It's a crutch to bring up Howden and Hajek. I think everyone knew that those two not being in the lineup next season was a formality. Are we going to give the GM a pass on the whole rest of the offseason because we can say those two not being in the lineup makes the team significantly better, which it obviously does?
I'm not brining up Howden randomly. We basically traded Reaves for Howden. It's a straight upgrade. Replacing players with other players is a real thing. Roles are a thing. Who should we have acquired to replace a 4th liner and a #6 defenseman?
You obviously don't care for Reaves or Nemeth, so who?
Because if you look at these other moves in a vacuum, I think most of them have been subpar/mediocre/ bad.
You can't look it in a vacuum. Every player we acquired is going into a specific spot in our lineup for a specific reason. Why would you look at it in a vacuum?
Buchnevich for a second and Blais is objectively a bad trade. I don't think anyone has disagreed about that. Goodrow is a good bottom six forward, but at what cost? I don't think anyone disagrees that we objectively overpaid, and we're a team that has enough cap problems that we are rationing players at this point. Reaves is simply not worth a third. He's, at best, a good bodyguard that isn't a bad 12th forward at hockey. Unless you see an intangible value in paying picks for bodyguards, he doesn't improve wins/losses, and we paid a pick for what will be a sideshow boxing match 10 times per year. He probably doesn't get in our lineup on hockey ability, and it might take away from the development of someone like Barron or Blais.
We're rationing players due to our cap problems? Dude, literally what the tap-dancing f*** are you talking about??? We currently have $13m in cap space.
The Buchnevich trade was absolutely necessary. It's not a contract we could afford to take on with NHL-ready prospects like Kakko and Kravtsov on the roster. The revisionist history since the trade of Buchnevich being a Rangers legend is hilarious. The guy has been an ok middle sixer 90% of his career.
Everything we've done makes sense and it will improve wins/losses because while they were talented, the Rangers were one of the most one dimensional teams in the league and absolutely needed to add defense and checking to their lineup.
You could fairly criticize the cost of these moves but you could say that of literally any move that isn't drafting a player and signing him to an ELC. The whole league is overpaid. HF as a whole is obsessed with this toxic mentality of having all the cap space and all the picks and never actually using them to have a good hockey team. The rebuild is over. The Rangers have Fox, Lafreniere, and Kakko. They're sinking or swimming with that as the core, and need to start focusing on specific areas. Sometimes you have to pay to fill holes.
The draft was pretty unanimously viewed as weak. Almost all reputable rankings had us not getting good value. And while Othmann isn't a fighter, how could we not look at it as we were targeting certain types of players? With that rumor that we wanted Boucher, he ends up not available and we take a guy with a reputation for being gritty. Let me guess, was L'Heureux next up if Othmann went 15 to Dallas? Nemeth in a vacuum is probably the only move/series of decisions that wasn't bad, but I think when the best thing you can compliment is that you signed a good enough third pair defenseman that you are likely starting at a pretty big deficit.
This was the worst draft in my lifetime. I'm not gonna sit here and argue with you over which future 13th forward we should have drafted. Wake me next year when actual prospects are getting drafted.
What could we have done differently? How about not make panic moves that suggest Slats is running the team and making all the decisions for Drury? This team could've also gotten a lot better staying the course, not overpaying for grit and toughness, and letting the kids become better at NHL hockey. What's keeping this team from being a contender is continued development of our young players. The grit and toughness stuff is a sideshow, but I guess no one will say its missing anymore. Drury could've also made bigger moves like trading Buchnevich and Strome. Trading for Eichel. Trading a few of the younger kids like Schneider, Lundkvist, Jones, Kravtsov, Chytil for a roster upgrade. He could've even traded Zibanejad. There were many different avenues. What he did was hammer home the grit and toughness angle, so much so that it seems clear that Slats ran this offseason, not Drury.
The "Slats is making the decisions again" conspiracy theory doesn't even warrant a response.
You say development of young wingers is holding us back, but you desperately wanted to keep Buchnevich who was starving Kakko and Kravtsov of minutes. Can't have your cake and eat it too.
You're mad that we slightly overpaid to add role players, and then you suggest absolutely nuking the roster for Eichel.
You're all over the place. You want to develop but you also want to keep vets and trade young players for Eichel and other upgrades.
You keep harping on grit toughness but you absolutely refuse to acknowledge that we kept all of our skill players (sans Buchnevich) and replaced mostly 4th liners who were supposed to be doing that anyway. You call that a "crutch" and act like hockey moves are never related. We can't look at Reaves as an upgrade on Howden because...because...because reasons!!
You're all over the place because you're just flailing to be mad at this team because they traded Buchnevich. I like the kid and I think he's a good player, but he sure did have a weird cult that I didn't know about.