Speculation: Roster Building Thread - Part XXXIV

[TheDirtyH]

For a good reason, there have been a lot of focus on how 'we haven't quite been as good on the ice as our record indicates'.

That is true. But, I do also think that there is a great risk here that we focus too much on our own flaws and lose perspective on the competitive level around the league. I think Pittsburgh Penguins is a good example here. Like, they are not a good team (either), at all. They have a ton of flaws and their core guys aren't carrying them. Yet, they are what 5-6 overall in the league? The Flames and Wild are top 2 and 3 respectively in the WC. They are far from complete teams.

My point is just, while we are flawed, lol, so are just about everyone else, except perhaps Carolina in my book, and Colorado perhaps has an overdrive offensively nobody else have. The teams NYR, Pitt, Minny and Calgary make out like 4 of the top 7-8 teams in the league.

Lol. I have the same thought but opposite. No team is perfect, that's for sure, but I think the league has bifurcated significantly since the pandemic. The top is much much better than the middle and bottom right now. There are still plenty of pesky games out of bad teams, but that's hockey. A glorified NCAA team beat the Soviet National Army once.

It's difficult to say what a complete team even is if Minnesota and Calgary don't count as such. Pittsburgh hasn't played us well this year, but then again this is definitely a team that has a lot more experience than we do. I don't think anybody should rule out Crosby, Malkin, and Letang stepping it up a notch as soon as game 82 has finished. You didn't even mention the prohibitive favorites in the East, Florida. Plus the two-time defending champs, Tampa. Plus the Leafs and the Bruins.

The West is definitely the weaker conference this year, but that's largely the Pacific division. St Louis stomped us. Nashville beat us.

The post-deadline Rangers are right there though. It's hard to say any team is like, heads and shoulders better than anybody, even the Rangers. Carolina is a machine, but then again, they may have to go through a Boston team that's had their number the last few playoffs. And a hot goalie can really cause them trouble--more than most teams.

 

[Daves a mess]

Lol. I have the same thought but opposite. No team is perfect, that's for sure, but I think the league has bifurcated significantly since the pandemic. The top is much much better than the middle and bottom right now. There are still plenty of pesky games out of bad teams, but that's hockey. A glorified NCAA team beat the Soviet National Army once.

It's difficult to say what a complete team even is if Minnesota and Calgary don't count as such. Pittsburgh hasn't played us well this year, but then again this is definitely a team that has a lot more experience than we do. I don't think anybody should rule out Crosby, Malkin, and Letang stepping it up a notch as soon as game 82 has finished. You didn't even mention the prohibitive favorites in the East, Florida. Plus the two-time defending champs, Tampa. Plus the Leafs and the Bruins.

The West is definitely the weaker conference this year, but that's largely the Pacific division. St Louis stomped us. Nashville beat us.

The post-deadline Rangers are right there though. It's hard to say any team is like, heads and shoulders better than anybody, even the Rangers. Carolina is a machine, but then again, they may have to go through a Boston team that's had their number the last few playoffs. And a hot goalie can really cause them trouble--more than most teams.

I root against Boston solely because of Jack Edward's. But this time, if the B's play Carolina, I'm rooting for the Bear.

 

[duhmetreE]

I root against Boston solely because of Jack Edward's. But this time, if the B's play Carolina, I'm rooting for the Bear.

My ideal 1st round

WAS vs CAR - maybe Washington sucks them into a physical war. WAS won 3 of 4 in regular season. I could see Carolina's season ending like Tampa's historic run in 2019

PIT vs NYR

TOR vs BOS - fun series all around, see Boston coming out on top

TB vs FLA - If Ekblad is out, I can see Tampa winning this one. Depends which Bob shows up

 

[rangersfansince08]

Yup. Much prefer TB/WAS to CAR/FLA

 

[McRanger92]

My ideal 1st round

WAS vs CAR - maybe Washington sucks them into a physical war. WAS won 3 of 4 in regular season. I could see Carolina's season ending like Tampa's historic run in 2019

PIT vs NYR

TOR vs BOS - fun series all around, see Boston coming out on top

TB vs FLA - If Ekblad is out, I can see Tampa winning this one. Depends which Bob shows up

Slavin & Pesce are very good players but i am far from sold on Carolina's D in the playoffs. Skjei/DeAngelo/Brendan Smith/Ethan Bear are going to be playing significant minutes for them. Freddie Anderson knows all about playoff disappointment as well. The Caps for all their flaws are battle tested in the spring, not much they haven't seen.

