Does anyone else have a hard time deciding wether or not going for it in an open east, with a "good" roster in theory?
As opposed to trading Panarin at the deadline, having 3 1sts, and tanking a bit?
Any other year I would probably side with punting this season and building for the future based on how its going.
Just cant help but notice the east is completely open for us and a single run or one scoring addition could honestly put this team over the top at least this season.
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Best we can do is have an mediocre season and miss the playoffs by a couple points
Tank you very much. We need a sniper!
We literally can’t develop young players. I truly don’t see the value in having 3 first round picks unless they’re going to trade them for Mcdavid.
Tank and use our picks to get a young electric player like everyone else has the past few years and pray dury and his band of idiots don’t screw him up.
The organization will never actually “tank” as other teams are wont to do. As long as Dolan owns the team, they will be competitive enough to sell out MSG but not good enough to make the playoffs; or, if they manage to squeak in, win it all. See for reference: everything after 1994.
nothing matters until drury is fired and we get new development staff
A commenter on an Athletic article not long ago summed it up perfectly. Dolan doesn’t have the patience to do a teardown and do it the right way. He wants that playoff gate money so he will push for the team to do whatever is needed to be just good enough.
Tank for McKenna, standings are close enough that the rangers can end up top 3 in lottery odds if they commit early
How do we tank? Even if you trade Bread, that’s not tanking. The team is littered with failed veterans, and cheap talent that no one needs.
This team cannot functionally tank until the 30’s, which is why there’s a major concern we’re about to go on a Buffalo Sabreian type run of futility.
You can’t be serious that you think a team with our forward group is one player away from being “over the top”.
We are hanging in a tight East during the regular season when loser points keep everyone bunched up. This team would get wrecked in playoff hockey.
Unpopular take but I’d prefer to tank – even if we make the first round we don’t have the offensive talent to win anything past that, let alone a Stanley cup. I’d much prefer to draft 1OA (as long as he is a legit 10A/2OA, looking at you laf and kakko) than be embarrassed in the first round
Depends on how long Fox is out. PP is trash since he’s been out.
Either way this team is in for a brutal ride for numerous years. We either continue being mediocre until this core dies out or we commit to an actual rebuild.
I’d like to emphasize that a rebuild would mean this team is going to suck for the next decade at least, assuming they actually do a full tear down. We were fortunate (or perhaps unfortunate) that we landed on the 2nd and 1st overall pick in back to back years, Igor coming to stardom, and Bread’s FA sped up the timeline immensely.
But if we’re to do an actual full restart, the next decade is going to look extremely dark and unmemorable. Teams like the Hawks, Sharks, Canadiens have sucked since ~around when we first started our “rebuild”, and they are still not ready for contention. Just think about our situation right now and how many more extra years we need to wait until we’re actually serious again. And unfortunately I don’t think we’ll be having a 2023 Panthers situation where we squeak into the playoffs and have one run that changes the trajectory of the franchise.
In short, being a Rangers fan is pain.
There’s no one not named mcdavid that’s putting this team over the top. Talent-wise we’re a bit above average but skating-wise we’re a fair bit below average. Effectively, the rangers are a bubble team that could make or miss the playoffs.
Ultimately, given that our core has a fuckton of trade and movement protection, I don’t think we can be bad enough to be in the running for mckenna. So I think the best we can do is hope gabe can earn a top 6 job before the season ends and some combination of moving depth for picks and swapping assets for upgrades in the bottom 6.
My personal choice is getting a guy like sherwood from vancouver who is speedy and talented enough to slot into the top 6 temporarily and who could add a lot of skill to laba’s line.
None of this matters if Chris Drury still has a job next season. If he’s still here at the trade deadline, and is the one making the moves, this franchise will continue to be absolutely cooked.
I lived through the late 90s and early 00s Rangers. The worst place to be is mediocre. Blow the team up. Real ones already knew the JT Miller trade was dumb as a bag of hammers (his age and his playing style doesn’t age well at all along with his success being predicated on center depth exploiting weaknesses in the 2nd and 3rd pair defensemen), the profound lack of good centers in the organization, good players getting old and regressing, injuries to key players at key times, and a GM who seems more interested in maintaining Boston loyalty than actually creating a good team.
