Lots of options. I'll just pull one out of thin air and say Paul Stastny. But we could have went for a couple cheaper players.
Do we have a Nick Lidström? A Crosby and Malkin? A Toews and Kane? An Ovechkin and Bäckström? No, we have Hank (and hopefully Nash). The sensible thing is to build your team around your best players. The key is to have your veterans and star players perform at least up to the expectations of their salaries and then have a bunch of players overperform, a.k.a. the "bang for the buck" formula.
Just because some teams have gone all the way - or far - with cheaper goalies, it's far from meaning it's the correct way to go. How has Philly done after they had their run with Leighton? San Jose with Niemi? Even the Penguins with Fleury? The Hawks with Crawford (and their skating lineup is better than ours)? Are you telling us we should form a team like the Hawks, by outperforming the Hawks at their own game? It can't be done.
At this point, Lundqvist has proven he can be the backbone of a Stanley Cup team. It's up to the rest of the team to do their part and they didn't last year. The so called stars didn't perform, Nash did nothing, Richards not much either, some D-men underperformed when we needed them the most. We had a great so called 3rd line (more like our 1st line) in Pouliot - Brassard - Zuccarello that brought us far.
What difference does it make if we pay Hank $8.5m, or pay some other goalie $6m, if we piss that salary difference away on a player like Tanner Glass? Or pay Dan Girardi, the epitome of a one dimensional defenseman over $5m to block shots and screw up in key moments?
We were real close to win the cup last year and that the team failed had everything to do with certain players not performing up to expectations. Hank was last on the list of underperforming players, so I don't get how he can be a part of the problem on this team and how he can even be in the discussions.
Lundqvist has a hefty payroll, but he's not on an albatross contract. He still earns his payment by still being the most consistent goalie in this league. It's as simple as that.
Lundqvist is still way more important than him. Rangers could have kept Stralman over Boyle, but elected for more offense and there was rumors of Stralman wife not liking NYC.
You won't find a FA at 7.5 or under that's better for the team over Lundqvist.
Rangers management threw Strålman and that negotiation under the carpet and had no intentions of re-signing him. NYR management of him was everything but professional. It had nothing to do with Strålman's wife, but that's for a whole other discussion. Not re-signing him was a big mistake though, a huge mistake IMO. He was more valuable to this squad than both Staal and Girardi.
It's my firm belief that this team was made worse by dumping Strålman and signing an aging Dan Boyle for the same money, an idiotic management move.
