Player Discussion Alexis Lafrenière

[Amazing Kreiderman]

At the end of 3 years, CK had 86 season points and Laf, 91 at the end of his. You should also probably add that after 3 seasons, Laf played 47 more NHL games than CK (who opted to play in the AHL during the lockout). 47 more games and a whopping 5 more points.

If I also remember correctly, CK's first NHL goal came as a game-winner against the Sens who were up 3-2 in the series to us. Imagine your first NHL goal is the goal that helps stave off elimination for a Game 7 win.

I know who has been more memorable in playoff appearances between the two.

Why do you guys keep trying to make the kid look much better than he is? Especially comparing him to others like he's always better. Like... why?

Alexis Lafrenière made the team at age 18
Chris Kreider made the team at age 21

If you want to make a fair comparison, compare Lafrenière's upcoming season (D+4) to Chris Kreider in 2013-14.

 

[Profet]

Okay.

Larkin is not a defenseman and this wasn't last year.

 

[Bacon Artemi Bravo]

Larkin is not a defenseman and this wasn't last year.

Okay.

 

[haohmaru]

This idea that it’s just all random and it’s all luck to win a Cup is a flat out lie.

No, some orgs know what they are doing and are consistently better than others, and some don’t know what they are doing, generally like us, and win One Cup in 80 years.

We have done things many different varieties of the wrong way since I’ve been watching as a kid. The post-Cup euphoria era, the Dark Ages, the Henrik years, and now the “Rebuild.” Each of them had their own unique flaws but each of them definitely failed in their own way.

And yea, 97% of the teams do fail every year. That being said, as a fan, should you be despondent any year that your team doesn’t win the Cup? No. There are moral victories. There is identifying progress. Yeah, winning a Cup is hard, so if you can win one and then spend a decade as a contender, before tearing it down and doing the same the next decade, you are doing it mostly right. You have the secret sauce to bring good nearly all the time and winning more than your share of Cups. You don’t have to call the years you didn’t win “failures,” necessarily, when you have shown you know how to win more than your share of Championships to begin with.

But this franchise doesn’t embody that, and if you have been fooled into thinking the past two seasons are moral victories again, you’re a sucker. It’s just more of the same road to failure we have been getting.

This isn’t a team building to a Cup, it’s a team building to nowhere. It hasn’t properly developed its kids. It’s added veterans who have crapped the bed at 5v5 and in the playoffs. It’s got bad contracts galore.

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that it gets lucky, but if it does, don’t expect any sustained success in your lifetime, cause it will have been a blind squirrel finding a nut. The adding of expensive, aging veterans at the cost of first round picks each of the last two deadlines reinforces that they just don’t get it. Their team wasn’t close. They barely got out of the second round and got smoked in the third round. Then this year they were dispatched by a team that DID commit to a full rebuild. Gee, do they pay attention?

No. Because to them, that’s close enough to catch lightning in a bottle, but they can’t see the chasm in between them and the real contenders.

Caveat: if Laviolette comes here and flips the switch for these guys, and has Panarin, Zibanejad, Kakko, Laf and Chytil all looking like the stars they never have this past 2-3 seasons, then that very well might be the right talent. But I can only go by what they show on the ice and what this core has shown, it’s obviously not good enough.

The Rangers had eight, yes EIGHT, 1st round draft picks from 2017-2021 which means that 2023 is year SEVEN of that process wherein the first two years had FIVE first round picks. Where are they supposed to be exactly seven years into a process that began in 2017? More first round picks?

This is precisely a large part of what you preach to the choir about the "right" way of building a team isn't it? Where has it gotten us?

Every team that wins, and the decided majority that doesn't, has flaws. It's part of the reality of the hard cap era and, in particular, the post covid era. Teams are hamstrung and can't add the players they want, pay the players they've developed to stay, and can't follow a modified blueprint (this post covid reality) that nobody was prepared for.

 

[Synergy27]

Some teams draft Kane/Toews or Malkin/Crosby when they have top two picks.

Some teams get the interference call when Dwight King levels their goalie.

