Official off-season thread 2025

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So what’s Drury’ plan here? I guess we’ll see but I am not holding my breath.
 
100% 31, I think his helmet protest may be a positive thing for Canadian teams too. Maybe with Sullivan 4th time is the charm, maybe Laf matures enough over this off season to train and come into camp in shape and flying around like it's his contract year again. I'd rather let motivating Alexi and his attitude be another team's problem and use the $7.45 to upgrade the defense and keep K'Andre
 
It feels like it just may be time for a change of scenery for both the Rangers and Lafreniere. Free up his space and start reshaping the team with some new guys and the youngsters.
 
I don't disagree, IF you can get good value for him go ahead and make a good trade. My point continues to be I wouldn't trade him for pennies on the dollar, that I don't think would be smart, you are better off hoping he'll return to the player he was in 2023-2024 and Sullivan can get the best out of him.

He scored 28 goals and was maybe our best player in the playoffs in 2023-2024, so he has shown positive ability/talent. I think it would be a very poor decision to punt on him for anything less than a good return.
 
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I'm not sure if it's all on Laf or mostly on the team but if we could see the future and see what his performance and numbers were like right up until this point, we end up trading back or picking someone else. I don't remember who else was in that draft but this kid has not lived up to that draft slot, not even close.
 
I agree with that also, outside of one season he has not had "# 1 overall pick" seasons. One other item of note with Lafreniere, just about every single player on the team had a worse and/or down season this past season, so it might have been more than just a Lafreniere problem.

Look, I hope Drury can pull off a great trade with Lafreniere and he gets a very good return, I'm all for it. If he cannot though, I'd keep Lafreniere and see if he can be the player he was in 23-24.
 
Was it Laf or Vinny T that caused the other to have a down season...will we look back to both of them having a career year two years ago. And last year was their norm
 
The vets quit this season before it started. It's a main reason Cuylle IMO wants more money. He probably is sitting their saying to his agent. I played hard all year and these pussy vets get paid a ton and tanked it.
 
A little surprising they didn't qualify Jones but apparently his arb rights are a little too high now. Kaliyev wasn't either.
 
Keeping Soucy over Jones makes no sense…but I’d expect nothing less from our genius GM. And no, I don’t think Jones was amazing, but even on his worst day he’s better than Soucy on his best day.
 
Wrong. Soucy like many other players will benefit greatly from a zone defense system. Lava’s system
wasn’t a good fit last year because the team got bigger, but they also got slower and he tried to play man-to-man. Jones is small. I said for years, you can’t have Fox and Jones on the same defense. That being said Soucy is a 7th guy IMO. Robertson should be a starter.
 
kreidertime said:
Wrong. Soucy like many other players will benefit greatly from a zone defense system. Lava’s system
wasn’t a good fit last year because the team got bigger, but they also got slower and he tried to play man-to-man. Jones is small. I said for years, you can’t have Fox and Jones on the same defense. That being said Soucy is a 7th guy IMO. Robertson should be a starter.
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Fox shoulda been traded but that ship has sailed. Soucy is a minus player for us and spends more time in the penalty box than on the ice. And we are paying him $3.25M, I’d be shocked to see him as a 7th dman. If you haven’t learned by now, this franchise NEVER sits guys that they are paying, regardless of how much they suck. They’d rather play a shitty vet over a young guy 100 out of 100 times.
 
I’m hoping the Rangers do very little in free agency. The salaries and contract lengths have been absolutely insane so far. If they are patient, they probably can get several of these free agents that have been signed in a year or two with their current teams paying half their salaries to dump them.
 
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kreidertime said:
I’m hoping the Rangers do very little and free agency. The salaries and contract lengths have been absolutely insane so far. If they are patient, they probably can get several of these free agents that have been signed in a year or two with their current teams, paying half their salaries to dump them.
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Not disagreeing with you there at all. But the salary cap going up means that there’s more money to burn. As for the second point, we say that a lot about teams wanting to dump players, but they typically want to dump them because they aren’t very good or aren’t living up to the huge contract and yet we rarely see us going after those players anyways. Everything with this franchise is in between. They never fully go all in and they never truly rebuild. We sent out a letter saying we were going to rebuild, and then the team over-performed and so we scrapped the rebuild and then tried to piecemeal a team together and blew up the rebuild. 2 years ago we should have pushed all our chips into the middle and went all in, but we didn’t and instead what we got was the disaster of the year we got last year. Now we are once again in the same position we’ve been in for the past 20 odd years…good enough to make the playoffs (or just bad enough to not make it but battle all season for the final spot and getting a shitty draft spot) but not good enough to win it all. Same shit, different year. Rinse and repeat should be the motto for this franchise lol
 
There was no reason for them to trade all their future picks away when they won the presidents trophy. It wouldn’t have made a difference against Florida. If the dumbass officials would’ve called one of two penalties against Florida when the game was tied late, they might have been up three to one in that series.
 
