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Speculation: Fire Glen Sather

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NickyFotiu said:
You think we win the cup without those trades but you can not say for sure. I was against those trades. I felt they were about Keenan not the GM but I can not say for sure we would win without them. It is strictly speculation. Was Smith fired in 1994 right after winning the cup?
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I have no idea if we would have won the cup without those trades, but the results are the results. Ideally we would win without mortgaging the future, but mortgaging the future and winning a cup now is preferable to not winning. If we manage to win the cup this year, I'll give Sather a pass on the future assets he has traded away.

But even if we win, I still want him gone. The issue with Sather, whether we win the cup this year or not, is that he is in win-now mode. If we don't win, how much more of the future is he going to sacrifice next year and will it be enough? If we do win, how much more of the future is he going to sacrifice to try and win again?

The bottom line is that I don't trust him. You can only rob Peter to pay Paul so many times before those debts come due. We saw that with Neil Smith, and then with Sather for his first 4 years. I don't want to see it again.

Of course Sather won't be fired if we win the cup. He's not going to be fired if we lose in the ECF. But if we were to win the cup this year and then Sather retired, that would make me very happy.
 
Tawnos said:
I was talking about moves prior to the 1993-94 season, although Karpovtsev was right before training camp that year.

Nemchinov is part of why I also mentioned his 1st 4 drafts. In them, he picked up Weight, Zubov, Nemchinov, Kovalev, Norstrom, Cairns, Sundstrom, and Marchant. That's a pretty ridiculous set of drafts, considering that 8th was the highest pick they got. 3 first line forwards (I consider Sundstrom in his prime a 1st liner). Two 1st pair D, including one of the best of his generation. Two excellent 3rd liners and an enforcer-type 3rd pair D who played over 450 games. Pretty impressive haul.

In contrast, in the 6 drafts after, he managed to draft just 1 1st liner, 1 2nd liner, 1 2nd pair D, 1 3rd liner, 1 4th liner, 1 3rd pair D, 2 7th D and a mediocre starting goalie.
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If you really look, those early 90's draft classes were probably the best of the 90's league wide. He still should have kept producing players through the draft but the core of that team were in their prime. And that core was way better than now, minus Hank.
 
shinchanyo said:
I look at the scope of a franchises history (not ours...any franchise ever) and I'd bet not many franchises average more than a cup/championship every 25 years let alone one every 14.
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How many franchises average 1 Cup every 75 years?
So if we get a cup and all it took was 14 years I'd sign up for that and I'd have to retract my opinion that he needs to be fired.
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Ok, but how many years has it been since the last Cup? Not 14. And how many since the one before that?
Any1 of us making a prediction however would feel very safe in thiking we'll forfeit our 1st, not make the SCF again and we all will retain the opinion that he should be fired.
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he should be fired from an overall body of work. Not one lost pick or two.
 
Jersey Girl said:
Tomorrow Nash has a no-trade clause. And are you saying you're in favor of trading our automatic 30-40 goal a year guy for a draft pick while we are in 'win now' mode?
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Most players waive those or give a list of teams they will accept if they are no longer wanted. How many players have we tried to trade that said they would not go? I might trade Nash but I would want more than a single 1st round pick. Ranger fans are down on him but he still has good value around the league. I was just showing you how easy we could recoup the 1st round pick you are upset by in the Nash trade. I think I asked you before but I will ask again. Would you have preferred we lose game 7 last night and keep our 2014 1st round pick? I think it is important that people go on record on that situation before we win/lose another game.
 
NickyFotiu said:
Most players waive those or give a list of teams they will accept if they are no longer wanted. How many players have we tried to trade that said they would not go? I might trade Nash but I would want more than a single 1st round pick. Ranger fans are down on him but he still has good value around the league. I was just showing you how easy we could recoup the 1st round pick you are upset by in the Nash trade. I think I asked you before but I will ask again. Would you have preferred we lose game 7 last night and keep our 2014 1st round pick? I think it is important that people go on record on that situation before we win/lose another game.
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Obviously I was ecstatic last night. It's the parameters of the trade I don't like - why on earth did Sather have to include that contingency in the trade when you were already giving Yzerman the first round pick in the 2015 draft (regarded as one of the best and deepest drafts in a long time), not to mention Callahan. Just bad asset management.

So you would really trade Rick Nash next year, which means (1) getting him to waive his NTC (far from a given), (2) trading him when he is at his lowest value and (3) trading an automatic 30-40 goal scorer for a draft pick when we are in 'win now' mode. Wow.

And you really think you would find a team willing to take on Nash's salary, his cap hit, his concussion history, his questionable work ethic, and his incredibly bad playoff record? You may wind up being completely out of luck.
 
SingnBluesOnBroadway said:
Neil Smith wasn't given 11 years to get the ECF.
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Bing! Thread won! lol (not even being sarcastic)

At the same time, I do not want to go negative because I really think this team, at this time has a legit shot. So I am not willing to dwell on all the past mistakes when we are in the midst of a very memorable season, just because it took an inordinant (sp?) amount of time to get here.

