Kitchener Rangers 2023-24 Off-Season Thread (Part 2)

[Rangers True Blue]

What did he do? Never saw it.

Reportedly, he "bumped" a Moosejaw player who was exiting the ice from the pre-game warm-up. All incidental of course.....

 

[EvenSteven]

I can't see this ever happening. The league will scream "travel costs".

Any team or the league citing travel costs as a reason to not have a final four crossover can pound salt as far as I’m concerned.

By the time a team completes the third round, it’ll have had a minimum six home dates and will be in the black.

Costs won’t be an issue. Greed would be the issue.

 

[bobber]

Reportedly, he "bumped" a Moosejaw player who was exiting the ice from the pre-game warm-up. All incidental of course.....

Guy probably bumped into Bolton's halo.

 

[dmead]

Guy probably bumped into Bolton's halo.

Oh you know it! Sawyer is so misunderstood. All he wants is to make friends and spread peace and love around the league.

 

[Matttheleaf]

I can't see this ever happening. The league will scream "travel costs".

I can't see how it would be that crazy considering we already can have a Soo vs Erie series in the west but it also opens up a lot of series with central division teams like Kitchener vs Brantford or Brampton. I get that you could have a fear of Soo vs Ottawa, but the WHL makes it work (maybe just switch it to 2 at home 3 away 2 at home, like is already done for far series).

 

[All the Answers]

I can't see how it would be that crazy considering we already can have a Soo vs Erie series in the west but it also opens up a lot of series with central division teams like Kitchener vs Brantford or Brampton. I get that you could have a fear of Soo vs Ottawa, but the WHL makes it work (maybe just switch it to 2 at home 3 away 2 at home, like is already done for far series).

Soo vs Erie is farther than soo vs ott

 

[Matttheleaf]

Soo vs Erie is farther than soo vs ott

Exactly. The travel that teams have to deal with in the O compared to the Q and especially the W is minimal when you compare them. The OHL could make it work if they wanted to, but I don't really see this happening at this current time.

 

[Matttheleaf]

CHL All-Star teams have been announced.
Hunter was named to the second All-Star team and Carson was named to the third team.
This makes it even more curious for me why Hunter wasn't on the OHL first all star team when Bonk didn't even make any of the 3 CHL teams, and how Carson didn't make a OHL team but managed to make the third CHL one.

 

[Slowpace]

CHL All-Star teams have been announced.
Hunter was named to the second All-Star team and Carson was named to the third team.
This makes it even more curious for me why Hunter wasn't on the OHL first all star team when Bonk didn't even make any of the 3 CHL teams, and how Carson didn't make a OHL team but managed to make the third CHL one.

OHL teams selected by GMs, CHL teams by NHL Central Scouting. Different perspectives I guess.

 

[GeoBlue]

 

[Gondrex]

 

[rangersblues]

OHL teams selected by GMs, CHL teams by NHL Central Scouting. Different perspectives I guess.

There's always controversy when Allstar teams are picked in any league, even professional leagues with good coverage. OHL and CHL have anything but good coverage. Teams are lucky to have one local reporter covering them nowadays and there's little national coverage until the Top Prospect Game, WJC and Memorial Cup. I'd be willing to bet most of these people voting never saw most of the players live or even on TV this year. Take it for what it is - a popularity contest at the best of times.

 

[EvenSteven]

There's always controversy when Allstar teams are picked in any league, even professional leagues with good coverage. OHL and CHL have anything but good coverage. Teams are lucky to have one local reporter covering them nowadays and there's little national coverage until the Top Prospect Game, WJC and Memorial Cup. I'd be willing to bet most of these people voting never saw most of the players live or even on TV this year. Take it for what it is - a popularity contest at the best of times.

I think NHL central scouting has a good handle on things. And they’ll be neutral, unbiased voters as well.

 

[Rangers True Blue]

 

[Jives]

 

[rangersblues]

I think NHL central scouting has a good handle on things. And they’ll be neutral, unbiased voters as well.

They may be neutral, or try to be, but there's still bias. There are certain teams that get scouted more heavily, either because of location or talent level. Also certain organizations promote their players better than others. There's no way 60 teams for CHL (or 20 OHL teams) are scouted or covered the same. It's not possible. That's why I say take it for what it is. There's no sense complaining about this guy was picked over that guy. Same for the Top 10 rankings.