Some teams avoid having their star Hobbit sent to an alternate universe with a puck to the face.

I am as frustrated and critical of this team’s management style as anyone but FFS have we been unlucky.

 

[jerseyjinx94]

Some teams draft Kane/Toews or Malkin/Crosby when they have top two picks.

Some teams get the interference call when Dwight King levels their goalie.

Some teams avoid having their star Hobbit sent to an alternate universe with a puck to the face.

I am as frustrated and critical of this team’s management style as anyone but FFS have we been unlucky.

This is the source of all frustration in this thread.

 

[Profet]

Okay.

Cool... have another?

 

[jerseyjinx94]

The Rangers had eight, yes EIGHT, 1st round draft picks from 2017-2021 which means that 2023 is year SEVEN of that process wherein the first two years had FIVE first round picks. Where are they supposed to be exactly seven years into a process that began in 2017? More first round picks?

This is precisely a large part of what you preach to the choir about the "right" way of building a team isn't it? Where has it gotten us?

Every team that wins, and the decided majority that doesn't, has flaws. It's part of the reality of the hard cap era and, in particular, the post covid era. Teams are hamstrung and can't add the players they want, pay the players they've developed to stay, and can't follow a modified blueprint (this post covid reality) that nobody was prepared for.

You make a good point, but the reality is of those picks, the team hasn’t given a prime opportunity to a single one of those picks except Miller, who stepped into a Top 4 slot almost immediately. Not a single one.

Hence why some feel we need to keep looking for talent. Kravtsov and Lias are busts, Lundkvist was moved because of depth (no issue with that deal and don’t think he’s a bust). Schneider is a 5D, Miller our 3D, Lafreniere Kakko and Chytil are used as 3rd liners/PP2. Othmann and Perrault are developing.

 

[mas0764]

Sure but you can see the flaws in every real stanley cup contender right now. Even the team that won the cup has a bunch of flaws that are exposable.

I don't agree. I mean, maybe everyone has some flaws, sure.

But outside our fanbase everyone knows this is a flawed roster. The Rangers are not seen as a legit contender and there's a reason for that. We are outsiders with this amount of talent. Some on this board have fooled ourselves into believing that, on the basis of that Conference Finals run, that we are right there with anyone.

It's just not true. We aren't.

We are more in the 10th range or so, and I'm not going to console myself with "Well winning a Cup is all random so we are just on par with all the teams ahead of us." No it's not and no we aren't.

Sure but you keep saying "under talented" and thats also not the truth.

Yes, it is.

We have a top 5 player in 3 different positions.

LW/Defense/Goalie

We have a top 10-15 (depending on who you ask) center.

Yeah, but after those things we are thinner than most other contenders, again, pending things like Chytil, Lafreniere and Kakko finally becoming 60-70 point players.

We are kinda thin on defense too unless Miller becomes a legit #1 defender and Trouba makes a massive turnaround that isn't borne out in projections based on his last 3 years of play. Maybe Laviolette putting them in different spots and systems makes that difference.

The question is can our kids put it together, and display skill. Not "do they actually have skill"

The kids putting it together is basically mandatory for us to have a real shot at a Cup, even on top of playoff improvement from Panarin and Zibanejad. If they become stars, we rise up to be on par with teams like NJ, Tampa, Colorado, etc.

If not, we are like the 10th best team and our odds will reflect that. And we will likely exit this "window," without a Cup.... again.

Because we keep rolling the dice with "second round" playoff caliber rosters instead of finally suffering sufficiently to have a winner. We keep taking short cuts and it doesn't work.

Older team?
ok we got wheeler great yeah he's old.
Aside from Kane, the other moves have been guys who are not "older players"

We are still a fairly young team, and if you weight ice time by age, I have a feeling the rangers will be one of the younger teams again next year (outside of the tankers)

I mean, by the numbers, we are one of the older teams in the league right now in average age, so yeah. Maybe if Cuylle, Berard and Othmann all make the team and push out the Goodrows, Boninos and Pitlicks, it will drop some.

