Player Discussion Worst Mistakes Made By Rangers

[Captain Lindy]

Letting Stralman walk and signing old man Dan Boyle to replace him.

Then getting knocked out by Stralman in the same year he leaves. We maybe win the cup that year with him on our team.

One step further and signing Girardi to that contract over Stralman for cheaper length/AAV was franchise crippling.

Talking about Stralman and I'm also thinking about Kevin Klein and how he is missed. We had a solid D those few years.

 

[Captain Lindy]

Trading Zubov.

This!! Plus drafting Hugh Jessiman instead of Getzlaf, Parise....on and on and on how many choices there were after that bust was picked.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

The St. Louis deal IMO was catastrophic.

We had a situation where the other teams player only wanted to come here, yet we paid top dollar.
On top of that, we had a guy who we should have sold off in Callahan to kick start a rebuild. Instead we added 2 first rounders. In the end we would have been far further ahead just letting Callahan walk.

I have always had my suspicions about St Louis in the first place. I wonder why Yzerman left him off an Olympic roster. I wonder why he went from being one of the top players in the game to having his game fall off so fast. That all involves speculation we don't do here on this board. But I think Yzerman knew something he didn't let on. Whatever Marty gave during that finals run, it wasn't worth the price paid.

Don't see the MSL deal as bad at all. We went to the finals with him. 3 games from the Stanely Cup. If you are that close to the cup you have to try to make a deal like that to try and push us over the top.

Plus he had some huge moments in those playoffs for us:


Now the Eric Staal trade made ZERO sense.

 

[SML2]

Ryan Clowe was a mistake.

Eric Staal was a mistake.

If we knew that was what we were going to do with Yandle when we got him, it was a mistake.

Tearing down this roster before firing AV, IMO, was a mistake. I guess you can't really fire a guy who took you to the finals though.

I never saw the rush to trade Stepan.

That's just recently.

Giving up the #5 OA pick for Michel Bergeron.
Ridley and Miller in their early 20s for Bobby Carpenter only to trade Carpenter about 25 games later for a 36 year old Marcel Dionne.
Norstrom to LA for a bunch of old buddies.
Trading Sergei Zubov.
Telling the world Mark Messier scored the cup winning goal in 94 when that goal was Brian Noonan's.
Taking Lucien Deblois ahead of Mike Bossy.
Letting a 20 year old Dan Blackburn work out unsupervised.

 

[SA16]

It does not matter that MSL only wanted to come here since the Lightning were not obligated to trade him. If they offered only one first instead of two then they just would not have got him. The Rangers did not have any additional leverage. He was not holding out and he was not a UFA.

 

[Mac n Gs]

No Middleton for Hodge yet, eh?

My biggest regret is that arguably their best move of this past generation in drafting Cherepanov was never able to come to fruition.

 

[eco's bones]

How far back do we want to go. Almost nothing beats the Middleton for Hodge trade though Ridley and Miller for Carpenter approaches it. The Zubov deal didn't quite work out the way it was supposed to either.

Hockey is a game of mistakes--not only on the ice but everywhere else too.

Yandle is making us look bad for sure but he's still got another 4 years to go after this one and his Panthers team might be better for him being on it but it still doesn't look like it's going anywhere despite having some studs playing for it. What gives? Anyway for me the jury is still out on Keith which is to say great if we could have signed him for 3 or 4 years but he got way too much term from the Panthers IMO.

I wasn't a big fan of Dan Boyle before he became a Ranger and I was less of a fan after. He was washed up and too stubborn to see it and try to play a team game. Not missed.

I liked Dan Girardi and while I don't see him as completely washed up--he was making way too much for what he was worth. The Rangers did the right thing moving on from him. In the role he's in in Tampa--he's fine.

Stepan's a smart player but he skates kind of like shit. I don't really have a big issue with us moving him to Arizona.

Is Shattenkirk a mistake? He's not played well for us but our investment is just $'s and that's all and we don't really have a cap issue. If we can move him along for something reasonable--a 2nd round draft pick for instance--it's no longer a mistake. It's like a free 2nd rounder.

 

[BringBackLibertys]

No Middleton for Hodge yet, eh?

My biggest regret is that arguably their best move of this past generation in drafting Cherepanov was never able to come to fruition.

At the beginning of the thread someone said Middleton said hi, so yea, we covered that garbage too. At that point it was how many of Espo's buddies can we bring here.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Trading Zubov and Nedved for f***ing Robitaille and Samuelsson

No other trade comes close to that level of stupidity

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

Don't see the MSL deal as bad at all. We went to the finals with him. 3 games from the Stanely Cup. If you are that close to the cup you have to try to make a deal like that to try and push us over the top.

