Official off-season thread

[kreidertime]

Release Sheary immediately. Trade Raddysh for a six or 7th round pick. Pray the guy from the Blues takes a lot of control over the draft and we don’t fuck up our first round picks.

 

[Ranger71]

Sullivan thinks Shearshit earned a new 1y deal with his late season surge.

 

[kreidertime]

Blow us Sullivan.

 

[Messiah717]

I have little faith in Drury. Just saying retooling just means you don’t have to layout any type of plan.

 

[JTM]

Drury has no plan at all, that is extremely clear from his horrific time running the organization. What I wrote after last year's terrible season holds true again unfortunately, I have no faith in Drury to get it right. All we can do is hope somehow someway he has an awakening, becomes a different person with a plan and strategy, improves the team, and the Rangers will at least be competitive again next season. We all know he failed miserably last summer, hopefully he doesn't fail miserably again this summer, although I sadly think he will because he's awful, and hope is a very bad strategy.

On the plus side, we had one thing break our way as the Flames won last night, meaning the Rangers finish as the 3rd worst team in the NHL, and have an 11.5% chance to move up to # 1, fingers crossed the ping pong balls bounce our way.

BTW - last I checked Drury runs the organization, not Sullivan. If Sheary is re-signed and brought back, that is on Drury not Sullivan.

 

[JTM]

My best guess is Trocheck gets traded. Not saying it's what I want, it's what I expect will happen. There was too much smoke he was getting dealt at the trade DL, Drury got his NT list, had many conversations, I have a feeling once that bridge is crossed, you don't go back. As a vet with a family, I am confident Trocheck doesn't want to deal with that again in season, so I think he'll get moved before the draft.

The Rangers have a ton of cap space, which is nice, but there is no one to spend it on. The cap went up so much that all the top potential UFA's re-signed, and the Rangers aren't alone in having a lot of cap space. My best guess is we'll see Drury active in the trade market, that's how he'll retool the team. Having a top 5 pick helps also, and maybe it will be a top 2 or 3 pick with any luck, and having another late 1st rounder isn't bad.

Whatever they do, they NEED to play some kid's next season. Give the guys who played reasonably well down the stretch a chance to play next season.

Perreault, Laba, Kartye, Chmelar, Fortescue, and Sykora all should be given every opportunity to earn regular roles next season. Garand MUST be the backup to Igor. I also think Robertson earned a shot to be the 3rd pair LD.

In addition to Trocheck, who I think will be gone, what is the plan with Schneider. He is an RFA with arbitration rights, and if you plan to re-sign him, I don't think burying him on the 3rd pair makes sense, but how do you balance Schneider and Borgen at RD after Fox. Interesting question for Drury to solve, or maybe he moves Schneider at the draft, and it solves itself.

I also disagree with many on Fox, he is super important to this team, that became even more clear when he was out. The teams record without him was much worse than when he played, he was a + player on a team that had very few, he averaged a point per game, his metrics were all very good, he played very well down the stretch and became a more dangerous player as he shot the puck way more (which I have said for years is a must for him to improve), he formed a very good top pair with Gavrikov (their numbers together were impressive), and Gavrikov was not as good when Fox was out (which shows Fox's value even more). To me, no shot I move Fox unless the return is HUGE, anything less than a GS return, and I keep Fox. I expect him to be here next season, forming a very good top pair with Gavrikov.

Drury will be on the clock soon; we'll see if he can exceed my VERY VERY low expectations.

 

[PorterPanzer]

At some point responsibility has to rest on the core player's shoulders, blaming Drury for everything is ridiculous. It's no coincidence that the team improved their play when younger prospects (mostly drafted by Drury) were inserted into the lineup. The Rangers were 2nd to last in the NHL in shots on goal, Carolina attempted 1,000 more SOG than the Rangers this season. Fox is a great regular season player who wilts away postseason, hasn't scored a postseason goal last 3 appearances, should have been traded years ago before the NTC in his prime.

 

[JTM]

Oh absolutely, the players have been a joke, and an embarrassment. I don't recall me saying everything is Drury's fault, and only Drury's fault, the players need to take responsibility as well. Multiple things can be true, the players should be ashamed of themselves, and Drury is horrific at his job. BUT you cannot fire all the players AND Drury runs EVERYTHING in the whole organization, good or bad, the buck stops with him, that's how it works with accountability.

It isn't easy for you to look at Drury in an objective and unbiased way, see how he has cycled through 3 coaches over the past 4 seasons, see how 3 of the past 4 seasons have ended as an embarrassing joke, and see how he clearly has no plan. It's not easy to acknowledge those very crystal-clear things.

Your "defenses" of Drury are usually excuses and rationalizations:

He's better than Gorton, which BTW is debatable at best, but even if true, doesn't matter. Drury, or anyone, should be judged on their own merits after a fair amount of time, not on whether or not they are better than the prior person, especially when the prior guy got fired because he didn't get the job done. We fired the last guy because he wasn't good at his job, but you are better than the guy we fired (debatable), so that must mean no matter what you are good. Illogical.