I hate this team so much. But it could be worse: I could be an Islanders fan.
They tried to shortcut the previous rebuild with Bread and Trouba and got close but no cup. Alas, Dolan does not have the the guts to do a rebuild the right way
If we don;t take a step back to take three forward, we are screwed for the next decade plus.
Many of us have been thru this before and there is no wishing our way out of it with ridiculous thoughts of eking into the playoffs and going on a run.
People who say “anything can happen in sports” tend to be spoiled by consistently competitive teams.
That ain’t us.
Who, realistically, would we add at the deadline to turn this shambles into a contender? Noone I can think of, therefore, logically, the only option is to press reset and tank
Nobody respects you regardless
They should tank. They’re going to go for it.
Time to show clowns like Chris Drury, Tanner Glass, and Jed Ortmeyer the door. As well as whatever this team calls a scouting department.
My worst fear was being mid and missing the playoffs by a few points and of course that’s exactly what it’s looking like
Sell! Drury is a bum and you only have a few more good years out of Shesterkin because if we don’t tear it down now, we still will suck for another few years, just to rebuild to restart the length of our sucking, and then not having a goaltender then. Panarin, Laf and Zipassijad should be for sale and gain you young talent, BUT they have to hit on the trades and not acquire duds.
Tanking is good in theory but when your team picks Lafrenière instead of Celebrini, ummm no.
They aren’t good enough to go for it.
They don’t suck enough to truly tank. We are in the mushy middle
I think the rangers need to take advantage of the fact that a few players went on LTIR. That opens up cap space. Rangers should be a third team in a deadline trade and take a cap hit for another team to land a big player. In return, they get more draft pick(s). A team is allowed to do that 3 times per year if I remember correctly. Easy way to bank more picks.
As far as Panarin is concerned, I love having him. I know he doesn’t play defense, but that’s not why you have a player like him anyway. If the new contract is reasonable, I’m for resigning him. If not, he can’t walk for nothing. You have to trade him if you don’t work out a deal. Too much value to let him walk for nothing.
So I guess I’m not exactly for tanking, but I’d also not trade ANY picks for vets. Play out the season and look toward the offseason.
They should not make any moves to go all in this year. This roster doesn’t have what it takes to get it done. They need to start transitioning to build for the future, unfortunately we’re stuck with all these aging players with bloated contracts for four or so more years, so we’ll be stuck as a bubble team in the mushy middle.
If you want Panarin traded(which will clear up cap space), it would require him to waive his nmc. As well as the guys will long term contracts. The rangers will have cap space for the upcoming free agency period.
The rangers SHOULD NOT BE in any shape or form to fully go for it and sell off draft picks(they have two first round picks)
Yeah the East is wide open. Could the rangers get in? Sure. Could they win a round? Maybe. They’re not even close to a championship caliber team at all.
The only negative about tanking is, you have hit on who you pick, or else you’ll be in a forever rebuild.
Imo, you have to wait and see where the rangers are in the standings pre Olympic break and post Olympic break. And then go from there
TANK TANK TANK. FIRE DRURY!
Here’s the reality. We are not tanking and we don’t have any assets that other teams would value that’s not protected by NMC/NTC.
This team will ride until the deadline. If out of contention, look to move bread for assets (players/picks) then call up Gabe. We have two first and a second next year. Then we’d have ~30MM in cap to improve the roster via trade/FA.
We are at best looking at another retool.
Tank and let the youngs kids play top minutes to develop. Otherwise, we’ll be playing catchup with Chicago and San Jose for years to come
Would love to make the playoffs, but one of my joys in life is watching Artemi play for the Rangers. I also love watching Mika, Cuylle, Fox, Schneider play, but if they have to trade any of them, I could live with it, but I want Bread to stay. How about we start with Laf. He’s killing us and looks like he’s just putting in his time.
I’d definitely trade Panarin. He should bring back a 1st or a young prospect. That being said we’ll probably resign him