 

[SA16]

Slavin & Pesce are very good players but i am far from sold on Carolina's D in the playoffs. Skjei/DeAngelo/Brendan Smith/Ethan Bear are going to be playing significant minutes for them. Freddie Anderson knows all about playoff disappointment as well. The Caps for all their flaws are battle tested in the spring, not much they haven't seen.

Frederik Andersen has a career .916 in the regular season
Frederik Andersen has a career .916 in the playoffs

 

[McRanger92]

Frederik Andersen has a career .916 in the regular season
Frederik Andersen has a career .916 in the playoffs

Good for him but he hasn't won a playoff series since 2015 and he's been on some pretty good teams. All I'm saying is that every team is vulnerable in the playoffs.

 

[SA16]

Good for him but he hasn't won a playoff series since 2015 and he's been on some pretty good teams. All I'm saying is that every team is vulnerable in the playoffs.

So you're blaming him for next winning a playoff series in Toronto when in 5 games in 19-20 he had a .936 save percentage and his team scored a total of 10 goals? Igor also likely won't win a playoff series if the Rangers score 10 goals in 5 games.

Or the year before when he had a .922 in 7 games and his team scored a total of 17 goals in 7 games?

 

[McRanger92]

So you're blaming him for next winning a playoff series in Toronto when in 5 games in 19-20 he had a .936 save percentage and his team scored a total of 10 goals? Igor also likely won't win a playoff series if the Rangers score 10 goals in 5 games.

Im not blaming him im just saying the vaunted Hurricanes have some similarities to Anderson's Toronto teams (For example, they have had trouble finishing lately despite their high shot totals), and the Caps are a veteran, playoff tested team that can take advantage. Igor's got nothing to do with anything.

 

[jerseyjinx94]

Bide their time how? What changes without him playing?

He’ll play. Just not in NA if he doesn’t play for this organization. Feelings change. Perspective changes. People mature. Opportunities arise. A lot changes.

 

[eco's bones]

I don’t expect the Rangers to move either Kreider or Trouba anytime soon. I think Strome is gone. Guys like Copp and Vatrano are getting auditions but I doubt we sign both and Copp is the more likely. Forget JT Miller—he’ll be way too expensive. That’s Brooks’ pipedream. We’ll have a cheaper backup than Georgiev. I’d move Nemeth for sure and guys like Lindgren and Chytil should be available for the right price. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll move them but they can be had.

Rangers that won’t move IMO are Igor, Fox, Trouba, Miller, Schneider, Mika, Kreider, Kakko, Laf, Panarin, Goodrow. We’ll probably keep Blais too—try to sign Copp.

 

[RangerBoy]

With Strome out, Andrew Copp moved to the middle in between Artemi Panarin and Dryden Hunt. They were arguably the Rangers' best trio, generating seven scoring chances while only allowing one, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Copp had an assist to extend his point streak to five games, four of which have come with New York. He attempted five shots, laid out three hits and blocked a shot in 18:20 time on ice, with the only downside being a 36% win rate on faceoffs (5-for-14).

Postgame takeaways: NY Rangers move ahead of Penguins for playoff positioning

The New York Rangers have won three in a row, with two coming against their potential playoff opponent, the Pittsburgh Penguins.

www.lohud.com

Jason Bourne of Sportsnet discussed Copp being a top 35 player in zone exits. Disrupts the play in his own end and gets his team out of their own end.



On the Schneider goal, Copp picked up the loose puck after a Trouba hit, transports the puck from the Rangers end through the neutral zone and passes the puck to Panarin before gaining the blue line. Copp drives to the net taking Dumoulin with him opening up the ice for Schneider to take the pass from Panarin. Hunt also opened up the ice taking the Penguins forward with him. Schneider receives the pass from Panarin and rips the puck passed Jarry. Panarin made a great play on Marino.

I was watching that sequence. That's what Bourne was talking about in his video.



Copp went forward with the puck on the face-off with Boyle before the Kreider goal. Copp wins the face-off and the Rangers enter the Penguins zone. Kreider scores the PPG.



