Speculation: 2014 - 2015 New York Rangers :: Roster building / proposal thread Part II

[Tawnos]

That doesn't mean much. GM's aren't going to not make a deal because "very few transactions take place in August." ;P

There are also 6 more days of July.

AND, I think it makes a lot of sense that Sather would be waiting to see the result of the final arbitration case (or if Brassard is re-signed before that obviously) before he does anything major. John Moore still needs a contract (likely 900k or less) as well. I'm sure other teams are in the same boat with arbitration hearings holding up potential trades / plans.

You've got it backwards. There's a legitimate reason why few transactions (particularly of any significance) take place in August. The real work of the summer is done in July. Front office people go on vacation. Organizational meetings take place. A plan is designed for training camp. The most significant trade, of about 20 deals, in the last 5 Augusts was Daymond Langkow for Lee Stempniak (might have set a record for most consonants in a 1-for-1 trade). August is a time to shore up minor roster deficiencies, not remake your team.

Not saying it can't happen. Just saying that claiming Sather has magic move up his sleeve coming sometime this offseason is about as naive, with more basis for saying so, as what you've been posting.

 

[Zuccarello Awesome*]

You've got it backwards. There's a legitimate reason why few transactions (particularly of any significance) take place in August. The real work of the summer is done in July. Front office people go on vacation. Organizational meetings take place. A plan is designed for training camp. The most significant trade, of about 20 deals, in the last 5 Augusts was Daymond Langkow for Lee Stempniak (might have set a record for most consonants in a 1-for-1 trade). August is a time to shore up minor roster deficiencies, not remake your team.

Not saying it can't happen. Just saying that claiming Sather has magic move up his sleeve coming sometime this offseason is about as naive, with more basis for saying so, as what you've been posting.

I don't agree.

I appreciate the information and it's certainly valid, but I don't think it has any real bearing on whether or not a big trade will happen or not.

Not all statistics show causality.

ie: "The Rangers are 100-3 on Wednesdays during the month of December when it rains for more than an hour." That doesn't mean they're any more likely to win on those days.

I get what you're saying but I still think Sather will continue to look for a way to seriously improve / address the center position.

 

[Hire Sather]

There will be no blockbuster fantasy land trade, as much as you want it to happen for whatever reason.

 

[alkurtz]

Sure, anything can happen but the odds are greatly against it.

Front office personel are away....everyone needs down time. For once Sather might actually be in Banff or Palm Springs. And hey, you know he deserves it.

And it's not only the Rangers, the whole hockey world seems to be on hiatus...except for players who are ramping up their off season training.

The Rangers seem a very settled team now, all the departing players replaced from within or by free agent signings.

Would be very surprised if anything of consequence happens. Tawnos has it right.

 

[BobMarleyNYR]

IMO, it is pushing it to say Thornton is an elite 1C.

I don't know. Like somebody said, his passing is almost as good as Crosby's.

Problem is, how much longer will he be elite. I expect St. Louis to be elite and Boyle to hit the wall in the 2nd half (hope I'm wrong).

I expect JT to have 2 more 65+ point seasons. Enough to put us over, maybe. BUT, JT obviously is an awful leader and just not a winning player

 

[SupersonicMonkey*]

There will be no blockbuster fantasy land trade, as much as you want it to happen for whatever reason.

Its obnoxious.

 

[eco's bones]

A lot depends on Brassard. If he gets a long term deal I expect the Rangers will move Staal sometime during (not before) the season. If Zucc continues to play as he did last year the Rangers will try to lock him up. There's the questions of St. Louis and Stepan then. Would MSL play for less $.

If the Rangers move Staal it's extremely unlikely they're going to find a like quality replacement to play left side of their top 4. Most likely John Moore will be asked to take some of the brunt of that. Maybe Allen shows he's ready for the NHL or even Kostka does well. It might be a problem that can be worked around and if Staal gets moved I'd be looking for younger assets. At the trade deadline if healthy he would be a very valuable commodity. I think Skjei is eventually Staal's replacement. For the immediate future though moving Staal might really impact the Rangers making another run at the Stanley Cup next spring. Even so--last year's run was on the improbable side of things. Another playoff run like last year's seems improbable too at this point in time with or without Staal in the lineup.