 

[mas0764]

The Rangers had eight, yes EIGHT, 1st round draft picks from 2017-2021 which means that 2023 is year SEVEN of that process wherein the first two years had FIVE first round picks. Where are they supposed to be exactly seven years into a process that began in 2017? More first round picks?

If your first rounders bust then you have to keep going back to the well.

We have traded away or busted on too many pieces. Two other prime pieces (Laf and Kakko) are giving us pennies on the dollar for what we have a right to expect. This is partially on the players but also partially on the org.

This is precisely a large part of what you preach to the choir about the "right" way of building a team isn't it? Where has it gotten us?

Where has the other approach gotten us? One Cup in 80 years. We wasted the prime of Hank's career with imports like Nash and 38 year old MSL as our top forwards.

2017-2021 is too short a time to call scoreboard on the idea that stockpiling your own doesn't work. The Devils were worse than us for longer and are now ahead of us, frankly. We have to hope our goalie steals a series from them. Again... maybe it's possible. But we aren't playing the odds. You are better off with better forwards.

Every team that wins, and the decided majority that doesn't, has flaws. It's part of the reality of the hard cap era and, in particular, the post covid era. Teams are hamstrung and can't add the players they want, pay the players they've developed to stay, and can't follow a modified blueprint (this post covid reality) that nobody was prepared for.

I can plot a path from 2020 onward that would have us far ahead of where we are today.

 

[mas0764]

Some teams draft Kane/Toews or Malkin/Crosby when they have top two picks.

Some teams get the interference call when Dwight King levels their goalie.

Some teams avoid having their star Hobbit sent to an alternate universe with a puck to the face.

I am as frustrated and critical of this team’s management style as anyone but FFS have we been unlucky.

Sure. This is true. And who knows where we are if Covid doesn't strike? Maybe Kakko and Laf are farther along.

But this is the point, you can't control bad luck. You have to stay the course with the right "formula," until you have enough Crosbys and Kanes or at least enough Malkins and Toews's.

And the org has made plenty of bad decisions with attempts to get back to playoff revenue as opposed to talent collection the past 3 years. Decisions they did not have to make, even though the fanbase said incorrect things like "You can't sell at the deadline if you are in a playoff position." No, you can. The GM just doesn't want to. Like most GMs, he's concerned about that playoff revenue to appease his impatient owner. Ergo, he's concerned about short term middling success as opposed to long term ultimate success. And that's the problem. We settle for second round playoff rosters because the owner (and the fan base who follows his lead) settles for second round playoff revenue.

This is the source of all frustration in this thread.

Yes, but it's also what the org needs.

If we had Hughes and Stutzle performing like they have for their respective teams, as opposed to Kakko and Laf playing like they have for us, we aren't having this conversation, because we probably won the Cup last year.

And yeah, I know, if we got Hughes and Stutzle, they don't play here like they play in NJD and Ottawa, because we wouldn't have developed them the same way. So the fault lies in the org, like, a lot. But it's also on the talent level of the players we have too.

If Laviolette gets Lafreniere and Kakko to break out into 80 point players, we probably won't have to have this conversation again this offseason, but chances are they continue their slow burn, even if they continue to improve. The problem is going to be that by time they get to star level, if ever, Panarin, Kreider and Zibanejad will have declined.

I called that potential issue years ago and it's almost certainly going to be the end result. Another partial rebuild in a season or two because walking down the middle of the street just led to us getting hit by cars on both sides.

 

[bleedblue94]

LOL do we still have a fitness thread? I'm trying to lose 12.5 pounds.

12.5? I need to drop 40, I feel like laffy right now...

 

[chosen]

Nonsense. Your approach makes sense when you have more than 1 Cup on 80 years.

At this stage not building a long term winner who can get a Cup or three is inexcusable.

Celebrating getting barely more than halfway through the playoffs - sorry, “not even two thirds of the way through the playoffs,” is loser talk. Especially when you have one Cup in 80 years.

If you have won a Cup or two in the last decade then it’s not a failure in the same way.