Copp > Strome

 

[bl02]

My ideal 1st round

WAS vs CAR - maybe Washington sucks them into a physical war. WAS won 3 of 4 in regular season. I could see Carolina's season ending like Tampa's historic run in 2019

PIT vs NYR

TOR vs BOS - fun series all around, see Boston coming out on top

TB vs FLA - If Ekblad is out, I can see Tampa winning this one. Depends which Bob shows up

I see Washington being physical but with that defense and not so good goaltending I would rather see Carolina face Tampa in round 1 if Tampa doesn't claim a #2/3 spot in the atlantic. Carolina won't beat TB but most likely beat Washington.

 

[Savant]

If his value is at an all time low, there's no sense in him coming over here especially with the new found depth up front. Let him play/rot in Russia where he can hopefully increase his trade value and the war hopefully is over by then so teams don't have to be concerned about getting him over here.

Kravtsov is passed the point that he increases his value playing in Russia. The longer he stays in Russia actually hurts his value

 

[Raspewtin]

good find @RangerBoy. That goal wouldn't have happened with Strome on the ice cause he'd try some cutesy stupid pull up at the blueline instead of gaining the zone and continuing the play forward

 

[Raspewtin]

I have this weird theory that when Quinn got here and especially when we got Panarin/Trouba/Fox etc, they attempted to change their game plan to slow the game down to make the bang bang plays because they kinda just accepted the roster had no speed and tried to work around it.

Besides Panarin and Fox (who can absolutely slow games down if they want to) a lot of our roster tried to do this and just didn't have the skill. Buch was very guilty of this despite his great stats here and, in a way, I feel like he enabled some bad habits that Kreider and Zibanejad got that theyre only recently getting out of.

Strome is probably the worst offender. He has one move, pull up at the blueline and look for Panarin. He doesn't have the speed (or willingness, tbh) to make the quick pass and keep pushing towards the net and it makes it easy for the other team to just swarm Panarin.

Now that there's three more burners on the team and they're all on different lines (Brodz helps here too) the puck support dramatically improved over night since Gallant was stuck in a weird hybrid of *pressure the puck carrier and take space* and *stand still and hope the space makes itself* which made us look really ineffective for long stretches. I think this is evident especially because the not-new guys also look way different. When Strome is f***ing off to wherever, Panarin remembers he's a star that can take over games. Zone entries have been much more solid and we win many more 50/50 battles than we did before.

We saw in 2014 that adding just one fast skater to every line changes its outlook a lot. Now you have to keep up with them and you can't play slow.

Idk I'm rambling but to me it makes sense

 

[rangers1314]

Big NCAA News, Albie O'Connell out at BU.

Jay Pandolfo?

 

[HatTrick Swayze]

I have this weird theory that when Quinn got here and especially when we got Panarin/Trouba/Fox etc, they attempted to change their game plan to slow the game down to make the bang bang plays because they kinda just accepted the roster had no speed and tried to work around it.

Besides Panarin and Fox (who can absolutely slow games down if they want to) a lot of our roster tried to do this and just didn't have the skill. Buch was very guilty of this despite his great stats here and, in a way, I feel like he enabled some bad habits that Kreider and Zibanejad got that theyre only recently getting out of.

Strome is probably the worst offender. He has one move, pull up at the blueline and look for Panarin. He doesn't have the speed (or willingness, tbh) to make the quick pass and keep pushing towards the net and it makes it easy for the other team to just swarm Panarin.

Now that there's three more burners on the team and they're all on different lines (Brodz helps here too) the puck support dramatically improved over night since Gallant was stuck in a weird hybrid of *pressure the puck carrier and take space* and *stand still and hope the space makes itself* which made us look really ineffective for long stretches. I think this is evident especially because the not-new guys also look way different. When Strome is f***ing off to wherever, Panarin remembers he's a star that can take over games. Zone entries have been much more solid and we win many more 50/50 battles than we did before.

We saw in 2014 that adding just one fast skater to every line changes its outlook a lot. Now you have to keep up with them and you can't play slow.

Idk I'm rambling but to me it makes sense

Good take.

Can really see it on the Schneider goal last night. Great zone entry with speed from Copp with all 3 players pressing forward toward the net in unison. That exact play is what the good teams in the league do constantly that the NYR previously avoided to their detriment.

Panarin got the puck inside the blueline on the wing and...attacked forward? Copp and Hunt did the same which pushed their D way back and gave Schneider a completely uncontested space to shoot from in the high slot. They need to watch that highlight on repeat. Maybe Panarin should get some looks on RW?

