I'd rather the Rangers were the Panthers at this point

[richardsequalscup*]

At least I look at their roster and see 3 to 4 big time forwards to build a future around. Plus, another super high pick coming this year.

I'm usually against tanking any season. However, if the Rangers could sell off MDZ, Girardi, Nash, Callahan and Boyle for many high picks or some NHL ready prospects, I'd be all for it. I don't feel this team has any chance for competing for a cup.

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[Ail]

Is this thread a blackhole?

This team is. I wish they were Colorado or Minnesota.

 

[Vickers8]

Is this thread a blackhole?

This team is. I wish they were Colorado or Minnesota.

I wish they were the Black Hawks

 

[Willie Nylander]

Well give you our first for girardi. It would probably be low twenties

 

[silverfish]

You're right. The only young talent we have who is remotely comparable to Huberdeau, Bjugstad, or Barkov is Kreider.

But you have to be pretty terrible to get talent like that (most of the time). I'll never advocate tanking though. There are plenty of other ways to get premiere talent on your roster. It's an organizational mindset from the top down. Our top is Dolan and Sather, and it reflects throughout the organization.

I'm sure when they're 35, Rangers fans will get a nice long look at guys like Stamkos and McDavid

 

[Off Sides]

Trading free agents to be who will likely become bad contracts if resigned is not tanking.

It's admitting they built a poor team and are trying to do something proactive about it.

 

[Ail]

You're right. The only young talent we have who is remotely comparable to Huberdeau, Bjugstad, or Barkov is Kreider.

But you have to be pretty terrible to get talent like that (most of the time). I'll never advocate tanking though. There are plenty of other ways to get premiere talent on your roster. It's an organizational mindset from the top down. Our top is Dolan and Sather, and it reflects throughout the organization.

I'm sure when they're 35, Rangers fans will get a nice long look at guys like Stamkos and McDavid

I can't wait. I already got their jerseys hanging in my closet.

 

[SlingshotVv]

At least I look at their roster and see 3 to 4 big time forwards to build a future around. Plus, another super high pick coming this year.

I'm usually against tanking any season. However, if the Rangers could sell off MDZ, Girardi, Nash, Callahan and Boyle for many high picks or some NHL ready prospects, I'd be all for it. I don't feel this team has any chance for competing for a cup.

What? You'd rather have Florida's future, than McDonagh, Kreider, Stepan, Hagelin, Kristo, and Lundqvist? This is the kind of silly nonsense that "tank your way to the top" is starting to breed. We've become the NYI/Edmonton fans; finding solace in every loss, hoping it brings us futures we can dream about instead of bringing in competent role-players to fill the gaps, instea dof brain-dead slugs. And envying absolutely pathetic teams because of the future dreams that their fan-base gets to have. Meanwhile those teams wallow in never-ending obscurity.

 

[Bleed Ranger Blue]

What? You'd rather have Florida's future, than McDonagh, Kreider, Stepan, Hagelin, Kristo, and Lundqvist? This is the kind of silly nonsense that "tank your way to the top" is starting to breed. We've become the NYI/Edmonton fans; finding solace in every loss, hoping it brings us futures we can dream about instead of bringing in competent role-players to fill the gaps, instea dof brain-dead slugs. And envying absolutely pathetic teams because of the future dreams that their fan-base gets to have. Meanwhile those teams wallow in never-ending obscurity.

Those guys you named on Florida, they will eventually be better than the rangers homegrown core, which isn't anything to write home about outside of McDonagh

 

[The Gloaming]

Those guys you named on Florida, they will eventually be better than the rangers homegrown core, which isn't anything to write home about outside of McDonagh

Basically this. Barkov and Huberdeau will be superstars. Bjustad looks awesome as well. Don't like the defense though.

 

[Machinehead]

The Rangers might be the 2nd worst off organization in the sport right now (behind Edmonton who might as well be disbanded at this point)

I don't think I've ever seen a worse team at the NHL level relative to their prospect pool. Generally, prospects are inversely proportionate to performance (the Panthers are one of many examples). Some teams like Chicago and Anaheim put out dominant NHL products on top of stacked pools.

The Rangers are a garbage big league product with absolutely nothing exciting coming up through the pipeline. Miller is a solid piece but when he's far and away your best prospect -sorry JT- your pool is awful.

It's amazing how Sather has managed to pull off this combo, even by his standards.

 

[Beacon]

At least I look at their roster and see 3 to 4 big time forwards to build a future around. Plus, another super high pick coming this year.

I'm usually against tanking any season. However, if the Rangers could sell off MDZ, Girardi, Nash, Callahan and Boyle for many high picks or some NHL ready prospects, I'd be all for it. I don't feel this team has any chance for competing for a cup.

Instead of building from the forward back, we are building from the goal out. If you look at our roster, we also have a bunch of big-time players to build around: Lundqvist, McDonagh, Staal, Nash.

