News Article: Confidence in the Front Office

[GAGLine]

 

[Tawnos]

Still can't get over how the sentiment went from "NYR will be contending as a powerhouse for YEARS in the very near future" to "rebuild destroyed"

I mean, I get the idea that the fanbase doesn't have as much confidence in Drury... but I don't get it being based on anything other than lack of familiarity. We knew Gorton and had confidence in what he was doing. We don't really know Drury, so how could we really have confidence in him?

 

[Levitate]

View attachment 463018

I think there's a lot of reasons to be low in confidence with the Rangers front office right now but I feel like Dom misses the mark on most of it. I think the talk of "Making their team worse" is overstated and I've kinda posted about it before as this idea that's taken hold that the Rangers have dumped a bunch of talent for tough guys.

But whenever the front office is fired in the whirlwind that happened last season and the new GM is unknown and you have rumors of the owner throwing tantrums then yeah, things look uncertain, and I can't say Drury has shown me any really savvy moves yet even if I don't disagree with the general tact he's taken so far.

 

[mas0764]

No f***ing shit.

 

[Mac n Gs]

I dislike most of Drury's moves on their own (even if I understand what they're trying to do) but a lot of the pain and inflexibility coming our way is from contracts Gorton inked. I think, with the benefit of hindsight, he was massively overrated.


listen I have not liked Drury's tenure here, and I am not happy with how it's gone so far, but JG would've happily made these exact moves, and probably even worse ones.

He's discussed as some visionary who'd never do this, meanwhile he's willingly acquired Adam McQuaid, Cody McLeod, Micheal Haley, and a bunch other crap in the name of character and grit. At least Drury got f***ing NHL Players.

The worst move of all would’ve been keeping Quinn, which seemed like the plan for JD/Gorton

 

[Fitzy]

Drury's time here has been a mixed bag.

Firing Quinn and hiring Gallant was a great decision to move us towards competitive hockey.

The Lindgren deal, setting him up for an extension or trade in 3 years, was a great decision for a number of reasons.

The Buchnevich deal sucked, but so did the market for him. The part of this that is the most suspect is NYR undervaluaing him when he was our best 2 way forward last year.

The Goodrow deal was overpayment and over-term. That said, NYR plan to use the shit out of Barclay, so I could end up seeing him as our version of Danault.

The Shesty deal was mediocre.

 

[Levitate]

to be honest the shesty deal to me kinda looks like they don't view him as the next Lundqvist who will be here for the next decade so much as "good goalie but we're keeping our options open for the future"

 

[Fitzy]

to be honest the shesty deal to me kinda looks like they don't view him as the next Lundqvist who will be here for the next decade so much as "good goalie but we're keeping our options open for the future"

And I would have been totally on board with that had we selected Wallstedt.

 

[OrlandK]

I question whether Gorton would have traded Buch but if he was going to consider it I'm fairly certain he would have insisted on receiving a first round draft pick to do so. JG's history indicates that he valued #1 picks greatly. He certainly would have preferred a #1 to a #2 and Blais - the type of player I don't think Gorton would have valued too much.

I agree with the fan base that the confidence in the front office took a hit going from JD/JG to Drury, with the cigar and silly owner more involved added to the mix; and adding further uncertainty.

 

[Glen Sathers Cigar]

to be honest the shesty deal to me kinda looks like they don't view him as the next Lundqvist who will be here for the next decade so much as "good goalie but we're keeping our options open for the future"

You shouldn't really make any decisions regarding goalies with the plan that they're going to become the next Lundqvist. He was basically a unicorn as far as consistency, longevity and performance.

 

[mas0764]

I haven't seen much of anything that Drury's done that wasn't in the plan for JD/JG for this off-season.

The plan itself - to get tougher - isn't the same as the implementation.

Also having the plan to get tougher doesn't mean we should have abandoned the plan to find a top 6 center.

Maybe they still will, but this poll has to be conducted on the basis of their failure to do so, to this point.

 

[Fitzy]

The plan itself - to get tougher - isn't the same as the implementation.