 

[GeoBlue]

 

[SFC]

Re: travel costs for the 1-16 format (I agree the league would whine about that), I took a peek at what this year's playoffs would have looked like, and it's no worse than what we got:

ROUND 1

London vs. Barrie
Saginaw vs. Flint
SSM vs. Owen Sound
Oshawa vs. Kingston
North Bay vs. Guelph
Kitchener vs. Erie
Brantford vs. Ottawa
Mississauga vs. Sudbury

Just two crossover series: London vs. Barrie and North Bay vs. Guelph. The first one is easily manageable. The second is longer but actually shorter than what both teams had in reality (North Bay vs. Kingston and Guelph vs. Sault Ste. Marie). Anyway, Guelph has the easiest travel in the OHL, no one's shedding a tear for them. The longest haul on the list is Sault Ste. Marie to Owen Sound, but it's a west-west matchup that could happen under the current format.

In terms of competition/interest, three of these series actually happened (Kitchener vs. Erie, Brantford vs. Ottawa, and Mississauga vs. Sudbury), and all three were fun in my books. I enjoyed the Erie series (even if it felt like one of those series that would have no bearing on who would win the league), and Ottawa and Sudbury managed a rare couple upsets. We pick up a couple rivalry series in this 1-16 configuration as well (Saginaw vs. Flint, Oshawa vs. Kingston). I think North Bay vs. Guelph could have been interesting, too. Guelph was pretty frisky against a strong Soo team.

The only thing we'd really lose out on here is Oshawa hilariously struggling against a bad Barrie team, but hey, maybe they would have struggled against a bad Kingston team too! And anyway, there's always the second round. Speaking of which...

ROUND 2

Assuming this alternate reality Round 1 played out basically the same as the actual playoffs, Round 2 would give us:

London vs. Ottawa
Saginaw vs. Sudbury
SSM vs. Kitchener
Oshawa vs. North Bay

Rough travel across the board here, even with two inter-conference matchups. But look, London-Ottawa isn't much worse than Brantford-Ottawa, which is a thing that happens a lot (and did in fact happen in the real Round 1). Saginaw-Sudbury, yeah, that sucks. But it's a Saginaw-Sudbury playoff matchup, come on. This might not happen in 200 years in real life. The Spirit can haul their way across the Trans Canada a couple times for novelty's sake.

From an entertainment standpoint, London would definitely body Oshawa, but let's be fair, Kitchener didn't exactly do much against London in reality either. In this scenario we get a crack against the Soo, and to be honest, we probably wouldn't have a ton of luck their either, but it would be the first Rangers-Greyhounds series since that epic 2018 conference final and hey, maybe the Rangers could take a game or two and make it interesting. Oshawa gets to embarrass itself against North Bay in Round 2 rather than Round 3 this time. Sorry, Gens, no Ottawa freebie in this scenario.

ROUND 3

London vs. Oshawa
Saginaw vs. SSM

Two series that actually happened, so we can ignore the travel part. It was clear when the playoffs began that there were only two series this year that would matter (Saginaw vs. SSM and Saginaw/SSM vs. London) and in this scenario, the former (also the best series of the playoffs) gets the semifinal billing it deserves. Meanwhile London gets to carve up Oshawa a couple weeks early, and we get internecine fighting on the Knights topic on HFBoards as low-info posters talk about the Knights going undefeated in the playoffs and the vets scream about jinxes and what a bad matchup the Soo is for London. Good times.

ROUND 4

London vs. Saginaw

Maybe in this hypothetical SSM beats Saginaw (and maybe also London??) but we'll stick with reality. This was the real OHL final and it deserved top billing. And hey, maybe it would have even made the Mem Cup a little more competitive as the Knights and Spirit would have had less rest going into the tournament. Remember the epic 2007 Cup that saw Vancouver and Medicine Hat battle it out in an epic seven-game slugfest in the WHL final, only to meet again in the Memorial Cup final? Probably not, but it was cool, and hey maybe we would have gotten something similar here too.