 

[Ola]

Lol. I have the same thought but opposite. No team is perfect, that's for sure, but I think the league has bifurcated significantly since the pandemic. The top is much much better than the middle and bottom right now. There are still plenty of pesky games out of bad teams, but that's hockey. A glorified NCAA team beat the Soviet National Army once.

It's difficult to say what a complete team even is if Minnesota and Calgary don't count as such. Pittsburgh hasn't played us well this year, but then again this is definitely a team that has a lot more experience than we do. I don't think anybody should rule out Crosby, Malkin, and Letang stepping it up a notch as soon as game 82 has finished. You didn't even mention the prohibitive favorites in the East, Florida. Plus the two-time defending champs, Tampa. Plus the Leafs and the Bruins.

The West is definitely the weaker conference this year, but that's largely the Pacific division. St Louis stomped us. Nashville beat us.

The post-deadline Rangers are right there though. It's hard to say any team is like, heads and shoulders better than anybody, even the Rangers. Carolina is a machine, but then again, they may have to go through a Boston team that's had their number the last few playoffs. And a hot goalie can really cause them trouble--more than most teams.

Yeah, lol, and I don't disagree with that assessment either. Its definitely about as much of a glass half full or half empty topic as its possible to find.

Take Minny for example, that Greenway-JEE-Foligno line can really struggle at times too. They are a real binary line. They were horrible in the POs last season. I like Minny, don't get me wrong. Players like Kaprizov, Zucc and Fiala are definitely my cup of tea. But its hardly Kamensky-Sakic-Young, Lemieux-Forsberg-Deadmarsh, Simon-Yelle-Keane, Klem-Ricci-Young, Krupp-Ozo, Lefebvre-Foote, Leschyshyn-Gusakov, Roy, or Shanny-Yzerman-McCarthy, Kozlov-Federov-Lapointe, Holmström-Larinov-Brown, Maltby-Draper-Sandström, Lidström-Murphy, Fetisov-Konstantinov, Ward-Rouse!

Pittsburgh's goto guys are pretty worn out. They do a great job of walking away with 2 pts and being hard to play against. But...

 

[Blais to Win]

Hmmm... looks like to me, at this point, Vatrano >>>> Kravtsov, though I haven't gotten a look at his neck.

 

[RangerBoy]

Hmmm... looks like to me, at this point, Vatrano >>>> Kravtsov, though I haven't gotten a look at his neck.

$$$$

 

[effen]

They can have Copp or Vatrano+Motte but not both combos.

You can really only do Vatrano+Motte if you have a 2C making like $2m or less. That'll be tough.

 

[Lays]

And I'll reiterate that I'm not saying trade Kreider for Barrett Hayton (though I would be very interested in seeing if I could acquire Hayton this summer).

But maybe someone wants to give you a top young ELC center AND an established middle six winger AND a first round pick?

Why not? 50 goal scorers don't command hauls?

Lol 50 goal scorers don’t command hauls because they aren’t traded. This fan base’s hard on for trading our top players for prospects and picks is fascinating considering we only have 2 players that we drafted in our entire rebuild that look like they’ll live up to their potential. Barrett Hayton seriously? Why? How in any way is he different from Lias or Chytil. And how tf is he replacing Kreider

And also why the f*** are we trading Kreider for a middle sixer and a 1st round pick LMAO

 

[pld459666]

I'm worried Gallant will put down Vatrano over Strome.

Kreider Zibs Frankie V
Panarin Copp Kakko
Lafreniere Chytil Strome - this line will obviously see no ice late game, holding a 1 goal lead
Motte Goodrow Rooney/Hunt/Reaves

I'd swap Strome and Kakko.

Strome has great chemistry with Panarin and Copp can be the defensive presence there

Laf / Chytil have been very good lately and Kakko is a solid defensive player.

 

[duhmetreE]

I'd swap Strome and Kakko.

Strome has great chemistry with Panarin and Copp can be the defensive presence there

Laf / Chytil have been very good lately and Kakko is a solid defensive player.

I really just want Panarin and Strome separated and it gives us 3 strong 'matchup' lines. IMO Panarin played differently last night without Strome. Strome does play different as well whenever Panarin was out

That '3rd line' would be about offense. Our 4th line would fill in for what a traditional 3rd line provides