It’s time for this team to build a powerhouse winner. Building another Henrik Lundqvist style shitty playoff team that’s carried by its goalie is failure for this org and there is no other way to frame it.

What happened 80 years ago has less than zero to do with anything pertinent to today.

It's just a talking point you love to focus on.

 

[Machinehead]

31 teams lose every year but how they lose is significant.

This team has really gotten its doors blown off by playoff-caliber competition.

 

[chosen]

Sure. This is true. And who knows where we are if Covid doesn't strike? Maybe Kakko and Laf are farther along.

But this is the point, you can't control bad luck. You have to stay the course with the right "formula," until you have enough Crosbys and Kanes or at least enough Malkins and Toews's.

And the org has made plenty of bad decisions with attempts to get back to playoff revenue as opposed to talent collection the past 3 years. Decisions they did not have to make, even though the fanbase said incorrect things like "You can't sell at the deadline if you are in a playoff position." No, you can. The GM just doesn't want to. Like most GMs, he's concerned about that playoff revenue to appease his impatient owner. Ergo, he's concerned about short term middling success as opposed to long term ultimate success. And that's the problem. We settle for second round playoff rosters because the owner (and the fan base who follows his lead) settles for second round playoff revenue.



Yes, but it's also what the org needs.

If we had Hughes and Stutzle performing like they have for their respective teams, as opposed to Kakko and Laf playing like they have for us, we aren't having this conversation, because we probably won the Cup last year.

And yeah, I know, if we got Hughes and Stutzle, they don't play here like they play in NJD and Ottawa, because we wouldn't have developed them the same way. So the fault lies in the org, like, a lot. But it's also on the talent level of the players we have too.

If Laviolette gets Lafreniere and Kakko to break out into 80 point players, we probably won't have to have this conversation again this offseason, but chances are they continue their slow burn, even if they continue to improve. The problem is going to be that by time they get to star level, if ever, Panarin, Kreider and Zibanejad will have declined.

I called that potential issue years ago and it's almost certainly going to be the end result. Another partial rebuild in a season or two because walking down the middle of the street just led to us getting hit by cars on both sides.

Hughes would be great on every other team, including the Rangers. He's already a top 5 center in the league.

Laviolette will have nothing to do with the so called development of Laf and Kakko. If you believe that that's a real thing, would you similarly claim that Quinn developed Zibanejad?

31 teams lose every year but how they lose is significant.

This team has really gotten its doors blown off by playoff-caliber competition.

Because of just one playoff?

The season before that was totally false.

 

[Machinehead]

Because of just one playoff?

The season before that was totally false.

The season before that, they put up 37% xGF against Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh led in 6/7 games (multi-goal lead in 4/7). Winning that series was a fluke.

 

[mas0764]

And again, yeah, 31 teams lose every year and in a vacuum a single year not winning the Cup, while it is, technically, a failure (if your goal was to win the Cup, which not all teams actually have that as a real goal, frankly), it's not a reason to be down on the team, it's not a reason to be embarassed, it may even be a scenario where you didn't win and can take pride in your finish.

But it can't be pride in the finish for losing itself; it's only pride that you've made some sort of stride TOWARDS the end goal of winning a Cup and/or in demonstration that you are a contender and threat who has won a Cup(s) or will win a Cup(s) with your core.

If you go 10 years of playoff exits despite, for example, a Hall of Fame goalie in his prime, then that core was a failure, frankly. No particular year maybe can be singled out as a failure but Henrik not winning one his entire career? That's a failure.

Not winning since '94? It's not bad luck anymore. It's organization failure. We're the New York effing Rangers. We should win more than one out of thirty two. We are better than most other orgs, or should be.

Winning 1 in 80 years? It's not just a talking point. It's not completely unrelated. It is related. There is continuity from year to year and one losing mentality (or poor approach to team building) has influenced subsequent. And it is, in fact, massive organizational failure for an original 6 team. Want proof? To wit: idiotic, outdated thinking yields the selection of a big, slow, dumb defender because he has size, rather than drafting a skilled Russian who would almost certainly have resulted in a Cup win for you during Hank's tenure.

