As promised in Part I of our season-in-review, I’m back to take a look at what the future might hold for some current Blueshirts. Some of this analysis concerns what I think the Rangers will do, and some concerns what I would do. At the end of the day, they’re just this fan’s thoughts and predictions.

Michael Rozsival. As detailed in Part I, Rozsival has proven himself overmatched as a no. 1 or 2 defenseman and will likely price himself out of New York anyway. Verdict: Gone.

Marek Malik. Earned more than any Rangers’ defenseman this season besides Paul Mara. Difficult to believe. I don’t think I need waste any more of this space on this lug. Verdict: Gone.

Paul Mara. The team’s highest-paid defenseman in ‘07-’08, I never felt that Mara was utilized to his maximum potential during his time in New York. Then again, Mara had similar struggles during his brief time in Boston, so perhaps there is no one to blame but Paul himself. The Rangers clearly don’t love Mara’s skill-set, and certainly not at $3 million per. It remains to be seen whether Mara prices himself out of the Rangers’ budget, however I’d be surprised if another team with a struggling powerplay didn’t take a chance on a defenseman who scored 15 goals and collected 47 points just two seasons ago. Verdict: Gone.

Jason Strudwick. ‘Serviceable’ is an elusive term, but I think it sums up Struds nicely. He’ll warm the bench if you want him to, he’ll fill in admirably when he’s called upon, he’ll stick up for a teammate if that’s what’s necessary, and he’ll work for peanuts. Verdict: Encore, One-Year, 500k.

Stephen Valiquette. Well thank god the Rangers didn’t advance to the semi-finals. Otherwise the Rangers might have faced a goalie dilemma since Henrik Lundqvist seemingly can’t beat the Flyers, and coach Tom Renney has only reinforced this notion by starting Valiquette in nearly every matchup against Philly. I’d also like to see a backup with the requisite competence that the coaching staff feels comfortable playing him whenever Hank needs a breather, and not simply whenever we hit the Flyers on the schedule. Is Glenn Healy available? No? Then I’d settle for Atlanta’s Johan Hedberg, who’s a fellow swede, a seasoned vet, a free agent this offseason and probably due for a small pay cut at age 35. $1.8 M over two years seems reasonable to me. Verdict: Gone.

Nigel Dawes. A restricted free agent and pretty much a lock to return barring a Dustin Penner-like offer sheet. The Rangers did paint themselves into a bit of corner when they strangely rewarded Petr Prucha last July with a two-year, $ 3.2 million contract. Sure Prucha had already accomplished a lot more than Dawes has following the diminutive Czech’s 30-goal rookie campaign, however he was coming off a disappointing sophomore season in which he scored 22 goals and 40 points. His 7 goals and 17 points in ‘07-’08 make that contract look downright ludicrous in hindsight. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Rangers try to remedy this mistake in Dawes’ case – I just hope they avoid arbitration. Verdict: Encore, Two-Years, $1.9 million.

Fredrik Sjostrom. Another RFA who will likely return. Freddy’s got a bit more service time than Dawes, but has not been as productive on the scoresheet. Another case that could wind up in arbitration, but hopefully not. Verdict: Encore, Two-Years, $1.8 million.

Sean Avery. I hate to take pleasure from other people’s misfortune, but in the case of Avery, I’m a fan of any scenario that keeps him on this team – even if we owe it to a lacerated spleen. Avery is reportedly seeking a three- or four-year deal for at least $3.75 million per season. Seems a crazy sum to pay a player who just last summer was denied his application for a $2.6 million, one-year contract by an arbitrator and was instead awarded $1.9 million. Early in the season, Avery was reprimanded and reigned-in by league disciplinarian Colin Campbell. Subsequently he found himself on the injured list on three separate occasions and underwent surgery to correct a fractured wrist. It’s likely that the winger will require a second such surgery in the offseason, this time on the other wrist. Whenever he recovers from that little spleen thing, that is. Point being, Avery is essentially asking teams to take a $12 million gambit on him and I just don’t see that happening. Verdict: Encore, Three-Years, $8 million.

Marty Straka. Might be the closest call on this list. I’m sure there are corners that would argue that his fate is invariably intertwined with that of Jagr’s, however I don’t believe that. With or without Jagr on the roster, Straka remains a wonderful, if overpaid, two-way forward and provides this team with some veteran depth on the wings – something I have a feeling the Rangers are going to need once free agency shakes out. Of course, in ‘07-’08 Straka was paid like a player who recorded 76 points in ‘05-’06 and 29 goals along with 70 points in ‘06-’07. In the ‘08-’09 season, I expect he’ll be paid like a player coming off a year in which he recorded just 14 goals and 41 points. This is a tight one, but I’m going out on a limb. Verdict: Encore, One-Year, $1.9 million.

