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How did you feel about Glen Sather being hired?

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This thread is making me feel old. Thanks.

I will say this about Sather. His draft picks have been mostly misses but the ones he hit on were huge for the club (Lundqvist)

His Free Agent signings to me always seemed good but the numbers were always to long/high for my liking its just a shame the majority failed in a huge way (gomez / drury, ect)

Now his trading skills I have grown to have complete faith in. Wasn't always that way.

His first real deal that involved players and not just picks upset me though. I was a big Darren Langdon fan and he moved him along with DiMaio for McCarthy and a pick. McCarthy grew on me but I didn't think much of the deal then.

He made quite a few trades those first few years but one that stands out was dealing Graves for Samuelsson and I forgot who else. That one broke my heart.

He got me all excited when he landed Lindros. When you look back at the deal I still think the Rangers won that hands down. Kim Johnsson was the only player that amounted to anything and the risk involved taking Lindros was worth it. Brendl and Hlavac didn't pan out.

I loved the Barnaby deal. Hated the Malhotra / Rucinsky deal. I thought the Pavel Bure deal was awesome and this was before a cap but his injury meant it wasn't to be a great deal.


Mike York deal upset me. Poti sucked but I thought York was gonna be amazing. He wasn't.


The Kovalev deal was a huge splash and I felt giving up Fata, Lintner, Bouchard and Samuelsson was an absolute steal.


The Carter / Jagr deal had me buzzing all year but then Kovalev being dealt away (again!) was heart breaking for me. He was always that young kid with tons of skill who played a game with mustard on his jersey when he first came into the NHL.

Out of the deals that upset me the most the Leetch one was just wrong. When you look back and see what we got it was pure crap and the picks didn't pan out (Chucko pick was dealt later on which landed up Korpikoski) and Sauer was good, not great but got injured)

Trading the 50th overall pick for the 60th (DUBSINKY) and the 80th was great. Another great pick swap was the Bourret / Staal deal.

Loved the Avery deal. Hated the Tyutin deal for Zherdev. The Prucha deal upset me. Liked him a lot.

The Scott Gomez deal was just awesome because we got rid of him. Didn't know McDonagh was gonna turn into our best defender. Then he managed to turn Higgins (from the Gomez deal) into Jokinen / Prust.

Because he traded my favorite Rangers of all time (Kovalev, Leetch, Graves) I wouldn't bat an eyelid if Lundqvist / Callahan / Nash / Staal were traded because I had a huge connection with that 94' team and the core afterwads.
 
I was ok with it because you look at his pedigree & you figure his experience is something alone that would bring respectability back to the team. At the time we had none, zero, zilch. I was horrified to later find out how little we had in the farm system at the time & how long it would take to rebuild.

I firmly believe had Sather traded for Jagr back in 01' like he thought he was that we would have went down a more productive past.
 
Hated the Sather hiring at the time. He had a phony resume based on Gretzky and Messier falling into his lap.

As GM, he had one great draft year, one decent one, and a bunch of useless ones.

He rode it out to a reputation based on fog and mirrors and became a legend. Dolan fell for it and we have paid the price ever since.
 
I'll be honest: I loved it.

I thought he would be rejuvenated in NYC with less meddling and more stable ownership in here (and yes, with money to spend). I thought he would build a young team through the draft and then use his financial resources to retain those players instead of dealing them when they became too expensive. I thought with his ego that the chance to build a winner with an Original Six team would be appealing to him. And he had run his mouth about winning the Cup every year if he had the Rangers' money at his disposal.

And then he brought back Messier and traded for Lindros…
 
For shame SBOB, for shame.....

I hated it. I hate retreads who made their mark elsewhere. Give me a guy who is hungry. Neil Smith was alot of things good and bad but he was hungry.

Look at all the very good GM's these days, most are coming from scouting backgrounds. Head scouts and Directors of Player Personnel. I wanted someone like that. Outside the box was the better option than a guy who's best days were 1980's hockey. That was insane logic to me at the time. And I was only 26 years old.

Anders Hedberg or Kelly Kisio for me :D
 
SingnBluesOnBroadway said:
I'll be honest: I loved it.

I thought he would be rejuvenated in NYC with less meddling and more stable ownership in here (and yes, with money to spend). I thought he would build a young team through the draft and then use his financial resources to retain those players instead of dealing them when they became too expensive. I thought with his ego that the chance to build a winner with an Original Six team would be appealing to him. And he had run his mouth about winning the Cup every year if he had the Rangers' money at his disposal.

And then he brought back Messier and traded for Lindros…
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Same here...I thought Sather would have the cache and balls to tell the Dolans that the way to build a long term winner was to build through the draft...
 
wb1985 said:
I was old enough to know that it was a big deal. I thought the guy who built the Oilers dynasty could have done some serious things with an unlimited budget.
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I felt the same. If he did all that with a strict budget, he should be able to find the same talent and pay to bring in even more talent with such a large payroll.

Hasn't really worked out like that, haha. Maybe he was lucky in Edmonton.
 
People have to understand that nobody was eager to take over the mess Smith and Muckler (and ultimately, Checketts and Rand Askarog) created. It wasnt like there were a ton of candidates lining up outside for an interview.

In fact, Sather was the only guy Dolan and Checketts even considered. I'm sure Gretzky had a lot to do with it.

The 2000 Rangers were refreshing. With about a month left they were 7th in the conference after a big comeback OT win against the Ducks (I think Leetch won it).

Then they lost a couple of games and Smith pulled the infamous Dimaio for Knuble trade anf then they just collapsed. The 14-2 combined blowouts vs Detroit is what got them both fired.

The Rangers were a joke. Stevens was busted for crack and a hooker, and Leetch wanted to go to St. Louis to see his college buddy and Muckler refused. Smith let Muckler do whatever he wanted and the players hated him.

