They traded guys they thought were going down the aging curve, when they werent. Gorton fell in love with the idea of getting younger and bringing in players him and Bobrov thought were highly skilled. And not for nothing but we look exactly like what Toronto would look like if they had Igor. Soft PP merchants being propped up by an elite goalie.
Strong 5v5 play is driven by winning one on one battles all over the ice. The Rangers lack of speed, physicality and willingness to play in traffic are why their analytics suck. not a lack of "skill". Everyone looks slow when they are standing flat-footed all the time. Panarin would be the most skilled player on Florida because they would require him to go to the middle of the ice.. Mika could be an elite 2 way C if a swift wind didnt knock him off the puck and he wasnt obsessed with trying to get his BFF a goal on every play. Fox and lafreniere pout and quit whenever a play gets broken up on them. These are non-negotiable issues that make the team look way worse than it is. It's a deep rooted issue.
I don't necessarily disagree with any of this but bringing up Dom L has clear implications and it doesn't make any sense. Knowing how Dom views the game, he probably hates this team as much as any of us. They're been an analytics black hole for a generation.
I don't understand why we argue about this. You need willingness, talent,
and good analytics to win the Cup. Most Cup winners had all three. The Rangers have none of them.
They don't have enough talent. The Cup has been monopolized by
multiple slam dunk Hall of Famers at forward. We have one borderline Hall of Famer, and let's be honest, there's gotta be a reason he was never drafted and made it to UFA.
Saying the team doesn't have talent doesn't take away from your point that they lack intangibles. Good hockey is good hockey and all aspects of it go hand in hand more often than not.
And like, I understand the fear of becoming the Leafs, who are the one shining example of having the talent and the underlying numbers, and yet it doesn't work. But one, we're not the Leafs! We haven't had a forward, arguably in our history, anywhere near Auston Matthews except a few fleeting moments of Jagr. Certainly not Panarin. If we had talent like that and still didn't win, I would cross that bridge when I got to it. Two, the Leafs arguably
don't have the talent because they've never had anything approaching a #1 defenseman.
I'm not against building the team the way you want to build it, and I agree that the style the Hartford guys have is mostly encouraging, but people are absolutely right to look at the pattern among Cup winners and ask where the franchise-altering forward is coming from. And they would be right to ask that
with Panarin tbh, so nobody is saying don't move on from the core when they bring up lack of high-end talent.