Also having the plan to get tougher doesn't mean we should have abandoned the plan to find a top 6 center.

Maybe they still will, but this poll has to be conducted on the basis of their failure to do so, to this point.

I'm glad we didn't overpay for Eichel.

I think it's early to call the center situation a failure. Let's see where we are at this time next year.

 

[mas0764]

I'm glad we didn't overpay for Eichel.

I think it's early to call the center situation a failure. Let's see where we are at this time next year.

I just said they have "failed to do so [add a center]." Not that they are a "failure," for not having done so.

It's not panic time in my book, but it's close. They have squandered their best opportunities to address the position without heavily overpaying in terms of elite prospects that we want to keep like Kravtsov and Lundkvist. It does go back to Gorton and JD as well, as they failed to close the deal by trading Buch for 8OA (Zegras), or failing to trade Kreider for a center prospect, or the assets that could have then been used to get up for Lundell.

But Gorton and JD had the benefit of all the goodwill from the Panarin signing, the Kakko and Lafreniere draft day "luck," the Fox trade, the 2018 draft in which they nailed three excellent long term pieces, and even the Trouba trade and Schneider drafting were not seen as terrible moves. In addition, they also had the runway of this offseason that they would have had to do something; if they had failed to address center and made the same overpays and bad trades their grades would be dropping as well, though I suspect the previous goodwill would be buoying them a bit.

Instead Drury gets plopped down into the middle of it, getting no credit for any of those prior good moves, and has to pull a rabbit out of his hat at center to finish off the rebuild PLUS appease his owner to get "tougher to play against."

It's a tall order but right now he's not getting high marks in my book. He leaned too heavily towards getting tougher and not heavily enough in getting creative to acquiring more skill at center, which we do, in fact, need for the future no matter how many people say we don't because of Zibanejad or because we are going to be "winger driven." No one wins a Cup without excellent play at center, whether that is two elite guys like Malkin/Crosby, one Hall of Fame Selke guy in Toews, excellent center depth which a mix of multiple 1B/2As (Backstrom/Kuznetsov, Krejci/Bergergon, Kopitar/Carter/Richards, etc), or a flash in the pan who plays like a Hall of Famer for that year (ROR). If Zibanejad is not that guy, and I'm not betting he is for more than another 2-3 seasons, then we have essentially nothing at center; and not even anything on the way that will be here in 2-3 years. We are flat broke at center besides Zibanejad and Chytil basically, it's alarming when you consider how much excellence you need at center and how little we have in the pipeline that will be here when Kakko and Lafreniere are 24, 25, 26.

It speaks to how hard it is to build a decade long contender. We went from a team that was way, way ahead of schedule to a team that all of a sudden has a glaring hole that could derail us in the future with no readily apparently way to address it since we are now out of top 10 draft picks presumably. Center almost always needs to come from either a high, high pick or you have to get super lucky later in the first. We will see but Drury has an uphill climb and he made it harder on himself with this offseason. It is not impossible to rectify but the poor marks are entirely justified.

 

[Levitate]

I think you dont' want to rush something like the eichel situation or finding a top six center
I mean, they have one right now, it's more about finding a long term fix

 

[bobbop]

Frankly, I think what he has not done may turn out to have been Drury's best moves this summer. Overpaying (in assets) for Eichel. Overpaying in dollars and contract term for Danault.

 

[mas0764]

Also, the bad marks are almost entirely related to the following moves and not at all to the Goodrow signing, which was an overpayment but a forgivable one:

1) Trading a first line winger for a 3rd/4th line grinder. This is nearly unforgivable. It's not bad asset management, it's horrendous asset management. Blais would have to turn into a better Blake Coleman to even come close on this deal, but I don't see that happening.

