I’m very disappointed.
Taking a pass at free agency was not my idea of helping along a rebuild. I had very modest expectations. Go look at the list of players I suggested the Rangers consider. Only one star (with a large hometown discount) and a bunch of role players. No big gambles or crippling expenditures.
I don’t understand not taking advantage of free agency to build organizational depth. Everyone here, including me, wants more draft choices and young prospects. The way to get those lottery tickets is to make a few more unpopular trades and they are coming. (Hello, Kevin Hayes) I’m willing to swallow that bullet but I don’t want to see the Peter Holland and Matt Beleskys of the world filling those open spots. I’ve come to terms with accepting a rebuild. What I don’t expect or want is to see the Rangers look like the Phoenix Coyotes or Buffalo Sabres.
The Rangers lack a lot of things right now. They have almost no sandpaper at all in their lineup. Not the right place to break in a bunch of rookies. They could use more veteran leadership. For better or worse, they traded away a lot of good locker room guys. Most of the veterans remaining were not the team leaders. It surely couldn’t have hurt to add some more established players to the bottom half of the lineup. They could desperately use a two way center for defensive faceoffs, penalty killing and depth, should trades happen.
A while back, the President of an NHL team told me that fans worry too much about the dollars and contract length in free agency. Part of his reasoning was that problems can always be worked out. Another part was that the NHL roster usually has 4-5 players on ELCs which make the average salary of tenured players higher than perceived average under the cap.
What irks me as much as anything is that many of the players I considered useful in the rebuild signed for fairly reasonable contracts. A few got a little crazy. But many were right in line with where they were predicted to land.
Those of you who know me know that I am usually the most optimistic guy around here. Not today. For me, Gorton and company are on the clock right now. This was an opportunity missed. I didn’t expect very much from the Rangers yesterday. Somehow, I got much less.