With the Bouchard signing and the ridiculous Frederic contract the Oilers are $550k under the Cap, not sure how they're going to come up with the millions to extend McDaxid.
 
1. McDavid already counts $12.5M against their cap, so we're looking another $6M +/- for them, not $18M +/-.
2. The cap goes up another $4M + before the 26-27 season.
3. Between Arvidsson $4M, Henrique $3M, Ekholm $6M, Walman $3.4M, and Kulak $2.75M that's $19M + off their cap after this season. They'll have to re-sign some of these guys, or add other guys in their place, but they can do that for a lot less than $19M +.

I don't see money as the issue, the Oilers are in a good spot cap wise, to me it will come down to what does McDavid want to do. If he wants to stay in Edmonton, they'll get it done, if he wants to leave, he'll sign someplace else.
 
Big day for Drury is here. There are those that want to see the Rangers never actually try and win, don't make moves at the trade DL, don't sign any FA's, play their average kids up and down the lineup, I don't agree, I'd actually like to see the Rangers try and win. You have to be smart, don't throw money away, don't sign ridiculous deals, don't deal away all your picks, but you have to be in it to win it. I hope Drury has a plan and is aggressive in executing that plan. We'll see today if he does.

BTW, winning is a HUGE part of it, but when you get Bennett, Marchand, and Ekblad all to take clearly less money to stay in Florida, no state income tax plays at least a little role, not a huge or deciding role, but it is at least a little factor IMO.
 
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Chuck, the numbers I give factor in the salary cap increase, plenty of web sites to consult that have already accounted for the increase. The Oilers have $550k of cap space with 4 free agents unsigned - Perry, Skinner, Connor Brown and Klingberg who made a little under $7 mil combined. Edmonton is also expected to somehow offer McDavid an increase of at least $4 mil which is an insult, if I'm McDavid's agent $20 is the number, articles suggesting he'll take a Brunson-like discount are sillier than the trade rumor bile. Dump and I seem to be the only 2 seeing the probability of McDavid moving because of salary the Oilers can't afford.
 
Who here thought the Panthers could have kept the rat, Bennett and Ekblad. As I said before. Lots of things factor in to a player leaving. I would not have figured Marner going to Vegas. Players wives have a huge impact where they go.
 
Gavrikov at $7m, after the Jackets just signed a clearly inferior LD in Provorov to $8.5m per, is a goddamn steal. Was dreading this number getting close to - or exceeding - $8m after the Provorov deal.

Will take $7M all day for our top LD minute eater. Great fit in the top 4.

Friedman saying Key could be going to Carolina. Carolina better pay up to keep him within the division if that's where he goes.
 
Hopefully there are no NTC in that contract but it looks like a reasonable AAV. Fox, finally has a partner.
 
His numbers all grade out as number 1 pairing, defensive d-men. Considering what schmucks are getting around the league, his contract is no longer that bad. One thing I like about Drury is that he will make the best deal. He doesn't care with who. Trading Miller to Carolina makes them worse defensively. Two wins for us depending on what he got back. I really hope it's a first rounder in 2026.
 
Just getting a late first round puck for Miller is not good. He is a top 4 defenseman. I know Miller has his warts. Drury sucks at trading.
 
Stepupstepan said:
Just getting a late first round puck for Miller is not good. He is a top 4 defenseman. I know Miller has his warts. Drury sucks at trading.
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Miller was NEVER going to be a real top 4 defender for us. Way too many brain farts. To get a first rounder for him, with how AWFUL defensively he looked is a good return, regardless of where that pick is. Also, gives us two first round picks in a deep draft next year and we can use them both to maybe even move up. I hate Drury almost as much as Chuck, but that’s a good return for a player that has worn out his welcome here. And the INSANE contract Carolina gave him makes the trade even better. Handcuffed them financially with a mediocre defender for the next 8 years.
 
Carolina is nuts with that Miller contract. They must think really highly of Miller. Pizza boy did good. Got a first, second and a nice prospect some kid dmen Morrow
 
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