Richards ain't gonna do a damn thing for this team. He'll get paid some ridiculous amount of money for a ridiculous amount of time, and end up being a Gomez.
Then everyone calling for Sather to sign Richards will call for Sather's head for signing Richards.
I don't know what's worse, watching the Rangers underacheive, or watch Ranger fans be hypocrites.
what does that mean? Having a true first line center is not going to help this team? An addition of 90p player won't help? gomez put up 70p in his first year in NY, he wasn't exactly surrounded with talent either.
this team needs talent to lead the way, because regardless of all these great kids and prospects we have right now, at best they are maybe 2nd line talent. maybe.
I appreciate finding the exact record, or what is close to it.
We had a weird balance that seemed to work. Personally I think it's because Rozy is a much better passer than anything we have on the back end. Sometimes you can't have a bunch of north/south guys like we have no, you have to have some players who are different. Rozy pissed people off, but he was our best passer out of the back end. Rozy just had offensive hockey sense.
And I love Staal, actually think he's a top 3 purely defensive player, but his passing and his overall offensive ability is HORRIBLE. His passing and accepting of passing is just painful. And we've wasted so many powerplays watching him be the first pass up ice. It either turns into a grenade for the guy receiving the pass, or just flat out misses him.
Enough with the Rozy stuff. He sucked with us, he sucks with Phoenix and trading him made room for Ryan Mcdonagh who at 21 is 10 times the player Rozi is. Enough.
i mean i can understand young players struggling, making mistakes, but it looks as if the coaching staff is just throwing these guys on the ice and saying "have at it!" There's no offensive structure or sensibility whatsoever. The fact that that they can score 6g one night and not be able to buy a goal the next couple of games just prove that they are relying on chance and instinct.
I wish this season were over. this team is wasting me and draining my energy. This team just looks directionless right now and unless they bring in at least two more bonafide scoring talents, it's going to be the same crap for years to come. There is no scoring talent on this club outside of injured Gaborik.
I was telling this all the time, just to be laughed at. It is true, there is no really meaningful pattern in Rangers play outside of piling forwards on the board.This team seriously lacks creativity, structure.. they play like a bunch of hitting rookies.. reminds me a lot of Blues
i no longer believe this team can make the playoffs nor should they. this team is done. stick a fork in em
let the koolaide drinkers defend this loss. im sure they will.
dark days in rangerland tonite
Dude it's a crappy but scrappy team that's loaded with injuries, non performing vets and rookies/sophs. nobody is defending the losses but there are a few saying be realistic about what this team is. After what happenned to the Jets I think I blew an entire power grid (not just a fuse) but that was a team built to actually win. This is NOT. So no i am not surprised they lose. Then again even before the season started I was throwing it away.
I was beyond shocked how well they started it's sad they really spoiled us. it was such a tease of what this future COULD be (NOT WILL...COULD) and we've never ever had that here and it's hard to let go. if in 2 years we're still like this I'm going to have epic meltdowns. I will be screaming "This team f***ing SUCKS. ITS PATHETIC! How does one city wind up with so many big time big name franchises that are all abominations? is there something about NY that screams incompetence?" but right now it's all in simmer mode. 3, 4 years ago i was screaming but when a franchise starts building like this one has I'm able to chill back a little. When a team tanks like the Knicks in recent years I meltdown. There's a difference. This team just doesn't deserve hate and rage imo
I mean you want anger and hate from me fine? (insert stock rant about Drury, Redden, Sather. Go on to curses and bad luck injuries. Question God.) I stop short at insulting kids my age 24 and younger. Since this team is basically 24 and under I don't have much to target right now.
Carolina fan, but I "root" for the rangers.. I watch them as much as Carolina. Not a Rangers fan, but they pretty much helped me get into hockey. with that said,
Who are the whipping boys right now? Anyone else think Gaborik...well... sucks?
what does that mean? Having a true first line center is not going to help this team? An addition of 90p player won't help? gomez put up 70p in his first year in NY, he wasn't exactly surrounded with talent either.
this team needs talent to lead the way, because regardless of all these great kids and prospects we have right now, at best they are maybe 2nd line talent. maybe.
Gomez had Jagr and Shanahan.
All this team has is a scrambled egg Gaborik.
I don't disagree that this team needs talent. But to think signing Brad Richards is the answer to the goal scoring problem is myopic. Richards best year scoring is 24 goals. He's a playmaker. He's not going to put the puck into the net, nor make any of the lobster claw forwards on the team now any better.
In all seriousness, they'd be better off signing people from the U.S. Short Track Speed Skating team to be used as forechecking forwards. There are surely enough no-talent *** clowns with speed in this league that seem to forecheck the heck out of the Ranger d.