The team is trying hard to acquire offensive talent by signing guys like MZA and going for high-risk, high-return forward prospects like Duclair, Buch, St. Croix, Thomas (turned into Kristo), Fast, Kreider.

 

[Kakko]

I have no faith in any of Florida's players becoming superstars. They've been in this place for such a long time...

 

[NoQuitInNewMexico]

The Rangers might be the 2nd worst off organization in the sport right now (behind Edmonton who might as well be disbanded at this point)

I don't think I've ever seen a worse team at the NHL level relative to their prospect pool. Generally, prospects are inversely proportionate to performance (the Panthers are one of many examples). Some teams like Chicago and Anaheim put out dominant NHL products on top of stacked pools.

The Rangers are a garbage big league product with absolutely nothing exciting coming up through the pipeline. Miller is a solid piece but when he's far and away your best prospect -sorry JT- your pool is awful.

It's amazing how Sather has managed to pull off this combo, even by his standards.

If we're talking about organizations in trouble people underestimate how much of a mess the Devils are - I guess because they always beat us. One of the most underrated "superstars" I can think of in Kovalchuk scuttles off to Russia and they give their high-mid 1st this year to the league because of an absolutely idiotic "we're gonna win the cup!11" gambit.

The Metro is an abortion right now and I don't see any reason why any of these teams should get much better in the near future.

 

[aufheben]

**** that noise.

 

[Beacon]

This is the kind of silly nonsense that "tank your way to the top" is starting to breed.

Right now, tanking isn't going to work because we have Lundqvist, Nash, McDonagh, etc. But 10-15 years ago, it made all the sense in the world.

After the 2004 sell-off, instead of acquiring Nylander, Straka, Rucinsky, Rucchin, Sykora and Ward, we should've traded away Jagr, for significant assets and Kasparaitis for minor ones. With a top-5 pick, we'd have draft Toews (#3), Backstrom (#4) or Kessel (#5), plus a very good prospect early in the second round.

Repeat the same in 2007 and 2008, and the team would be a perennial Cup contender right now.

 

[Barnaby]

The best thing that this team could do right now is lose 10 in a row, and fall out of the playoff picture. Trading Callahan and Girardi off for first rounders and a mediocre prospect each. I'd also kick the tires and see what I could get for Staal. He hasn't looked like the same player in a long time. Guys like Brassard could get moved for a 2nd or 3rd. This team needs to rebuild its prospect pool. They could still compete for a playoff spot next season if they make a few shrewd moves during the offseason - it's not a total rebuild.

 

[Clausewitz]

I lived in Florida from '96 until '06. During that time, I saw an exciting playoff-caliber team featuring Pavel Bure and Ray Whitney in 2000, as well as perpetual rebuilding thereafter. Still, despite the team's pathetic performances (you know there's a problem when Brad Ference and Lance Pitlick constitute an NHL team's second defensive pairing), many fans were excited about having high draft picks. As far as we knew, Nathan Horton, Jay Bouwmeester and Michael Frolik made for a great core -- especially with Stephen Weiss coming into his own.

But here's the thing: none of those players (except perhaps J-Bo) lived up to expectations. So, while Florida now has three or four promising names, it also took a decade to assemble a viable core. Consider the first rounders that the Panthers selected in 2001 and 2002 alone:

- 2001: The Panthers selected Stephen Weiss fourth overall. Instead of Weiss, the Cats could have instead selected any of: Mikko Koivu (sixth overall), Dan Hamhuis (12th overall) or Ales Hemsky (13th overall). In fact, Anaheim could have just as easily selected any of those three players (assuming Florida stuck to Weiss), instead of Stanislav Chistov (fifth overall).

- 2002: The Panthers selected Jay Bouwmeester third overall -- a great selection; no complaints. But then the team selected Petr Taticek ninth overall. Who could the Panthers have picked instead? Keith Ballard (11th overall), Alex Semin (13th overall), Chris Higgins (14th overall), Sean Bergenheim (22nd overall), Alexander Steen (24th overall) or even Cam Ward (25th overall).

My point, ultimately, is that the draft is a crapshoot. We should be thankful that, though some of our first rounders have not worked out the way we had hoped, we have still drafted well enough to have the squad we do today. We can't assume that further selections will turn out as well as prior ones have.*

Draft sequence sources:
2001: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2001e.html
2002: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2002e.html

* For the sake of brevity, I stopped my analysis at 2002, though I invite the reader to view other drafts for further instances of poor / unfortunate drafting.

 

[SlingshotVv]

Those guys you named on Florida, they will eventually be better than the rangers homegrown core, which isn't anything to write home about outside of McDonagh

I'll believe it when I see it. I heard the same thing about Edmonton and look at all those playoff appearances. Do they project to be better than Stamkos and Hedman projected at the same point in their careers? Because I've yet to see that turn them into a better team than us.

Teams filled with losers don't develop talent well, unless that talent happens to be all world generational talent.