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Rangers Stuck in No-Man’s-Land
By Jeff Freier on December 16th, 2009 2:27 PM |
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If only the Rangers could play against themselves. They could finally score more than two goals, what with their defense as soft and holey as Swiss cheese. They wouldn’t have to worry about being manhandled, as there would be no hitting at all in the game. The offense only occasionally crashes the net, so the defense wouldn’t have to contemplate clearing out the crease, which they never do anyway. It’s a win-win situation for the offense and defense. It would be a breezy, no-checking game, with the players not even working up a sweat.
Sure, the Rangers play a solid, hard-fought game once in a while, like they did on Monday against Atlanta, but the Thrashers aren’t exactly the Broad Street Bullies. They’re as soft as the Rangers. What we usually see is the Blueshirts getting outclassed, outhit and outplayed. So where does that leave them? They’re stuck with the bad contracts of Chris Drury, Michal Rozsival, Wade Redden and Donald Brashear, so there’s not much they can do to change the roster, is there? They can send Matt Gilroy down to the minors for some more seasoning while Rozsival gets away with murder, but not much else. A little tweaking and window dressing is about it.
They have Marian Gaborik and Henrik Lundqvist in the prime of their careers, with everybody else on either side of them – a batch of players still developing and another group with rigor mortis setting in. If they could dump their crusty veterans for some young offense and a banger on defense, they could go into a developing/rebuilding phase, which wouldn’t take years since they already have so many youngsters learning on the fly. Or they could go the other way and package some youth for veterans that are actually useful and productive. Like Wayne Gretzky when he was here, Gaborik has no one to complement his talent (except for Vinny Prospal, but it takes more than one player).
Since it’s nearly impossible to get rid of the obvious highly paid dead weight, the Rangers are stuck. They’re capped out. They’re in no-man’s-land. Going with mainly youth isn’t an option. And they can’t go into win-now mode either. It’s clear they don’t do anything well – score, defend, play hard or hit anybody – so it’s difficult for this team to attain an identity. And it’s difficult to imagine the Rangers freeing themselves from this predicament anytime soon. Sure, they could eke out the eighth spot in the playoffs, since the Eastern Conference, besides Pittsburgh, Washington, New Jersey and maybe Buffalo, is filled with other imperfect, weak teams, but they’re really not a contending team. Thanks again, Glen Sather, you’ve constructed yet another flawed, overpaid team in your yearly makeover of the Rangers.
There are currently 5 responses to “Rangers Stuck in No-Man’s-Land”
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Even if Sather could somehow manage to rid himself of all those terrible contracts that you mentioned, he’s still an idiot and should have been fired years ago. My point is that he’d just run their salary right up to the cap again with more terrible contracts.
I’m starting to come to grips with the fact that as long as Sather is here, the Rangers just aren’t going to be elite. They might make the playoffs, but are never going to win anything.
Unfortunately, I think you’re right.
I’d like to see a bit more faith from you guys. Torts has been bemoaning the sense of “entitlement” on the team, and maybe it’s permeated the fan base as well. During that seven-year playoff drought I suffered through nearly every single putrid contest. I’d forgotten what a postseason in the Garden sounds like. The Rangers have built a resume for themselves where it’s now expected that they’ll qualify for the playoffs year in and year out. Less than that is unacceptable, and it feels nice to be able to apply that attitude to this franchise. This group has the talent to be a Top-8 team in the conference, so it’s time to cut the crap and make it happen. As to whether or not we’ll ever see Sather lead us to a Cup… probably not. But you never know. Not every Cup-winning GM was a brilliant tactician, and to be fair to Slats, his post-lockout track record has been about 50-50. That might be a bit generous, but the point is, he hasn’t been a disaster. This team has several important building blocks, it’s just unfortunate that three of the most highly paid players are not among those pieces. But you know what? We’re a pair of waiver wire dumps away from solving some of that problem, and certainly benching Wade Redden moves us one step closer in that direction.
The Rangers record since the lockout has been pure luck. Sather had no idea what he had in Lundqvist, none at all. And the Rangers had Jagr because they were the only team that could afford his contract at the time. Are they going to bench Redden for the next few years?
And I’m really supposed to be excited about just making the playoffs? Really? If they make the playoffs this season, a pretty big if, they’re just going to barely get in and then immediately get eliminated. Wow, so exciting.
I have no faith in Sather. I want to be wrong and I hope I’m wrong. This new “no entitlement” philosophy is something we haven’t seen in a long time, and hopefully they’ll stick with it. As for my own entitlement, I’d gladly root for a young, hard-working, still-developing team, even if that means not making the playoffs, but the Rangers won’t let me. They have a lot of the pieces in place (Del Zotto, Staal, Gilroy, Callahan, Dubinsky, Anisimov, Gaborik, Lundqvist, etc.), so we’ll see if Tortorella and Sather stick with it. The team has mailed it in so many times this year with Drury playing 22 minutes while Anisimov plays seven minutes on the fourth line. Let guys like Anisimov and Lisin play consistent, quality minutes and let them develop. And maybe if I wrote about the team after they won once in a while instead of losing I wouldn’t sound like such a bitter old man.