Who else can you hire that's better. That is a crazy comment. So, the inference being, Drury may stink, but no way you could find anyone better, so stay with a guy who is terrible at his job, just a crazy way of thinking. Interesting note, I recall me saying many times, how about the assistant GM in Florida, let's give him a shot...well one local team listened, he's now the GM of the Devils, we'll see how he does in the big chair. Good for the Devs.

Now it's the average tenure of an NHL coach, not named Cooper, is 2.3 seasons, so Drury recycling coaches like toilet paper isn't that bad actually. Another crazy excuse/rationalization. Because other teams have over the top upheaval and lack of consistency, cohesion and leadership, that makes it okay and a winning formula for Drury to change coaches every 1.3 seasons. Zero logic IMO.

Look, it's really difficult to have an honest debate about this, because Drury has been so horrific at his jobs it speaks for itself. With that said, everyone is entitled to their opinions, fact based or not, and as Ranger fans, we'll ALL hope Drury finally gets it right this summer (he's going to be here for a long time unfortunately). He has some big work ahead of him, we'll see if he can get it done in a positive way. Fingers crossed he is successful.

 

[kreidertime]

Yep. Drury didn't make Miller play like a useless, tick turd all season. Or was the reason Shesterkin or Fox got hurt. His draft picks are starting to show up now. I like adding this Blues guy who has a good track record trading for or drafting Cuylle type of players. IMO, our Europe scouting other than goalies sucks ass for the most part. Way too many misses.

 

[PorterPanzer]

Chuck, you hate Drury like a jilted bride, you've made it abundantly clear through hundreds of repetitive posts. When I point out that every NHL team fires their coaches regularly, (Vegas 8 games before the playoffs) you escalate that into me being a Drury defender when I simply think he's been an improvement over the previous GM. Your posts seem to indicate that Drury has destroyed the great Rangers juggernaut when they've won 1 Cup in 86 years.

 

[kreidertime]

Drury had the nasty task of getting rid of an old and aging core that wasn’t going to win shit. I thought he made a mistake in the Kakko trade because he didn’t get back a young center prospect. Terrance who he got back for Kreider is picking it up late in the season. He needs to hit on both of these first round draft picks this year. Greentree will be a fan favorite soon. He’s starting to get much better over the last year.

 

[Ranger71]

Need another puck moving type other than Fox.

 

[kreidertime]

No what we need is two wingers for the third line center and another wing or for the second line center.

 

[Greyvtrayn]

Its hard to say that the team has improved in any significant way since Drury took over as GM. They were a perennial playoff team for a while and now, not. At this point his fingerprints are all over the team so it will be necessary to see them return to playoff form and contend for the Cup for anyone to say he has been meaningfully better than any previous GM since Neil Smith.

 

[Ranger71]

McKenna or Stenberg would probably be ready to play next year.

 

[kreidertime]

Get Marchment if he is a UFA. Keep Trochek.

Marchment-Trochek-Cuylle

Play Greentree next year with Miller.

 

[JTM]

Its hard to say that the team has improved in any significant way since Drury took over as GM. They were a perennial playoff team for a while and now, not. At this point his fingerprints are all over the team so it will be necessary to see them return to playoff form and contend for the Cup for anyone to say he has been meaningfully better than any previous GM since Neil Smith.

Exactly, the guy has been awful AWFUL running this organization (into the ground). Panzer can write whatever he wants about how I'm anti Drury, which I am not outside of the FACT he has been terrible in his roles.

Another rationalization in "defense" of Drury, the Rangers have sucked for a long time, therefore the sh*t job Drury has done isn't as sh*tty as it seems, because he didn't destroy the great Rangers juggernaut when they've won 1 Cup in 86 years.

The only "defenses" of Drury Panzer comes up with are general rationalizations.

He's better than the last FIRED GM - which as Grey states, I see no tangible results to show me he is. AND it doesn't matter anyway if Drury is better than the last GM, who was FIRED. If Drury sucks, he sucks and should get judged on his own merits, not on a comparison to the prior FIRED GM.

The average coaching tenure in the NHL currently is 2.3 years - therefore Drury averaging a new coach every 1.3 years is okay.

Who else can you hire that is better than Drury - therefore keeping Drury and his awful results destroying the team is okay.

The Rangers overall sucked before Drury - therefore sucking big time with Drury is okay.

It's general rationalization after general rationalization. I get it though, when you cannot use actual results and facts, you have to reach with general rationalizations to try and make a point that doesn't exist in reality. 100% entitled to your opinion, and yes, I am repetitive and I'm sure annoying, I'll own that, but it doesn't change the fact that results tell you Drury has been horrific at his jobs/running the whole entire organization.

FYI - Drury brought in Miller who sucked this year and traded a 1st round pick to do so. I get it though, Miller gets all the blame, Drury gets a pass for yet another terrible trade - the reality is Miller sucked and deserves tons of blame AND Drury sucks and deserves tons of blame. There is plenty to go around thanks to this loser organization being run further into the ground the past 4 seasons.