That was a lot of words not about the Rangers but you get my point. This format is more interesting from a competitive standpoint, the travel isn't that bad, it makes the regular season matter more (the Rangers wouldn't have locked up their playoff seeding with two weeks left to go in the regular season in this formulation), etc. I don't hate the reseed-after-two-rounds idea either but it wouldn't prevent silliness like London and Guelph meeting in Round 2 in 2014 or London and Erie meeting in Round 2 in 2017. (2017 is another great example of a season where the East was way behind the west and the playoffs suffered accordingly.)

Anyway, sorry to any Oshawa fans who are reading this, but you'll be great next year, and come on, you had it coming.

 

[OnlyUpFromHere49]

Disclaimer: This is hypothetical

With the trade window opening tomorrow, would the board members have any interest in a trade where the Rangers acquire the rights to a high-end talent (cough… William Moore from BAR for the hometown kid Carson Rehkopf) with the understanding the player shows in the near feature in lieu of a larger quantity of picks?

The team is in a weird spot where they practically have zero picks but adding a top talent is tough to turn down as well.

 

[Jives]

Disclaimer: This is hypothetical

With the trade window opening tomorrow, would the board members have any interest in a trade where the Rangers acquire the rights to a high-end talent (cough… William Moore from BAR for the hometown kid Carson Rehkopf) with the understanding the player shows in the near feature in lieu of a larger quantity of picks?

The team is in a weird spot where they practically have zero picks but adding a top talent is tough to turn down as well.

If Moore was to commit I’d take that. My only concern is that he is too good that he makes the NHL as a 19 year old and we get screwed for mem cup year.

 

[rangersblues]

Disclaimer: This is hypothetical

With the trade window opening tomorrow, would the board members have any interest in a trade where the Rangers acquire the rights to a high-end talent (cough… William Moore from BAR for the hometown kid Carson Rehkopf) with the understanding the player shows in the near feature in lieu of a larger quantity of picks?

The team is in a weird spot where they practically have zero picks but adding a top talent is tough to turn down as well.

If the trade was to happen there would be no understanding. Moore would have to be there 100%. I highly doubt there's any chance he shows or London wouldn't have given up on him.

We've been down that path with Marty Williamson before with Parks .

 

[bobber]

If the trade was to happen there would be no understanding. Moore would have to be there 100%. I highly doubt there's any chance he shows or London wouldn't have given up on him.

We've been down that path with Marty Williamson before with Parks .

I agree. If the Rangers trade Razor they shouldn't have to get into any risky conditionals. This is a challenging year for MM as far as horse trading goes.

 

[bobber]

Rangers cupboard is kaput as far as picks for the next two seasons. I can't see the Rangers jumping in on trades immediately unless some GM makes him an offer for certain players he can't refuse. He has to clear up the OA situation. Some teams have quite a few OAs. I think Sudbury has 12.

 

[Rangers True Blue]

Looking ahead on D.......say Ando and Brzz don't come back...

In no particular order: Bilecki Reid Cambell MacNeil Dirracolo Savard

..and Pobezal says yes....then something has to give on Imports should the plan is to add a high end import D. Sale gets moved? (did I miss anyone?)

And offense is backlogged if Rehkopf and Sale aren't moved....again, no particular order:

Sale Swick Rehkopf Romano Ellinas Lam Stark Bottineau Pug Missile Mercer Arquette
Pobezal ? Headrick Cameron Antsis Hlacar LaBrash

With a Memorial Cup push in 2027, MM does indeed have a LOT of options and decisions to consider not only for this season but for seasons to come.

 

[rangersblues]

Looking ahead on D.......say Ando and Brzz don't come back...

In no particular order: Bilecki Reid Cambell MacNeil Dirracolo Savard

..and Pobezal says yes....then something has to give on Imports should the plan is to add a high end import D. Sale gets moved? (did I miss anyone?)

And offense is backlogged if Rehkopf and Sale aren't moved....again, no particular order:

Sale Swick Rehkopf Romano Ellinas Lam Stark Bottineau Pug Missile Mercer Arquette
Pobezal ? Headrick Cameron Antsis Hlacar LaBrash

With a Memorial Cup push in 2027, MM does indeed have a LOT of options and decisions to consider not only for this season but for seasons to come.

I have to ask this - In what world is Andonoski playing in the NHL next season?