And this core is on the fast track to another Cupless ending for it's stars like Panarin, Zibanejad, and Kreider, because, at least with the coaches and development we have, it's simply not good enough, at least in relation to 5v5. It's very good in goal and on the power play, but that's not enough. We have been surpassed by New Jersey in the talent acquisition game and barring something unforeseen it will be an uphill battle for us to get past them and will rely on stealing a series somehow. Not playing the odds as the favorite.

I maintain we need more talent; but maybe it's a development and deployment issue, which, if fixed, would have yielded 80 point Lafreniere, 70 point Kakko, 60 point Kravtsov and 50 point Lias Andersson here as well, and then that would be enough talent. But we don't have those players, so here we are: in desperate need of more organizational youth to make this team and play at a high level to push us over the top.

Cause getting the retreads at the deadline for firsts (Copp, Kane, Tarasenko) DOESN'T WORK! Prime assets burned for nothing on rosters that were clearly inferior, didn't get all that close to winning a Cup (63% of the way through the playoffs at best), and now a roster that is behind the 8 ball and has to console itself to sleep at night telling itself that Shesterkin will make up all ills.

We better hope Laviolette, Muse, Peca, and Housley can take this talent and do a 180 in development in relation to Gallant and Quinn. There is enough youth that if we can squeeze Lad and Kakko into all stars, high end top 6ers out of Othmann and Perrault, a #1 defender out of Miller, and top 4 defenders out of Jones and Robertson, there's still hope.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Some teams draft Kane/Toews or Malkin/Crosby when they have top two picks.

Some teams get the interference call when Dwight King levels their goalie.

Some teams avoid having their star Hobbit sent to an alternate universe with a puck to the face.

I am as frustrated and critical of this team’s management style as anyone but FFS have we been unlucky.

Some teams don't have their star prospect pass away suddenly before he ever plays a game for them.

 

[mas0764]

Some teams don't have their star prospect pass away suddenly before he ever plays a game for them.

Yeah put Tarasenko and Cherepanov on those 2013-14-15 teams and we probably have 2 Cups.

 

[NickyFotiu]

12.5? I need to drop 40, I feel like laffy right now...

Well if you find the fitness thread please link me. We can work together.

 

[PuckLuck3043]

Mods I beg you to please work on that dislike option. Thanks in advance.

 

[Gardner McKay]

Yeah put Tarasenko and Cherepanov on those 2013-14-15 teams and we probably have 2 Cups.

If we have both of them we are closer to a modern day dynasty.

 

[Mandar]

Yeah put Tarasenko and Cherepanov on those 2013-14-15 teams and we probably have 2 Cups.

But if we drafted Tank and Cherepanov didnt pass away, wouldnt they still have had to suffer through the horrible Rangers non-development? I keep seeing where most think that this organization cant develop forwards (not sure if you are in that boat),

So why would we "probably have 2 cups" with these two players? And we know that just because we had an all world goalie, that means nothing. C'mon....no one wins a cup with stellar goaltenders.

 

[mas0764]

But if we drafted Tank and Cherepanov didnt pass away, wouldnt they still have had to suffer through the horrible Rangers non-development? I keep seeing where most think that this organization cant develop forwards (not sure if you are in that boat),

So why would we "probably have 2 cups" with these two players? And we know that just because we had an all world goalie, that means nothing. C'mon....no one wins a cup with stellar goaltenders.

Touche.

We would have had to develop them first and maybe we can't.

If we have Cherepanov and Tarasenko and they are each 70-80 point players as Tarasenko in fact became... then we win the Cup, I would say almost certainly one at least if not two.

I am in the boat that there is something wrong with this org's development of players, though, especially forwards. It doesn't mean we can't develop any, but there is a really obvious downward effect.

 

[Profet]

In an alternate timeline, Brendl and Lundmark would have been drafted by other teams.

Brendl would have been a perennial 40 goal scorer.
Lundmark would have been a leaguewide top 20 pivot for all the 2000's.