 

[SupersonicMonkey*]

If the Rangers are pushing for a deep playoff run, personally, don't think Staal will be moved at all, until after the season at the earliest.

Unless at the deadline they can find his replacement.

This isn't like the Callahan situation on the ice. Contract situation, yes. But Staal's position has more of an impact than a RW on the ice.

While it would be terrible asset management, it is possible they allow this to go to the last minute and if they can't get him signed, he walks.

The time to trade him was a few weeks ago, while teams didn't have their rosters settled.

 

[haohmaru]

The time to trade him was a few weeks ago, while teams didn't have their rosters settled.

That really depends on where the Rangers are at in the standings around the trade deadline. If they're out of contention or close to it and Staal hasn't re-signed then he's probably gone.

 

[Ola]

Because building a hockey team is not just a matter of getting the best players and plugging them in. I'm not saying Thornton is too good or anything you said. I'm saying I don't like the fit for this team the way the rest of it is built.

I think there's an argument to be made that Brad Richards very presence was a detriment to the team at times. Too much of the focal point of the play was on a player with diminishing offensive skills. That can be damaging to the psyche of the entire team. We were lucky with Richards that it didn't. I don't want to press that luck again.

Ok, then I understand how you are thinking.

From my POV I really would like to get a big center for Nash and Kreider, AV can really utilize a line like that and we need more size. Not many teams in the east has any size at center ice.

But there are very few options out there. I've looked at just about any name. And then there comes Thornton, he is not only big but can do a whole bunch of other stuff. I mean like even his worst ever year would be so much better than what we would get from like a Bjugstad, Frolik or someone like that.

I would never blow this team apart to get Joe T, but I definitely think he would help us a lot.

 

[silverfish]

Despite the recent turn of events in this thread, I find it hard to believe Sather will be done with this roster after Brassard's arbitration on the 28th (fully knowing that J. Moore still needs to be locked up, but I'm not expecting much there until camp to be honest).

I'm not saying we'll see a blockbuster, but the Rangers are not done. It'll happen closer to camp, as I'm sure Sather is a guy who likes his August. The Rangers FO will hold meetings to assess where they are, and go from there.

At least that's what I think. Who knows.

 

[One Winged Angel]

The notion that Thornton doesn't fit here is insane.

It's not, the Rangers are playing an uptempo type of game and Joe Thornton has never played in that kind of game in his life.

AV likes to generate offense off the rush, as seen with this past season's team. Tortarella was never like that.

The Rangers are a speed team, but that doesn't mean that when a rush ends, we throw the puck back to Lundqvist and try to start a new rush.

That would be 4 on 4 tournament roller hockey.

We WANT to spend time in the other team's zone. Thornton is a fantastic possession player and he's probably the second best pure passer in the game.

Not arguing this, but possession has to be established in order for that to come to fruition. McClellan apparently had him starting 70% of his zone starts in the defensive zone, according to what some Sharks fans were saying in a previous thread.

It's madness to think we wouldn't be a much better team with Thornton replacing Brassard. (Like Fletch has said many times now, the ONLY issue is whether the cost to go from Brassard to Thornton (basically, what we're adding to Brassard to get JT) is too much or not. We shouldn't be discussing the merits / ability of Joe Thornton.

I'm not discussing his merits or ability. I'm discussing whether his game fits into the type of game that AV wants to play. Whether you agree with bringing this into question before acquiring a player, whether it be Thornton or anyone else in this game, it is something you do have to think about. It's not like Crosby, Stamkos or Malkin who can fit into anything. Thornton for his entire career has been known as a player who slows the play down.

Ola nailed it in his last post also.

I'll definitely agree to that, Ola is one of the better posters on here and has been for a while.

