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How Good Are the 2013-14 Rangers (Part II)

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This is one of those years where I will not plan on selling any first round games in order to pay for later rounds....

I'll take my son so he at least gets to see a playoff game

If we make it
 
OverTheCap said:
The Rangers definitely had a reputation of being one of the harder teams to play against back in 2012:



http://espn.go.com/new-york/nhl/sto...rs-were-flawed-team-exposed-new-jersey-devils



http://www.theglobeandmail.com/spor...eprint-has-rangers-riding-high/article554366/
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Just a "thinking outside the box" question...

How much of the "the Rangers are really hard to play against" stemmed from them actually being hard to play against as opposed to them, for the first time in forever, simply having an extremely good record?

Before the Rangers were the darlings of the league Big Joe in SJ didn't have the nicest things to say about us after a victory.
 
Callagraves said:
My god, this is upsetting.


I feel like we traded a potential cup winner for Rick Nash.
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If you think Dubinsky and Anisimov were going to bring us the cup... then I wonder how your hockey scouting acumen hasn't been harnessed by Glen Sather and company.
 
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McRanger said:
Just a "thinking outside the box" question...

How much of the "the Rangers are really hard to play against" stemmed from them actually being hard to play against as opposed to them, for the first time in forever, simply having an extremely good record?

Before the Rangers were the darlings of the league Big Joe in SJ didn't have the nicest things to say about us after a victory.
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I'd say it was both because we were hard to play against and a good team. Maybe I missed something but that team was very obviously tough to play against IMO.
 
McRanger said:
I tend to view "scared" and "intimidated" as synonyms.

But you can replace it with "scared" or "concerned" or "nervous" or whatever.
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I did not say that the Bruins were scared of that Rangers team either.

Let's not spend another thread talking about semantics, one was trashed enough with the "blows away" "compares favorably to" idiocy.

In this case, in your most honest heart of hearts, do you think the Bruins would prefer to face the '11-12 team or this current paper tiger?
 
Callagraves said:
My god, this is upsetting.


I feel like we traded a potential cup winner for Rick Nash.
Click to expand...

Yet, as usual, people lost in the Nash trade gloss over the fact so many other things went wrong the following season and would have affected the team potentially putting together another season like that and forget that Rick Nash was not one of them.

While most people seem to feel in hindsight they broke up a perennial contender, I personally feel they never had a chance in hell at repeating that success given all the other factors. I'm so glad we get to hear about it now for years to come.
 
McRanger said:
Just a "thinking outside the box" question...

How much of the "the Rangers are really hard to play against" stemmed from them actually being hard to play against as opposed to them, for the first time in forever, simply having an extremely good record?

Before the Rangers were the darlings of the league Big Joe in SJ didn't have the nicest things to say about us after a victory.
Click to expand...

Well, a big part of the reason that the Rangers had such a good record and were 11th in scoring is because they managed to outwork the opposition and grind other teams down on the forecheck. It certainly wasn't due to their talent. If they had a good record due to their skill, I doubt coaches and analysts would wrongly attribute it to hard work. I don't think Peter DeBoer is making this up and it seems like a pretty accurate assessment of that team.

The Rangers had a reputation of being soft prior to the 2011-12, and they were still trying to finding their identity 10 games into the season, so I'm not fully surprised that Thornton said they were soft (although the Rangers played fair from a soft game, I believe Prust fought Clowe). The Rangers started playing some of their best hockey after Thornton's comments so he may have sparked them in a way.
 
Ail said:
Yet, as usual, people lost in the Nash trade gloss over the fact so many other things went wrong the following season and would have affected the team potentially putting together another season like that and forget that Rick Nash was not one of them.

While most people seem to feel in hindsight they broke up a perennial contender, I personally feel they never had a chance in hell at repeating that success given all the other factors. I'm so glad we get to hear about it now for years to come.
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Yes. How often do teams overachieve two seasons in a row? They needed an upgrade, and as much as I didn't like/don't like how they went about it, something needed to happen.
 
Ail said:
Yet, as usual, people lost in the Nash trade gloss over the fact so many other things went wrong the following season and would have affected the team potentially putting together another season like that and forget that Rick Nash was not one of them.

While most people seem to feel in hindsight they broke up a perennial contender, I personally feel they never had a chance in hell at repeating that success given all the other factors. I'm so glad we get to hear about it now for years to come.
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Read the bold please.

I was very proud of that team but they overacheived with a shot blocking strategy that had them literally in pieces by the time the playoffs came around. First 2 rounds were also extremely physical and by the ECF we simply had nothing left. I really did not expect to beat the devils at that point and was really surprised they got as far as they did.

That being said it was fun to finally get that far after so many years (last was '97?), but it is a tribute to Torts for squeezing that much out of what was really a team poorly constructed for a long playoff run.
 
Ail said:
While most people seem to feel in hindsight they broke up a perennial contender, I personally feel they never had a chance in hell at repeating that success given all the other factors. I'm so glad we get to hear about it now for years to come.
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It's a stretch to call the 2011-2012 team a perennial contender. They were not that. However, neither is the current version. And to get from there to here we basically gave up draft picks.
 
Tawnos said:
They needed an upgrade, and as much as I didn't like/don't like how they went about it, something needed to happen.
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Something happened all right. And the price was to weaken draft prospects. And they are now nowhere near of being upgraded
 
You could certainly make a case today that the Nash deal was a bad one, but our history of bringing in high profile scorer's who's production falls off a cliff suggests there is something else at work here. The culture.

Everyone is tired of hearing about the '94 team and Mark Messier, but the fact of the matter is, he is the only one that made it happen. He changed the culture, and we won.

I'm not suggesting that bringing in Mess as coach or GM would guarantee us a Cup, but I am convinced that the same type of culture change is required in order for The New York Rangers to seriously contend for a Cup and not just aspire to "make the playoffs and see what happens".

It's not (just) about the personnel, it's about expectations and accountability.
 
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I think the notion that all high profile scorers fall off a cliff is a myth. I was putting together a list a while back, but never finished it. There are plenty of examples where it did work out.
 
Tawnos said:
I think the notion that all high profile scorers fall off a cliff is a myth. I was putting together a list a while back, but never finished it. There are plenty of examples where it did work out.
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I don't disagree with that. Jagr certainly gave us some good production, and I'm sure there are others, but my point is, for the most part, they do not play with the urgency we hoped for. And it seems like a lot of their goals come when it matters little to the outcome of a particular game.

Tonight against the sens, we will probably win that game, score 6 goals and either Nash or MSL will have a hatty. That would be pretty typical. But where were they against the canes?
 
Blueshirt Special said:
I don't disagree with that. Jagr certainly gave us some good production, and I'm sure there are others, but my point is, for the most part, they do not play with the urgency we hoped for. And it seems like a lot of their goals come when it matters little to the outcome of a particular game.

Tonight against the sens, we will probably win that game, score 6 goals and either Nash or MSL will have a hatty. That would be pretty typical. But where were they against the canes?
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I will take production over urgency any day of the week.
 
What people never seem to bring up when talking about that 'amazing' 2012 team was that they peaked in February and played .500 hockey from there on out and through the playoffs. It's a long season and we were just riding a great hot streak that ended--plain and simple.
 
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