I feel bad for fans who watch, watch, and watch, yet never seem to pick up on fundamental basics of the game. Clearly, anyone who is going to **** on Halpern's performance or try to implicate him in team wide, systemic issues that Halpern has hardly anything to do with falls into the aforementioned category.
Not every guy on your team has to be a scorer, and the Rangers wouldn't have a problem scoring if Richards and Gaborik were playing up to expectations. Nor would secondary scoring be an issue if losers like Boyle, Pyatt, Asham, Gilroy, etc. contributed. None of them do, they're all worse defensively than Halpern, and they all make more money.
Anyone who thinks defense is primarily about blocking shots or accumulating hits has a lot to learn about the sport.
I hate when people post things like this. I can still respect someone's opinion and disagree with what they're saying.
You want to know something about all the guys you listed, they also are all significantly younger than Halpern (sans Asham who is clearly on the roster for other reasons than providing offense).
They all have higher ceilings. Boyle has proven he can be effective in Torts' system, hence the reason for not shipping him out after a 25 game stretch.
Halpern is gone because, while his defense was admittedly fine, he brought absolutely nothing else. He has absolutely no strength on the puck, he can't throw his body around and he sure as hell can't score anymore. At nearly 37 years old he is not a long term solution on this team and clearly, with the ineffectiveness of our 4th line, a short term solution either.
He is dead weight. Dead weight that this team got rid of. It's about time guys are being told to pack up. This team is slumping. We have no secondary scoring whatsoever. We need to bring in guys who can help. Maybe that's kreider, maybe it's someone else from the minors, maybe it's via a trade, i don't know.
What i do know, is jeff halpern brought nothing more than defensive awareness to this team. At this time, it's not enough. His good years are behind him. He seemed like a class act while he was here, i know he played hard, so i wish him the best of luck. But it's time to move on. It's time to start changing our bottom six, becuase it hasn't worked at all this year. Halpern isn't the end all be all, but it's a start. A guy who has 1 assist in 30 games getting 9 minutes a night, doesn't deserve to be here. And if the rangers put him on waivers, i trust that they agree.
It's so arrogant for anyone to think they know better or can do a better job than people who's entire life is hockey. I don't agree with every Sather move or Rangers move, that's for sure, but you have no clue what Halpern is thought of. We don't know if he didn't like it here. We don't know if he was ****** in the lockeroom. All we do know, is the production wasn't there. At the end of the day, that's what i have to go off of. I have no ill feelings towards this. All i can so is i hope it's just the beginning because this bottom 6 needs an overhaul.
Or maybe, we should just stand pat and keep losing. If i can take 8 years without the playoffs in a row, what's another.
he is a waste of roster spot.. he slows down this team big time.