Plus he had some huge moments in those playoffs for us:


Now the Eric Staal trade made ZERO sense.

It was the price they paid when they were bidding against themselves for MSL. He could dictate where he wanted to go and he only wanted to go to NYR. The price was too high under those conditions.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

It was the price they paid when they were bidding against themselves for MSL. He could dictate where he wanted to go and he only wanted to go to NYR. The price was too high under those conditions.

Maybe, but even if they were bidding against themselves, there is absolutely nothing to indicate Tampa was going to trade him for anything less than what they got. They could have told us to F off if we didn't meet their demands, which we eventually did. And I still say it was worth it for how far we went.

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

Maybe, but even if they were bidding against themselves, there is absolutely nothing to indicate Tampa was going to trade him for anything less than what they got. They could have told us to F off if we didn't meet their demands, which we eventually did. And I still say it was worth it for how far we went.

Wouldn’t have been telling the Rangers to
F off, they would have been telling MSL to
F off. You can’t bring back a guy who has made it clear he wants out. It’s bad for the team.

Rangers overpaid.

 

[Sarge13]

Has the cold weather made you all yearn for pain??

Put it this way.... " they know what they've done."

 

[SML2]

Allowing this to ever happen

 

[Kupo]

Some say Gorton is the worst GM in Rangers history.

Who would that be?

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

Who would that be?

The guy who doesn’t want Zuc traded.

 

[BringBackLibertys]

Some say Gorton is the worst GM in Rangers history. I don't know much about their history in the early days, but I'm not impressed.

And they would be completely wrong. My God, some folks must have just started following this team when the letter came out. Do me a favor, go look up the wiki of trades made by Phil Esposito as the GM of the Rangers please. I am sure you wont even know who the players are based on your history of not knowing anything but the last few years, but trust me when I say he was REALLY REALLY bad, and I am not even sure he was the worst, he was just the one who traded way too much.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

The guy who doesn’t want Zuc traded.

"don't trade Zukey! I named my puppy after him"
- some chick on Twitter

 

[BringBackLibertys]

"don't trade Zukey! I named my puppy after him"
- some chick on Twitter

Can't wait for this summer when I can get my super cheap Zucc Adidas jersey so I can cut the number stitches and name plate off. I mean, since half of all merch is obviously for him, there should be plenty available for super cheap, right??

 

[Bob Richards]

Buying out Richards was a no brainer.

His original Rangers deal would have expired at the end of NEXT season.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Buying out Richards was a no brainer.

His original Rangers deal would have expired at the end of NEXT season.

What does it matter? It was a compliance buyout, meaning they suffer no salary cap penalty.

 

[Bob Richards]

What does it matter? It was a compliance buyout, meaning they suffer no salary cap penalty.

I know?

The compliance window was limited so either we bought him out then for no cap penalty or we held onto him/dealt him under the conditions of his contract.

Edit: Not to mention we would have been anchored with cap recapture charges had he chosen to retire before the contract was up.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

I know?

The compliance window was limited so either we bought him out then for no cap penalty or we held onto him/dealt him under the conditions of his contract.

Edit: Not to mention we would have been anchored with cap recapture charges had he chosen to retire before the contract was up.

So i'm not quite understanding why it was the worst mistake the Rangers have done? You didnt give a reason other than saying the original contract would have expired next season so I assumed you were bringing up salary cap reasons.

 

[Bob Richards]

So i'm not quite understanding why it was the worst mistake the Rangers have done? You didnt give a reason other than saying the original contract would have expired next season so I assumed you were bringing up salary cap reasons.

I'm not saying it was a mistake. The OP referred to it as one in his post. I think most of us then were under the agreement that (if we liked Brad or not) the opportunity to move on from that contract couldn't be passed up.

 

[ReggieDunlop68]

People may laugh because I grew to LOVE Espo and his personality (but not his GM trades), but the worst trade by far for me was:

Phil Esposito and Carol Vadnais from the Boston Bruins for Brad Park, Jean Ratelle and Joe Zanussi.

We screwed that one up

RangersTown was never the same from that trade. The entire philosophy changed. They went from a team that didn’t win the cup because they weren’t good enough to beat the dynasties to a team that tried to purchase former glory.

1.Esposito trade and future trades to bring in his friends

2. Not tanking a bit in the beginning of the King’s career

3. Messier walking + failed Sakic Signing

4. 99 draft + 2003 draft

5. not rebuilding after 2015