Speculation: Roster Building Thread VIII (2021 Offseason Thread) - “And then there was light…”

[Kendo]

So where were we? Oh right, Edge being a big fraud….

My Cousin Vinny voice: "Wait, you was serious about that?"

 

[rangers1314]

My Cousin Vinny voice: "Wait, you was serious about that?"

I was not.

 

[Lindberg Cheese]

Since having kids, my time to read these boards have been limited, so I missed this. What happened? I was always curious about the rumor of a split locker room and Lemiuex asking to be traded.

You got 6 hours?

 

[Savant]

I disagree. The team clearly didn’t want to go the Edmonton route, i.e., jettison all vets and start from scratch. Kreider brought (and brings) more to the table than just stats.

It’s clearly a mistake in hindsight, and a worse than most of us thought just a day or two ago, but I still understand it in the context of that moment in time.

Trading Kreider is not equal to the Edmonton route. Not having that. Kreider does bring a lot to the table but what he brings does not correlate to the extension that he signed. At all. That was Gorton’s Girardi contract.

If I remember correctly, people were okay with keeping Kreider that deadline because we didn’t think good offers were coming in. We didn’t think anyone was offering a 1st, let alone 1st and a top prospect (again no need to namedrop because value wise it still stands up).

There is no use crying over spilled milk, but if that was on the table, passing on it is indefensible and makes me feel less bad about the regime change.

 

[Savant]

For those of you that weren't a fan of the Kreider signing initially. Or those of you now regretting it because we won the Laf lottery. Keep in mind the butterfly effect. If we trade Kreider at the deadline, it would had a big impact in the standings and we would effectively reset the lottery. Even if the lottery results were the same, we wouldn't have been in the play in series against Carolina.

I would rather have the Rangers natural 1st, the extra first from Dallas, the cap room and Robertson over the low percentage change of Lafreniere and six more years of Kreider on a NMC. By a lot. It’s stupid asset management and bad business.

 

[MadHookUp]

You got 6 hours?

If there is a thread, I am interested. I know ADA and Lemiuex were good friends. I assumed that was the reason he asked to be traded, and maybe that was the end of the divide. Curious if the divide is still going, and if it's ADA related.

 

[NYSPORTS]

For those of you that weren't a fan of the Kreider signing initially. Or those of you now regretting it because we won the Laf lottery. Keep in mind the butterfly effect. If we trade Kreider at the deadline, it would had a big impact in the standings and we would effectively reset the lottery. Even if the lottery results were the same, we wouldn't have been in the play in series against Carolina.

So signing Kreider had a butterfly effect on Winnipeg winning the lottery followed by the Rangers?

Com’on, both his age and style of play is cemented. This was supposed to be a rebuild and once he was resigned they were supposed to start winning more. Now if the dead money delayed that winning for a year, ok, but management couldn’t look to next year and play the “kids might not be ready to win” card i believe they played.

 

[MadHookUp]

I would rather have the Rangers natural 1st, the extra first from Dallas, the cap room and Robertson over the low percentage change of Lafreniere and six more years of Kreider on a NMC. By a lot. It’s stupid asset management and bad business.

Ugh... I think I might agree with you. Thanks for talking away my coping mechanism. Hopefully Laf becomes so good, I can flip back.

 

[TheBloodyNine]

Butterfly flaps it’s wings on the Kreider situation. He gets traded who knows that happens and maybe we don’t end up drafting Lafreniere. These things don’t happen in a vacuum.

 

[MadHookUp]

So signing Kreider had a butterfly effect on Winnipeg winning the lottery followed by the Rangers?

Not sure I follow... But essentially the butterfly effect is that something incredibly minor, could have a drastic impact on the future. If we went back in time and made that Kreider trade, the impact would almost surely change the lottery and we wouldn't have picked 1st overall. And what makes Kreider soooo expendable is the fact we have Laf and Panarin

 

[Ola]

Not sure I follow... But essentially the butterfly effect is that something incredibly minor, could have a drastic impact on the future. If we went back in time and made that Kreider trade, the impact would almost surely change the lottery and we wouldn't have picked 1st overall. And what makes Kreider soooo expendable is the fact we have Laf and Panarin

In reality that would have had all kind of alarms going off on the TVA’s screens and we probably couldn’t even pull it off.

 

[Roo Returns]

@Edge not asking for specifics, but very curious what the Rangers and Seattle are up to. Expansion draft trades?

Could let's say a Buchnevich or Strome be traded similar to in 1991 when the Rangers traded Brian Mullen for Tim Kerr?