Carolina fan, but I "root" for the rangers.. I watch them as much as Carolina. Not a Rangers fan, but they pretty much helped me get into hockey. with that said,
Who are the whipping boys right now? Anyone else think Gaborik...well... sucks?
He's been awful since the Olympic break last year. I don't know if teams figured him out, or he really tweeked something, but he needs to step it the **** up.
this team doesnt have talent. They have grinders. Grinders dont cut it. No one can finish. Its sad. Done watching them only to be disappointed over and over agin.
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I belive that the problem is that the few talented guys is being told to play like grinders, why not let the guys play to ther strenghts?
Boyle, Prust, Avery etc even callahan and dubinsky are grinders and they play like it. Boyle, Prust is supposed to be shut down boys right? they are on the ice on every goal against and even on when Henke is out the last minutes.
Dubinsky holds on to the puck and turnes around a 100 times, behind the net i might add and belives that will get goals... Why wont they play, pass whatever. ther has to be an option that is not dump?
It seems like they have no plan what so ever when they are in the sone or trying to get in it. Its gotten so bad that they dont even know what to do on odd man rushes, they actually end up behind the net on those to.
Let the grinders grind, but atleast let the players try to play!
First of all the Wild suck; as did Buffalo on tuesday. Now for the reality check.
Take away the shootout and Hank is AVERAGE. Sorry but he gets outplayed too often by the other goalie.
Now the whining Europeans will start with "how can he stop deflections?" Like other goalies do. Get off the goal line. It must be so frustrating to play in front of a goalie that cannot handle the puck at all who plays so deep in his net that the slot is immense. There are so many tips at the edge of the crease because Hank is TOO DEEP. He's average.
Next Cally and Dubi. Nice players. Third liners. Both ruin too many prime scoring chances and Dubi is clueless with the puck in the O-zone.
Right now we have two 4th lines - Boyle, Prust and Feds and Christ, Prospal and Avery and two 3rd lines Ani, Dubi and Cally and Step, Zucc and Wolski. How can you score without a 1st or 2nd line? You don't
Next Zucc (again going to hear it from the Euros). The experiment has failed. He's too small to be effective; simple. He can pass but he cannot score except in the shootout. Next year we should move on from this one.
Vinny Prospal; a waste and a major contributor to the team's poor play the last month.
And finally, Torts for the McCabe/Gilroy pairing. They are both challenged defensively. Why play them together? So, they can be on for both even strength goals against? Poor coverage. One is weak and the other is slow. Great pairing.
Season over folks. Now let's drop to 12th so we can get a top 5 pick. Not gonna torture myself tomorrow night since I'm going to the Sunday massacre at the Garden. Just brutal
Wow some fans are performing worse than the team. not everything you said but there's enough there.
I'm sorry but Henrik needs to be called out here. 3 goals or more in 10 of last 13 starts? Put down the GQ and steal a game for us! As for the rest of the team. I've never seen a team that likes to hold the puck behind the net or on the boards and do nothing. Eventually the other team gets it and clears every time. They lack any offensive creativity at all whatsoever and do not deserve to make the playoffs.
We just don't have enough talent. We're a young team (in that Stepan, Zuccarello, McDonagh, Sauer, Anisimov, Gilroy/MDZ may still not be used to this long of a hard grinding schedule) and we don't have enough skilled players. Of the skilled players we do have, some fall into the young and maybe out-of-gas category. Others - ahem, Gaborik? - just don't seem to be very skilled anymore (sarcasm, but you get the point). We're still on the right track, building wise, but we're also still nowhere near "good" enough to compete.
In my opinion, the offense should get a *near* complete overhaul. Whether that involves Brad Richards or not, it's a fact (IMO).
Here's how I see it:
We have a great basis on defense. Staal, Girardi, McDonagh, Sauer and hopefully in the future MDZ & McI. I would leave those first four alone. They are very solid. Obviously, we're keeping Henrik behind them as well.
Up front, I would keep Callahan as a heart and soul guy, and would prefer to keep Dubinsky, Stepan, Anisimov, MZA, Boyle, Prust, but realistically... I just don't think all of them will have futures here.
This is what I would do:
Lundqvist, Staal, Girardi, McDonagh, Sauer, Callahan are off limits. MAYBE McIlrath and Kreider too since their value may be higher or lower when they hit the NHL than it is now, depending on how they pan out, but I honestly wouldn't let either of them be a deal breaker in a big time deal.
EVERYTHING else is available, for the right price.