I love Messier and Gretzky, but the 1998-2004 fiasco and anything that hasnt happened since can be directly related to both of them. Those guys pulled all the strings from 1991-2004, and probably beyond.
 
The funny thing about Sather is that the minute he took over, he didnt renew any of the contracts and said he wanted to get younger. That included Schneider, who was still in his prime and let him walk for nothing.

So naturally, his first two moves was overpaying the fool Malakhov and bringing a 59-year-old Messier back.
 
Neil Smith was a good GM. He gets a bad rap for some of his trades, but he wasnt acting alone.

Smith had two trades in place for Shanahan and both were nixed by Messier/Gretzky. The Selanne for Zubov trade was nixed because they were worried about Selanne's fast car obsession and he wasn't the same player (at the time) after a car crash in Finland. Robitaille was automatic 40 goals. Au-to-matic. Not Smith's fault his only two seasons out of 20 where he was garbage were the ones here. The Kurri trade was all Messier.

I think he deserves another shot. He's a good talent evaluator. Maybe as an advisor. The guy understands the market, understands the corporate nature of the organization. Buffalo just hired Craig Patrick as an advisor.

Call me crazy but there's only one GM in the last 74 years who delivered a Cup here. There's got to be something still left to offer.
 
SingnBluesOnBroadway said:
I'll be honest: I loved it.

I thought he would be rejuvenated in NYC with less meddling and more stable ownership in here (and yes, with money to spend). I thought he would build a young team through the draft and then use his financial resources to retain those players instead of dealing them when they became too expensive. I thought with his ego that the chance to build a winner with an Original Six team would be appealing to him. And he had run his mouth about winning the Cup every year if he had the Rangers' money at his disposal.

And then he brought back Messier and traded for Lindros…
Click to expand...

I have to agree. I liked the Edmonton late 90's teams he put together on a shoestring budget. I didnt expect him to fall into the same mistakes we had seen in previous years as a big market team. Money clouds judgment I guess.
 
Sather butchered the Oilers. He was the double whammy -- got tooken' in almost all his dynasty trades and drafted like crap.

Bonsignore, Kelly, Rita. Riesen were all garbage. He also ruined a really good group in 1992. He traded Nicholls for Todd, Damphousse for Corson, and Joe Murphy for Kravchuk.
 
GWOW said:
Neil Smith was a good GM. He gets a bad rap for some of his trades, but he wasnt acting alone.

Smith had two trades in place for Shanahan and both were nixed by Messier/Gretzky. The Selanne for Zubov trade was nixed because they were worried about Selanne's fast car obsession and he wasn't the same player (at the time) after a car crash in Finland. Robitaille was automatic 40 goals. Au-to-matic. Not Smith's fault his only two seasons out of 20 where he was garbage were the ones here. The Kurri trade was all Messier.

I think he deserves another shot. He's a good talent evaluator. Maybe as an advisor. The guy understands the market, understands the corporate nature of the organization. Buffalo just hired Craig Patrick as an advisor.

Call me crazy but there's only one GM in the last 74 years who delivered a Cup here. There's got to be something still left to offer.
Click to expand...


I never understood why Smith let Pat Verbeek walk.
 
I think the Tortorella into AV change that we just went through, is a pretty good parallel for the people that don't remember Smith into Sather well. A lot of people had grown tired of Smith/Torts, and just wanted a change. Any change. When the change came, for better or for worse, a lot of the perception was, "Well I'm not sure about this guy as the change. But it's a change!" Personally, I saw both changes at the time as progress, but not necessarily the amount of progress I was hoping for.
 
I know lots of people had had it with Smith, but I was a fan of a lot of what he did here. I really believe muckler destroyed all of Smith's good faith with the players, and then the fans. But then again I'm not usually a grass is always greener tuy
 
I hated it.

I hated it even more when I realized he wouldn't adjust to the trap-era either with the motive that "you can't trap in NY". Well apparantly loosing 7 straight years with the most expensive team in the NHL was something "you could do in NY". I was also extremely frustrated with NY media during this time, it was soooo obvious what everyone else in the league was doing, not one year, not two years, not three years, but like from 96' to 04'. Eight years. And I don't think any reporter once even indicated that "hey, we can't play EDM 80's hockey in the era we are in".

We were just so extremely stupidly managed back then. Non-MSG feeds loved to show stats of like how NYR had 2 odd-man rushes while giving up 21 against the trapping teams, or something like that (seriously). We went like, oh we need speed. What is Russ Courtnall doing? (I think that was Smith, but you get my point)
 
SingnBluesOnBroadway said:
I'll be honest: I loved it.
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I could not remember your reaction, Singin'.

I HATED the move. DETESTED everything about it. The hire was done with no research whatsoever, just an introduction via Bettman to Dolan. As Dolan knew nothing about hockey and no one in hockey. Bettman introduced a name to him. That was the basis of the hire.

His time in Edmonton had come and gone. And he wanted a reunion of the good ole' days.
 
I wasn't UNhappy about it. We needed to do something and obviously Sather's history and the connection to Messier made it very palatable to most fans.

I was puzzled by the Lindros signing but figured, what the hell, we really don't have anything else going on so...
 
Blueshirt Special said:
I wasn't UNhappy about it. We needed to do something and obviously Sather's history and the connection to Messier made it very palatable to most fans.

I was puzzled by the Lindros signing but figured, what the hell, we really don't have anything else going on so...
Click to expand...

I know I'm nit-picking here, but if they had signed Lindros, you could argue it would be a low-risk move. The fact it they gave up assets to get Lindros in a trade.

The Lindros trade was my first (of many) "Wait, what?" moments with Sather.
 
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