For those younger folks, the 1991 Rangers were very similar to the current crop although more successful. Neil Smith had a mostly finesse top six with Kissio-Ogrodnick-Mullen and Nicholls-Gartner and some combo of Mallete/King rotating on their wing. Turcotte was a great third line center/2nd PP guy. They won the Division in 1990 and were an injury (Kissio--Charlie Horse) and bad trade (Miller/Vial for Kocur/Djoos tanked their season) away from winning the Division again in 1991 but lost to the grittier Capitals in the playoffs two years in a row. Smith began tearing down the top six and adding more grit by signing Graves and making a very controversial trade for Tim Kerr who was one of the premier power forwards in the NHL but had broken down. And yes, Messier came later.

 

[NYSPORTS]

@Edge not asking for specifics, but very curious what the Rangers and Seattle are up to. Expansion draft trades?

Could let's say a Buchnevich or Strome be traded similar to in 1991 when the Rangers traded Brian Mullen for Tim Kerr?

For those younger folks, the 1991 Rangers were very similar to the current crop although more successful. Neil Smith had a mostly finesse top six with Kissio-Ogrodnick-Mullen and Nicholls-Gartner and some combo of Mallete/King rotating on their wing. Turcotte was a great third line center/2nd PP guy. They won the Division in 1990 and were an injury (Kissio--Charlie Horse) and bad trade (Miller/Vial for Kocur/Djoos tanked their season) away from winning the Division again in 1991 but lost to the grittier Capitals in the playoffs two years in a row. Smith began tearing down the top six and adding more grit by signing Graves and making a very controversial trade for Tim Kerr who was one of the premier power forwards in the NHL but had broken down. And yes, Messier came later.

who is on your Seattle radar?

 

[NoQuitInNewMexico]

The Rangers have been very concerned with having "nice guys" and "classy guys" in the org. They preach character so much and this philosophy is broken because look at Kovacs, Gropp, Andersson, Stromwall, Zborovsky, Sareela, Day. All were head cases who ran. Kravstov was going down that road but he figured it out luckily (and who knows if he's even still here in two weeks lol). DeAngelo has no emotional intelligence.

Draft guys who legitimately hate to lose and view the other teams as enemies and trash. That's what I'm hoping Drury changes. Enough of preaching this fake character stuff (and I don't hate Gordie Clarke at all I gave him a B+ for his job and 2012/2014/2015 is the data you need to look at).

That's why I really like Cullye as a prospect. He's not a sociopath and from all accounts seems like a good kid off the ice (despite liking the Star Wars prequels haha) but he plays the game like a lunatic. Need more crazy.

Kovacs sounds like he had a lot of stuff going on, but I don't know why most of those other guys need to be dragged into that. Someone like Ryan Gropp, he probably didn't make the NHL because he wasn't ever that good, it doesn't need to be a personal failing. Really good hockey player to get to the level he got, not an NHL player. Everyone knows how low the hit rate is even for second rounders, let alone the late rounds.

But yeah, it was rough watching the Lias and DeAngelo flameouts back to back. Either they need to get better at managing a certain kind of guy, or they need to stay away from crazy people. There aren't a ton of stories that get out like that in the NHL.

 

[Roo Returns]

who is on your Seattle radar?

Edge mentioned the Rangers and Seattle were talking. It could be about anything. Heck, they don't have players yet!

My guess is they're looking at claiming a player the Rangers are interested in trading for prior to the expansion draft and all hypo scenarios. Maybe the Rangers want to trade their back in the first round and Seattle is going to get a late first from a team as part of a conditional "pick this guy not that guy" trade.

It could also be that Buch/Strome are on the table to add some decent to good NHLers to Seattle's initial lineup/meet cap floor and the 1st coming back is from the conditional trade. Or Georgiev as the 1B to back up the goalie taken.

 

[LaffyTaffyNYR]

I was thinking Seattle would be good spots for Buch Strome or Georgiev but I have no idea who they will even have after the ED

 

[RangerBoy]

Bingo. And they already have three with Trouba/Panarin/Kreider. Trouba people are already counting down the days until his NMC is modified and if Panarin doesn't make some playoff noise in the next two years people will start complaining.

I don't hate Kreider I just think he's more in line with a Duguay/regular season Rangers Kovalev than a Steve Vickers. He's not Mark Stone, he's not Max Pacioretty, he's definitely not Tim Kerr.

I'm ready for the "bro he's finally gonna hit 30 goals this year. Gallant will have him motivated" angle.

Gallant will be Kreider's 4th NHL head coach. Chris is not changing now.

