You do have to give credit for Maximizing Spooner...but then choosing to trade away a 2 to get rid of Staal just to keep strome and sign JJ instead of bringing back fast? All that towers over that trade in terms of how bad it is.
Strome was trending to being a 70 point player last year. The Rangers had no one ready to step in and be a #2 center. What do you propose Gorton should have done? Entered a season with Chytil who did not look like he was ready last year?
Again, Martin was hired to be Quinn's assistant head coach. The JJ recommendation came from him. Right or wrong,
All what towers over the Spooner trade? Are you now comparing unrelated acts and conflating them into 1?
Full credit for bringing in Mika and getting him a fantastic re-sign deal...but then we give Kreider and Trouba atrocious deals that are longer and more expensive. Plus with Trouba we gave up a significant amount to get him when WPG had themselves cornered. Then Trouba hasn't been all that great...nowhere near worth the cap plus trade assets we gave up.
At the time of Kreider's contract, it was seen as below market level for a top line wing. Not sure what you are complaining about.
As for Trouba, one need not think hard as to what this defense would have looked like without him last year or this And it really is not pretty.
Trading Nash and getting back Lindgren? Fantastic.
Trading Stepan and blowing the extremely promising return? Atrocious (Well not the trading stepan part. That was great...it's the blowing all the assets part).
The Nash trade has nothing to do with the Stepan trade. But as we are discussing the Stepan trade, perhaps it is beneficial to remember that Stepan had 4 years 2 $6.5m left on this contract. There is value in creating valuable cap room. And I see that we are back to DeAngelo. Who for the last 1.5 years was putting up some of the best offensive numbers by a Rangers defenseman since somebody named Leetch skated around here. So let us re-examine the deal. Stepan and Raanta for the #7 pick and DeAngelo. Oh, and there's the cap space. Yeah, I could see why you think that Gorton "wasted" the assets. Evaluating the trade withe the hindsight of being able to know that DeAngelo suffered a meltdown is a completely reasonable way to judge a trade.
Seriously still mystified by what happened with Lias and Kravtsoc both last season. Is that linked to how little offensive development we've seen in pretty much every young prospect? Did hiring Quinn just create a stifling environment where everyone is walking on eggshells?
Considering that Kravstov decided to do what the organization told him he needed to do while at Traktor, I would say that nothing happened aside from a young player pulling his head out of his tukhus.
Regarding Andresson, apparently the kid has not been able to pull his head out of his tukhus and all his feelings of entitlement got him is to LA where he does not play many minutes and is currently producing zilch. Must be the stifling environment they have in LA.
There is no smoke, not a single smoke signal that would make one believe that such an environment exists in NY. At least not the one that you suggest.
Jury is out on panarin. If his game collapses in the next season or two, we made an egregious error. Similarly, if both his and Kreider's games are maintained for the next 4 or 5 seasons then Gorton has to get credit for the moves paying off. Though the Kreider one seems like it's guaranteed to be brutal in another 2 seasons.
And you continue to only want to examine each and every move and signing after enough time has passed. That is great for re-litigating but not how real life plays out. In the real world, one evaluates things based on the current data points. Not from some sort of crystal ball that they can use to peer into the future.
It's just been such a mixed bag
Not even a little bit