Brendan Shanahan. O captain, my captain. At least, that’s the way things should have gone when Shanny arrived here in 2006. Instead Shanahan was tossed into an awkward position of captain-de-facto while Jaromir Jagr wore the mighty ‘C’ on his chest. By most accounts, the duo seemed to like each other and work well together, but I was never entirely sold on the arrangement. In any event, we’ll never know what could have been, as it seems to me that Shanny’s career took a left turn when he collided with Philly’s Mike Knuble in February of ‘07. Shanny was sidelined for over a month with post-concussion syndrome and never looked like the same player thereafter. It’s difficult to judge a lot of these players given how nearly everyone in Red, White, and Blue this season had sub-par offensive seasons, but Shanny’s 46-point campaign seems a shadow of the 62-point year one he had in New York, and a lifetime-removed from the 40-goal, 81-point season he had during his last year with Detroit. If he had some wheels, I could see Shanny transforming from sniper to checking forward as teammate Martin Straka has done in the twilight of his career, however at this point, Shanahan looks like little more than a powerplay and penalty-kill specialist. It might just be time to call it a career. Verdict: Gone, retired.

Jaromir Jagr. We save the best for last. It hasn’t always been easy to articulate my feelings on Jags. He seems like a great guy. He’s certainly a funny guy. And in the mid-90s I worshipped his mullet like some sort of pagan idol. You can easily waste an afternoon on YouTube just watching some of his highlight reels. But the reality is that Ranger fans never got to see that player. Moreover, they got a player too stubborn to change his ways, and too arrogant to submit to instruction. I will never question Jagr’s heart or desire, which has become a growing fad in the national media, and the man’s work ethic is legendary; however I do question his head, and whether or not the Hall-of-Famer ever really grasped the impact of his actions on the rest of his teammates.

Whether he was coasting aimlessly through the neutral zone, watching casually as his linemates back-checked for him, lazily hooking a player who had just stolen the puck from him, skating into the teeth of a defense without any regard for strategy, or holding the puck on the powerplay until every skater on the ice had turned to lead, Jagr’s myriad bad habits were too numerous to count. In truth, Jagr is the sort of player that has to score 54 goals and 123 points (as he did in ‘05-’06) in order to be effective since he brings so many other negatives to the table. Even a successful ‘06-’07 season in which Jags recorded 30 goals and 96 assists seemed grossly inadequate. And in the wake of a season undone largely by epic futility with the man-advantage, Jagr must bare most of that blame. After all, some of the team’s most successful stints on the powerplay this season were provided by the second unit of bangers and crashers that actually obeyed the coaching staff’s pleas for quick puck movement and traffic in front of the net. How much better could this team have been had Jagr simply listened to his coaches? I’m not a fan of ESPN’s Barry Melrose, but he got it right last March when he questioned Jagr’s credentials for the captaincy, stating, “You know what the New York Rangers did making him captain? It’s like when you’re in Pee Wee and you’ve got a bunch of 12-year-olds and you make the best player the captain, that’s all the Rangers did.”

It’s sad, and probably petty of me, but the biggest thing I’ll take away from Jaromir’s time in New York is the fact that the franchise’s single-season goal mark no longer belongs to Adam Graves and, as an unapologetic nostalgist, that bothers me. I’ll leave the final thoughts on Jaromir to MSG’s Joe Micheletti, who evidently knows a thing or two when he’s off the Cablevision-controlled network and speaking instead on WFAN radio. Said Micheletti:

“Here’s what I would look at: The last six weeks that he played, say, the last 2 or 3 weeks of the regular season and the playoffs, he was one of the best players in the game. And he’s 36. I mean, every game he was a factor. But the previous 70 games, he only played like that for five games. Right now the Rangers are paying about 4.5 or 5 million of his salary, and he’s getting another 4.5 or so from Washington, so this is a player who made 9-10 million dollars this year. Are you gonna sign him to a long term contract not knowing what you’re going to get out of the regular season and hope that he plays in the playoffs? Personally, myself, I would not.

And there are some philosophical differences as well, guys, and we talked about the powerplay. He’s a very stubborn guy. He wants to play the powerplay a certain way. It didn’t work, but he wouldn’t change the way he wanted to play.”

Harsh words, but I couldn’t have said it better myself. Verdict: Gone, off to Siberia.

We’re nearly ready to wash our hands of the Rangers here on Hot Stove New York. Stay tuned for Part III in which I’ll take a look at the Blueshirts’ cap, and project what this team might look like next September.