 

[Roo Returns]

Kovacs sounds like he had a lot of stuff going on, but I don't know why most of those other guys need to be dragged into that. Someone like Ryan Gropp, he probably didn't make the NHL because he wasn't ever that good, it doesn't need to be a personal failing. Really good hockey player to get to the level he got, not an NHL player. Everyone knows how low the hit rate is even for second rounders, let alone the late rounds.

But yeah, it was rough watching the Lias and DeAngelo flameouts back to back. Either they need to get better at managing a certain kind of guy, or they need to stay away from crazy people. There aren't a ton of stories that get out like that in the NHL.

The other guys except needed to be dragged in because they all had contracts voided/terminated early in seasons and ran back to Europe/somewhere else. That's not me saying "this prospect stinks" this is at least five players in the org who had that situation, one who was suspended for being disorderly (Gropp). That's an organizational problem. Name any other NHL team that had this many incidents in a five year period. You can take Duclair and Sareela out if you'd like, two guys who have had issues after they were traded away.

It's a fixable problem. In a salary cap world you improve the infrastructure of your organization. Psychological evaluations and how to handle New York. Two out of many examples.

When I ran into Drury last fall at a coffee shop, this is the convo I should've had with him

 

[bbny]

I would rather have the Rangers natural 1st, the extra first from Dallas, the cap room and Robertson over the low percentage change of Lafreniere and six more years of Kreider on a NMC. By a lot. It’s stupid asset management and bad business.

I would venture to say that's, at best, a 50/50 opinion. Robertson is a nice looking player, but if a deal was on the table today to trade Lafreniere for Robertson and a couple of 1sts, I'm sticking with Lafreniere. That's not even considering Kreider, who is not a net negative value player because of contract no matter how much fans want to dump on him. His contract is fair and there are many other teams who would want him. He certainly has a place on this roster.

 

[Roo Returns]

Gallant will be Kreider's 4th NHL head coach. Chris is not changing now.

We all know this. Some people have these expectations.

What we can hope for is that he improves his consistency even by a little bit because Gallant adjusts his bench that way. I don't care if he never reaches 30 goals, just let's start with a better battle level and Larry Brooks not ever using the "Have. You. Seen. Chris." line.

 

[Edge]

@Edge Do you think we'll be in on Monahan this time around?

I feel like for right now things are dormant with Calgary. We circled around with them several times over the last couple of years and Calgary has always been afraid of mixing things up. Now it appears Calgary is finally willing and some teams have shifted focus to other areas --- at least for the time being.

 

[Savant]

I would venture to say that's, at best, a 50/50 opinion. Robertson is a nice looking player, but if a deal was on the table today to trade Lafreniere for Robertson and a couple of 1sts, I'm sticking with Lafreniere. That's not even considering Kreider, who is not a net negative value player because of contract no matter how much fans want to dump on him. His contract is fair and there are many other teams who would want him. He certainly has a place on this roster.

I don’t think you can view it like that though. The Rangers did not know they were getting Lafreniere at the deadline. It’s like the family guy sketch with the boat or the mystery box. Waiting for Lafreniere was taking the mystery box. Sure it worked out, but only because of luck.

 

[RangerBoy]

For those of you that weren't a fan of the Kreider signing initially. Or those of you now regretting it because we won the Laf lottery. Keep in mind the butterfly effect. If we trade Kreider at the deadline, it would had a big impact in the standings and we would effectively reset the lottery. Even if the lottery results were the same, we wouldn't have been in the play in series against Carolina.

Kreider played just three games after the trading deadline. The Rangers went 2-1. He broke his foot blocking a shot against the Flyers. The Rangers only played 6 more games after Kreider went down with the foot injury.

Lost to the Flyers
Lost to the Blues
Beat the Caps in OT. 6-5. Zibanejad 5 goal game
Lost to the Devils
Beat Dallas
Lost to the Avs in OT

Covid

 

[Thirty One]

Whenever you are invoking the Butterfly Effect when defending a past move, it probably wasn't the right move.

 

[AirGut]

Edge mentioned the Rangers and Seattle were talking. It could be about anything. Heck, they don't have players yet!

My guess is they're looking at claiming a player the Rangers are interested in trading for prior to the expansion draft and all hypo scenarios. Maybe the Rangers want to trade their back in the first round and Seattle is going to get a late first from a team as part of a conditional "pick this guy not that guy" trade.

It could also be that Buch/Strome are on the table to add some decent to good NHLers to Seattle's initial lineup/meet cap floor and the 1st coming back is from the conditional trade. Or Georgiev as the 1B to back up the goalie taken.

The idea that Drury is going to move either Buch or Strome for picks and prospects at this point in time also needs to stop. We're done trading for unestablished assets. Not happening. Zip,Zilch,Nada