We are here.

Will we win it all? Hey, that's why they play the games right?

But I am convinced that we are CAPABLE of winning it all. Right NOW. As constructed. As opposed to earlier in the season when I had doubts we'd even make the playoffs.

We can WIN NOW.
 
True Blue said:
How many franchises average 1 Cup every 75 years?

Ok, but how many years has it been since the last Cup? Not 14. And how many since the one before that?
he should be fired from an overall body of work. Not one lost pick or two.
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The bold...Did you just choose to respond very randomly with completely different points that I wasn't arguing against? Did you completely misunderstand my points and think I was saying something completely different? Your response makes literally zero sense

The purpose of very blatantly pointing out that I am looking at any franchise and not just ours is that I want to come up with a guideline for expectation. Based on other franchise successes is it fair to expect a cup every 5 years? 10? What is reasonable to expect? 75 was obviously beyond reasonable. There is then a completely other issue which I wn't even go into (which is what constitutes "good enough" to be considered successful. BTW I have made it very obvious I do not think Sather has been good enough at all)

We had a 75 year drought that Sather wasn't involved in. If I am being an objective and fair analyst I won't be including that in my mindset or decision making. That's why I did not include it in my previous post. I prefer to be fair and objective while deciding if a person should lose a job (Even though I don't even have any say in this case). So putting any share of what Esposito or Smith did at Sather's feet is irrational and wrong. For me to have really even mentioned it would have been meaningless and inconsequential. Sometimes I do feel "Screw this franchise 1 damn cup in 75+ years what a joke!" but that feeling had nothing to do with the discussion I was involved in or the points I was making in the post you quoted

It's been more than 14 since we won a cup but Sather has only been here for 14. Again if I'm being a fair, objective analyst then I could not hold him accountable for 95-99 when he wasn't even in charge. If anything if I were to look at what happened prior to Sather arriving here I would be more inclined to give him a break for many things (not all) that happened his first 3 years here
Even being objective and ignoring the history of this specific franchise he still deserves to be fired based on his body of work alone, I agree...in fact in what you quoted I said as much

It looks like you are reasserting what I said as if I never said it. Maybe you were just agreeing but based on past responses it's hard for me to think that this is what you were doing. You may have misunderstood but I did state "we'd fail to win the cup AGAIN" and "we'd retain the opinion he should be fired" Retain of course implies we all have been wanting him fired and will simply continue to want this.
 
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Sather did not step into a stacked organization. Some moves he made, and the money he spent would suggest that he believed the organization was in better shape then it was. He did get Jagr for a song and that ultimately put the Rangers into the playoffs again coming out of the lockout. My opinion back then was he should not have had a job coming out of the lockout. Had enough to that point. The organization definitely is in better shape now then when he took over. But I think most GMs in the league would have been gone at some point during Sather's tenure. Agree that he shouldn't be held accountable for times during which he was not in charge. Do agree he stepped into a mess, albeit with an open checkbook that was utilized, but at some point someone else should have been brought in with a fresh outlook. Having said that, it's unreasonable to expect anyone to get rid of him anytime soon. At some point the distant past is the distant past and nobody's looking at what Sather did 12 years ago, or 7 or 5. It's the now and the more recent past. I'll maintain he should have been gone a while ago, but am reasonable and will say at this point he has a couple mulligan seasons ahead of him before you see him gone prior to retirement!
 
SingnBluesOnBroadway said:
Neil Smith wasn't given 11 years to get the ECF.
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Neil Smith didn't inherit what Sather inherited.

Leetch, Richter, Granato, Sandstorm, Dahlen, Amonte, Patrick, Turcotte, VBK.

All were already in place when Smith took over in 1989.

Sather inherited a fiasco. He certainly made moves that were questionable but there was nothing to build off of when he got here.
 
Smith, who I consider a very good GM, came into a team where there was a power vacuum in the Patrick. The Dynasty Isles were dead. The Flyers fell apart after 1989. The competition allowed him to only make a few moves in order to build a contender.

Look at the 1990 team - 1st division title in 50 years. Only Gartner and Nicholls were Smith-pure moves.

You can say the Rangers were destined for contention before Smith even got there.

Sather's mistakes always come in the form of overpayment and band aids.

Still, the Rangers aren't a bunch of dinosaurs. The Blues and Wings have been outstanding in player development, but look where they've been the last few seasons.

Why are the Rangers in the CF this year? Depth, defense and goaltending. Sather had a role in that.
 
Tawnos said:
Which brings up the other Neil Smith problem post-1994. He spent a lot of time reacting to what other teams did to be successful rather than focusing on enhancing his team's strengths.

But I can't agree with you on it being worse than the Kurri deal. A 1st pair D for 10 years, one of the best 4th liners in the league for 10 years and our 2nd best center for a 3rd line center and a 3rd pair D. At least the talent is even in that other trade.
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This was the most disappointing thing about Smith in the last few years of his Rangers tenure. They lost to a big, bruising Flyers team in 95 so he brings in Samuelsson and later in the season adds McSorley, Churla, Berg and Momesso, just to lose to a high-flying offense in Pittsburgh. One that a Rangers team with Nedved, Zubov and Ferraro would have had a better chance of beating.
 
