensively yet he finished 72 ahead of him.

[Josh '99]

[quote calgARI '07][quote wewantmore]

You lost all credibility when you claimed +/- was a useless statistic. Look at the top 3 in the NHL last year - Vanek, Alfredsson, Lidstrom ... pretty good two way players.[/quote]

And you just lost all credibility when you called Vanek a pretty good two-way player.  That is the same Vanek who was scratched in the 2006 playoffs because of his horrible defensive play.  Are we to believe that he magically improved to be the best two-way player in the league in just one year?  Vanek finishing with the top +/- shows exactly what the problems are with the stat.  It is definitely not entirely useless as both Alfredsson and Lidstrom are very good defensive players but look at a guy like Saku Koivu who finished a -25.  There isn't one person on earth who will argue that Vanek is anywhere close to Koivu defensively yet he finished 72 ahead of him.[/quote]Pretty much everyone acknowledges that Vanek's defensive play improved by leaps and bounds from 2005-06 to 2006-07.

[calgARI '07]

[quote Josh '99]Pretty much everyone acknowledges that Vanek's defensive play improved by leaps and bounds from 2005-06 to 2006-07.[/quote]

Well, he tried harder in the defensive zone but in terms of his actual mental approach, it takes longer than just one season to make such a significant improvement.  Any way you look at it, no matter how much he improved, he isn't the best defensive forward in the league despite what his +/- indicates and isn't even close for that matter.  Saying he is in the top half of forwards in the NHL in his own end is still a stretch.

[Josh '99]

[quote calgARI '07][quote Josh '99]Pretty much everyone acknowledges that Vanek's defensive play improved by leaps and bounds from 2005-06 to 2006-07.[/quote]

Well, he tried harder in the defensive zone but in terms of his actual mental approach, it takes longer than just one season to make such a significant improvement.  Any way you look at it, no matter how much he improved, he isn't the best defensive forward in the league despite what his +/- indicates and isn't even close for that matter.  Saying he is in the top half of forwards in the NHL in his own end is still a stretch.[/quote]Nobody is saying he's the best defensive forward in the league, or even one of the best defensive forwards in the league; I don't think he'll ever be confused for a Selke Trophy finalist.  But +/- isn't JUST about defensive play - the plus is half of the equation, after all.

I'm not saying that +/- is a be-all and end-all stat, but I don't think it's mere coincidence that Vanek was a -11 in 05-06 and a +43 (if I recall correctly) in 06-07.

[ugarte]

[quote Josh '99][quote evilnaturedrobot]I watched atleast 65 Ranger games last year and probably 120 over the last two years. I'm not telling you what I've heard, I'm tell you what I've seen.  You're  welcome to your own opinion on Malik (would you happen to be an NHL GM looking to take him off the Ranger's hands?), but I've had enough of him.[/quote]Fair enough.  I don't want to get into a pissing contest about who's seen the most Rangers hockey, but I've watched a pretty fair amount as well.  Believe me, I've seen some boneheaded gaffes, but I've also seen a lot of good defensive positioning that we'd be happy to see in a Cornell defenseman.  

I'd love to see another GM take him off the Rangers' hands, still, but that's because I think he's overpaid ($2.5M/year is a lot for a stay-at-home defenseman, though no worse than Mara or Kasparaitis are overpaid), not because I think we have anybody in the system who'd do any better of a job.[/quote]
This sounds a lot like the O'Byrne discussions back in the day. And since I always thought O'Byrne got a bad rap, I'm going to side with Josh.

As if you care.

[Doug '08]

Is it October yet...