Gaborik, Dubinsky, Anisimov, Stepan, Zuccarello, Wolski, MDZ, Prust, Boyle... all on the block. Picks, prospects, available as well.
Not because I'm saying they're all bums and I want to/we should get rid of them. Because this team's offense is humiliating and realistically, even if we put them all on the block, we're only going to end up moving a few. So whichever few a GM or two want, in serious packages, with picks and prospects included, for some NEW, SKILLED faces. Say we moved out a couple of big-time packages to acquire new, totally different talent and also signed Richards this off-season. Say next year Anisimov, MDZ, Wolski, Gaborik, Kreider and a 1st were no longer Rangers property (random choices, pick 4-5 pieces of your own - same concept), Drury had retired, Richards had signed and in return for those players, in whatever order/arrangement we had received a couple of seriously talented wingers? We could acquire it with those pieces.
Where XXX is filled in with a couple of real talented wingers we acquired in trades and a UFA d-man. I know, it's vague, but does anyone think this team DOESN'T need a big shakeup in the offensive area? Gaborik, Anisimov, Del Zotto, Kreider, Wolski and a 1st in two packages can definitely bring in some legit talent though. The team still looks like the Rangers; it's a big shakeup but the identity is still there. A lot of what we've been building is still there. Four homegrown d-men plus McIlrath in the wings. A homegrown goalie. Cally, Dubi, Stepan, MZA, Werek (all homegrown) Prust, Boyle, Avery and Torts' boy Richards. It doesn't smash the youth movement or the rebuild, but it does drastically shakeup the offense and hopefully inject some ****** talent and scoring into the lineup.
I watched the Giants blow a 24 point lead this year and miss the playoffs at 10-6. Compared to that, this is child's play, folks and I refuse to let it rattle me
But I am no longer optimistic about the playoffs at this point.
This
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"Here we can see the agression of american people. They love fighting and guns. when they wont win they try to kill us all." -HalfOfFame
I can agree with this statement, been a Ranger fan since the mid 80's and no sport or team has ever meant more to me than the Rangers, and ever will. I think as a Ranger fan the Rangers put you through so much crap but most Ranger fans stick with it. It took my dad 30 plus years before he saw them win a Cup, I got to see one when I was 14. I can deal with this team choking, it is the nature of the beast, but I don't have to be happy about it. I will be here till the end, watch game after game of leads squandered along with points. I will always root for this team, even though they make me want to jump off a bridge more often than not.
As long as there are people who will root for the Cleveland Indians or the Detroit Lions or the LA Clippers, i will never give up on the Rangers.
I still think the organization is heading somewhere. To where that may be, I just dont know.
I dont want Cups. i want 45-50 wins for three of four years. i want to see passes in the neutral zone that actually connect, and pucks shot towards half-open goals actually go in.
From Andrew Gross' Twitter "Both McDonagh and Gaborik will be making trip to Ottawa."
about 1 hour ago via HootSuite
Well at least McD is going, I am just glad he didn't blow his knee out. We haven't had someone like him since Kloucek, and that play where he got hurt reminded me of Kloucek in Atlanta, he was never the same. Such a shame, he was a beast.
As long as there are people who will root for the Cleveland Indians or the Detroit Lions or the LA Clippers, i will never give up on the Rangers.
I still think the organization is heading somewhere. To where that may be, I just dont know.
I dont want Cups. i want 45-50 wins for three of four years. i want to see passes in the neutral zone that actually connect, and pucks shot towards half-open goals actually go in.
WHOA! Calm down there with the expectations, my man.
As long as there are people who will root for the Cleveland Indians or the Detroit Lions or the LA Clippers, i will never give up on the Rangers.
I still think the organization is heading somewhere. To where that may be, I just dont know.
I dont want Cups. i want 45-50 wins for three of four years. i want to see passes in the neutral zone that actually connect, and pucks shot towards half-open goals actually go in.
I love that you just want the little things that so many fans of other teams just take for granted. A cup would be nice, but an organization that is run the right way and does the right things would just be nice. Can't say I can really see things getting better as unless Kreider turns out to be the next Rick Nash, we will always be missing that top tier talent which we buy via free agency when they are at the wrong side of 30. I think Brad Richards could really be a good thing here, but I am not sure Torts is the necessarily the coach I want leading these guys. He just can't get them motivated to play consistent hockey for 3 periods a night.
I am with you, I am a Ranger fan to the end. Growing up in NJ, i could easily have jumped ship, not going to happen now. If it was going to happen it would have been when we traded for Lindros and I cancelled my appointment to get a Ranger tattoo. Got True Blue on me now, thats not going anywhere anytime soon.
Wow some fans are performing worse than the team. not everything you said but there's enough there.