I guess Gretzky wouldn't fit here either since his office was behind the net.

Apples to Oranges.

 

[Zuccarello Awesome*]

No. It's apples to apples.

 

[LaffyTaffyNYR]

Elliotte Friedman ‏@FriedgeHNIC 40s
Brassard requests $4.95M. NYR counter is $3.825M

 

[silverfish]

Elliotte Friedman ‏@FriedgeHNIC 40s
Brassard requests $4.95M. NYR counter is $3.825M

way to go, Slats. This one is going to go the distance. I'm not mad about that.

One-year, $4.5m? Then he walks because he'll get what he wants as a UFA, but not from us.

 

[Zuccarello Awesome*]

Elliotte Friedman ‏@FriedgeHNIC 40s
Brassard requests $4.95M. NYR counter is $3.825M

Great numbers imo!

 

[Doctyl]

Why are so many people against keeping Brass long term? He's a guy who steps up in the playoffs. We need more of those guys.

 

[silverfish]

Why are so many people against keeping Brass long term? He's a guy who steps up in the playoffs. We need more of those guys.

I don't think anyone is against it (maybe Brian Boyle [not -31-], what's his name now, JeffMagnum?), but at $5.5m? Long-term?

That's scary. Despite Brassard's history of being very good in the playoffs for us.

 

[Zuccarello Awesome*]

Why are so many people against keeping Brass long term? He's a guy who steps up in the playoffs. We need more of those guys.

If there was no salary cap, I'd want him long-term for sure.

The only issue is that Stepan is going to command more than 6 million per season starting next season.

So if Brassard makes ~5 million per year, we'd be allocating 11-12 million on two centers, neither of which are an elite #1 C.

The debate is whether or not we'd be better served to put Brassard's ~5 million towards a ~7 million dollar elite #1 center, and let Stepan thrive in the 2C role. Another question is just how do we go about acquiring that center and who is actually going to be available, both this season and next, if we choose to go that route?

 

[Zuccarello Awesome*]

I don't think anyone is against it (maybe Brian Boyle [not -31-]), but at $5.5m? Long-term?

That's scary. Despite Brassard's history of being very good in the playoffs for us.

Yup.

Brassard plays his best hockey in the playoffs when he's not actually getting paid. So perhaps he should have a cap-hit of 0.0 to maximize his abilities.

 

[Kovalev27]

We can't get this guy done long term at 4.5? He's askig less than I thought he'd ask quite honestly

 

[Zuccarello Awesome*]

We can't get this guy done long term at 4.5? He's askig less than I thought he'd ask quite honestly

The Rangers, in all honesty, might not want to commit to him long-term (regardless of cap-hit), because they're not sure what their plans for next year are going to look like. If we want to try to hit a home run and acquire a truly elite #1 center, then locking up Brassard long-term is ill-advised, especially with Stepan due a 200% raise next season.

 

[LaffyTaffyNYR]

Brassard's deal will directly impact Stepan's next year thats why Im hesitant

 

[Zil]

Why are so many people against keeping Brass long term? He's a guy who steps up in the playoffs. We need more of those guys.

There's no such thing as a playoff specialist. Guys who put up strong playoffs one year wind up struggling the next. If you extrapolate Brassard's 12 points in 23 games last playoffs over a full season you get 42 points. So basically, Brassard had one really fantastic series against Washington in 2013 and then reverted back to what he is: A guy who scores in the mid-40s.

Brassard's not that good and overpaying him severely limits our options to improve the team. If he'll settle for $4.5 million or less, then a multi-year deal is fine. Anything above that would be ridiculous. Brassard scores even strength points about as well as Kris Versteeg, he's not good defensively, he doesn't drive possession, and he doesn't win faceoffs. Other than excelling on the powerplay, he's as mediocre as it gets.

 

[Fitzy]

Brassard's deal will directly impact Stepan's next year thats why Im hesitant

As long as he doesn't regress, I don't think it would be impossible to trade Brassard at 4.5 next offseason. (Double negative)