Jersey Girl said:
Even so, it's common knowledge Sather did not draft Lundqvist, so Sather did inherit something to build around. A future hall of famer.
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Which is awesome.

But he was a future Hall of Famer who wasn't here for the disastrous first third of Sather's tenure. Lundqvist didn't step onto Ranger ice until 5 years after Sather was hired.

Its a bit different from having a 25 year old Vezina winning Beezer or a 22 year old Richter who had already played in the NHL or a 21 year old Leetch who had already had a PPG season. Or even a 24 year old Tomas Sandstrom who had already had 30 and 40 goals seasons.
 
McRanger said:
It only took him 5 years.

But if he inherited a team as bad as the one he left in '99, it probably would have taken significantly longer. If he got there at all.
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The Rangers had 2 players on the roster when Smith took over in 89 that were still on the team that won the cup in 1993-94

Inherited such a great team that he kept just 2 of them.
 
McRanger said:
Which is awesome.

But he was a future Hall of Famer who wasn't here for the disastrous first third of Sather's tenure. Lundqvist didn't step onto Ranger ice until 5 years after Sather was hired.

Its a bit different from having a 25 year old Vezina winning Beezer or a 22 year old Richter who had already played in the NHL or a 21 year old Leetch who had already had a PPG season. Or even a 24 year old Tomas Sandstrom who had already had 30 and 40 goals seasons.
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Not disagreeing with anything you're saying - I was just responding to the poster who said Sather had nothing to build off when he got here. That makes it sound like Sather built everything himself, and while Hank may not have been here yet for Sather's first third of Sather's tenure, he's been a major part of the last two thirds of his tenure.
 
GWOW said:
Neil Smith drafted Lundqvist?

The Rangers since 2006 with their backup goalies are over. 500. Still a decent team and nothing close to resembling the 1998-2000 Rangers.
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Sather took over the reins less than 30 days prior to the draft. The draft itself were run by guys Neil Smith hired.

I would expect that during the 2000 draft early picks may have been discussed with Sather, but the later round picks? I have no doubt that Sather had more important things to do than to be bogged down with questions about these guys.
 
pld459666 said:
The Rangers had 2 players on the roster when Smith took over in 89 that were still on the team that won the cup in 1993-94

Inherited such a great team that he kept just 2 of them.
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Well one was the starting goalie. The other was a Norris caliber defenseman who won the Conn Smythe.

So yeah that is a pretty solid start.

Smith traded a lot of quality players. Beezer, for nothing. Granato, Sandstrom and Amonte all scored 30 or 40 goals after being traded. The first two were traded for Nichols who was traded for Messier. Amonte was traded for Matteau and Noonan. Patrick and Turcotte were traded for Larmer.

How do the Rangers do in the 90's without the players Patrick/Esposito drafted? Two of them were essential to winning the cup and a bunch of them brought pieces that helped them win.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that without Richter, Leetch, Messier, Larmer and Matteau the Rangers probably don't win the cup. It's crazy, I know. But its just how I feel.

Comparing the team that Smith inherited to the one he left is insane. Insane.
 
pld459666 said:
The Rangers had 2 players on the roster when Smith took over in 89 that were still on the team that won the cup in 1993-94

Inherited such a great team that he kept just 2 of them.
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It's not about the players who remained after 5 years. It's about the assets he inherited to build the team he built.
 
Regarding the draft in 2000...

we always talk about 2000 not being Sather's draft, but in a way, wasn't it? He did have a job in the NHL at that time. He did take a job in the same field and presumably took a job with a team in which he felt comfortable operating. He did have an ability to bring in others to run a draft, or whatever the role may be. In the end, I'm guessing he did decide and dictate a drafting strategy (bpa, needs, ets.) and worked hard in the months leading to the draft going over current personnel, what's out there, Rangers' needs, how the prospects are graded, etc. So I assume he did something (and if he didn't, that's on him, but it was his job to work hard and prepare). So wasn't it his draft? I can't blame him for not getting to the playoffs in year one because it's difficult changing around an organization whose farm system had been decimated, who did not have a #1 pick in the 2000 draft and whose product on ice was less than stellar, but the UFAs he signed were his and perhaps the draft, too, should be consider his. Good, bad and indifferent, and perhaps he should be taking his bows for listening to whoever banged the table on Lundqvist (although we know who that was) instead of opting to take Tim Eriksson, who was still available and taken right after him.
 
If the draft pick or prospect goes bad or is traded than the blame is given to Slats but if a 7th round pick makes it big years later than the credit goes to somebody else.

Since 1st round picks are so important does anyone want to go on record and say they wish we did not win game 7 last night and then kept our 2014 1st round pick?

I'm pretty sure if we lose in the ECF some negative posters will come back to that draft pick so my hope is that they will say it now and not wait to say it only if we lose. That would be cowardly.
 
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