2) Drafting Brennan Othmann instead of one of the obvious good-value centers staring them in the face. You don't like either of Lucius or Svechkov? Fine, what about the later centers like Pinelli and Raty? No? At some point I don't buy it. They liked Othmann, but what's to like? He's a poor man's Chris Kreider. We've seen this fricking story. He's a fine player to draft in the first round if you already have center set, not when you have a glaring, glaring need at the position and pass on top guys. If you do pass on the first round centers, then you have to make it up later - like by landing Pinelli or something. They failed to do that too. At some point you need to ding their grade for their approach.

3) Paying good money to Tinordi and Reaves. These are in a vacuum forgivable, but in combination with the first two, look an awful lot like a bad trend.

The Lindgren, Shesterkin and Nemeth signings are all fine, though the Shesterkin deal is a LITTLE questionable as another missed opportunity.

If in the next 12 months if they find either an elite long term center or two good value young centers who are well rounded and can play in the top 6, these grades will quickly reverse.

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

You shouldn't really make any decisions regarding goalies with the plan that they're going to become the next Lundqvist. He was basically a unicorn as far as consistency, longevity and performance.

We likely will never see another Lundqvist and not just in terms of his consistency, performance and longevity. I think we're all seeing how teams hamstring themselves by giving out big money, long-term deals to goalies.

 

[duhmetreE]

Grades on Drury's moves are to be determined.

The trade hurts, value wise, and the contract length to Goodrow is bad but if we're winning, was it worth the cost?

Value for value, it's shit. It's about completing the puzzle. Are the New York Rangers, as a team, better this year?

 

[eco's bones]

Drury basically is taking the team in the direction I think it needed to go. I was hoping for more with the Buch deal though and I think he could have done better at the draft and I would have gone with Wallstedt. That said Blais is a decent player and Othmann a very good prospect.

We needed to add more physical presence but also find guys who can fit into roles. Goodrow, Blais, Nemeth, Reaves and Hunt are guys like that. They deepen the team in areas that needed to get deeper. We have loads of talent. We were short on battle and short on those we could depend on to do the little things that win hockey games.

This Athletic journalist isn’t very good.

 

[TheGortonConspiracy]

Dom Luszczyszyn = don’t care

I transcribed the last name from the article and thought I was having a seizure cuz it took me a minute lol

 

[OrlandK]

Buch - terrible trade. Over-valuing Blais.
Goodrow - overpay (really term) but typical of signing a desired FA
Reeves trade - good to have him but need to extend to 2nd year. Also not sure 3rd rounder was needed; Vegas was ready to move on.
Nemeth - good to have him but 3 year term a mistake.
Tinordi - why? Smith signed for less and he can actually play hockey.

Sure - getting more physicality was needed. But one by one the Drury deals are mostly bad or overpays.

 

[McRanger92]

You would think Buchnevich was getting Hart votes with how some of the analytics community treat his loss for the Rangers. As I've said before, i like the player and he will be missed, but they were never paying him after the Kreider contract last year and clearly the market for wingers a year away from UFA status wasn't great.

Anyway, I'm not sure how you can judge any of these moves before the team even takes the ice for Training Camp, let alone an actual game. Lets see how the squad comes together with a new coaching staff and different makeup. A lot of guys have a clean slate in my view and I'm excited to see how it goes.

 

[Riche16]

How is cap management not the worst # ?!?!

Go back to Sather and on up... we're AWFUL at cap management. No matter who's running the show.

Zigging when we should zag on bridge deals or long term contracts... constantly buying out players and paying them to play against us, overpaying FAs... doling out NMC like candy... and of course using capital to rid ourselves of unwanted contracts like Staal.

It's pathetic.

The only reason it's been somewhat under the radar is because we haven't been THAT good all the while it's all been killing us.

That may not be true this yr (& coming yrs). You can't have that much DEAD space and expect to win it all. Can't happen

Oh & vision? LOL This franchise is reactionary. There's no vision

 

[bl02]

I am not down on drury as others on here. He got us a real coach. He hasn’t traded the likes of Lafreniere Kakko Nils Schneider or even our first round pick. Who doesn’t miss JD but I’m gonna give drury a chance unless he trades above mentioned young players

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

By Dom Luszczyszyn

straight to the garbage you go