Kitchener Rangers 2023-24 Season Thread (Part 4)

[GeoBlue]

Martin Puggs and Ellinas Out.

Arquette in.

Havent heard between Campbell/ Savard or Dirracalo. Although Dirracolo has not been in the rotation so far.

So Puggs and Ellinas hurt or just getting a pre-playoff rest?

 

[Coaches Coroner]

I agree. Martin or not, our thin D won’t get us past round two. To be honest, we’d have a hard time taking any of the three teams ahead of us to six games.

I understand that at the start of the season, we’d have been thrilled with a fourth place finish in the standings. But not with an empty cupboard going forward. That’s what stings.

This team was at the top of the standings leading up to the deadline. That wasn’t an accident. It could be argued that all of Rehkopf, Sop, Brzustewicz, Andonovski, Swick, and Miseljevic performed way better than expected with only maybe Miseljevic tapering off a bit. Add to that the unexpected return of Mesar and Schmidt and there was every reason to believe that we had a contender on our hands.

The two things that look to have probably torpedoed the season were the Hamara trade demand and the decision by MM to go with Martin as the third OA as opposed to an OA D.

The team’s performance after the Hamara / Schmidt deals exposed that the huge weakness was D. I understand that MM may have been loyal to Martin, but considering our thin draft cupboard at the deadline, Martin out and Punnett in should have been the move at the deadline.

The word around the Aud for years was that we needed to follow the London model to win. Well one thing the Hunter’s do right is their shrewdness when it comes to allegiances to players. They’ve shown in the past that they were willing to move out family for the greater good (Logan Hunter. Rick Steadman). Certainly they wouldn’t allow an allegiance to a player, a player with ??’s as to their injury status, negatively effect the greater good. We saw that this year with Ethan MacKinnon. They held on as long as they could but once it was evident it was a gamble having him as the third OA, they moved on from him bringing in Kaleb Lawerence, on the cheap no less.

Along with a few other things under the London model, that is one that MM is going to need to adopt going forward.

I think we still have most of our picks in the coming draft, but not the abundance you would hope for in a true rebuild.
I agree that the years after that don't look great, but between last year and IF we have a solid draft this summer, we shouldn't be too far behind for those age groups.

If MM decides to stand pat/soft ad again next season or the following, without any selling, we would be in trouble. I hope he has a decisive plan for the future now that he's locked in, you can't get away with bailing on rebuild years for 1 playoff round win multiple years in a row. Will he have the stones to trade Rehkopf even if we are doing well next year? I think that's going to be a turning point one way or the other.

 

[EvenSteven]

I think we still have most of our picks in the coming draft, but not the abundance you would hope for in a true rebuild.
I agree that the years after that don't look great, but between last year and IF we have a solid draft this summer, we shouldn't be too far behind for those age groups.

If MM decides to stand pat/soft ad again next season or the following, without any selling, we would be in trouble. I hope he has a decisive plan for the future now that he's locked in, you can't get away with bailing on rebuild years for 1 playoff round win multiple years in a row. Will he have the stones to trade Rehkopf even if we are doing well next year? I think that's going to be a turning point one way or the other.

We have a pick in each round of next year’s draft. The top few rounds anyway. But if MM has 2027 in mind, and he obviously does with the protecting of the 2024 picks, it would have been ideal to have 5 picks in the first three rounds next month. The 07 group will be the backbone in 2027. But any championship team has to have big contributions from all age groups. The 08 group has to be deep as well and for me, only three picks in the first three rounds isn’t ideal. Unless we find a couple high end players in the mid rounds, we could find ourselves trading our way into contention again in 27.

 

[Coaches Coroner]

We have a pick in each round of next year’s draft. The top few rounds anyway. But if MM has 2027 in mind, and he obviously does with the protecting of the 2024 picks, it would have been ideal to have 5 picks in the first three rounds next month. The 07 group will be the backbone in 2027. But any championship team has to have big contributions from all age groups. The 08 group has to be deep as well and for me, only three picks in the first three rounds isn’t ideal. Unless we find a couple high end players in the mid rounds, we could find ourselves trading our way into contention again in 27.

I think you can get another teams 1st from the upcomming draft in a Rehkopf trade next but it is far from ideal. My main worry is we do decent next year at the start and he holds Rehk.

 

[Offside by a mile]

So Puggs and Ellinas hurt or just getting a pre-playoff rest?

Not sure on Puggs, Ellinas is sick.

 

[rangersblues]

Oh interesting! I hadn't heard them mention a source, that is at least somewhat reassuring. He still will probably be out of game shape. MM likes to take some gambles, and it looks like his gamble on the OA situation came up snake eyes.
Going from 4 quality OA options to only 2 guaranteed, is not ideal.


Good point. I think this is one thing not to lose sight of. It was supposed to be year 1 of a rebuild with hope's being closer to the 4th overall pick than 4th seed. Being in the mix as much as we have and not completely emptying the rookie/draft pick cupboards for the coming year is a silver lining if we don't go as far as we may hope now.

I like the odds of our young guys developing under Ahokas and co. more than I have in the last decade or so.

Winning a round in the playoffs seemed like a pipedream in September. But a lot of things broke our way at the beginning of the season; some players returned that weren't 100% counted on, Parsons was healthy and Jussi turned out to be a find to name a few.

Also remember we expected to have a fully stocked draft cupboard with a massive selloff. That in itself lowered my expectations going into the season. I'm fine that didn't happen. This was much more interesting.

Who knows what can happen in the playoffs. The last 2 years they've been pleasant surprises. Maybe a couple more this year.

I think you can get another teams 1st from the upcomming draft in a Rehkopf trade next but it is far from ideal. My main worry is we do decent next year at the start and he holds Rehk.

I fully expect that will be the case

 

[Offside by a mile]

I agree. Martin or not, our thin D won’t get us past round two. To be honest, we’d have a hard time taking any of the three teams ahead of us to six games.

I understand that at the start of the season, we’d have been thrilled with a fourth place finish in the standings. But not with an empty cupboard going forward. That’s what stings.

This team was at the top of the standings leading up to the deadline. That wasn’t an accident. It could be argued that all of Rehkopf, Sop, Brzustewicz, Andonovski, Swick, and Miseljevic performed way better than expected with only maybe Miseljevic tapering off a bit. Add to that the unexpected return of Mesar and Schmidt and there was every reason to believe that we had a contender on our hands.

The two things that look to have probably torpedoed the season were the Hamara trade demand and the decision by MM to go with Martin as the third OA as opposed to an OA D.

The team’s performance after the Hamara / Schmidt deals exposed that the huge weakness was D. I understand that MM may have been loyal to Martin, but considering our thin draft cupboard at the deadline, Martin out and Punnett in should have been the move at the deadline.

The word around the Aud for years was that we needed to follow the London model to win. Well one thing the Hunter’s do right is their shrewdness when it comes to allegiances to players. They’ve shown in the past that they were willing to move out family for the greater good (Logan Hunter. Rick Steadman). Certainly they wouldn’t allow an allegiance to a player, a player with ??’s as to their injury status, negatively effect the greater good. We saw that this year with Ethan MacKinnon. They held on as long as they could but once it was evident it was a gamble having him as the third OA, they moved on from him bringing in Kaleb Lawerence, on the cheap no less.

Along with a few other things under the London model, that is one that MM is going to need to adopt going forward.

Even, as you know i love your takes and we have disagreed on here more than one time but there's no hard feelings. Friendly banter.


"This team was at the top of the standings leading up to the deadline. That wasn’t an accident."

I disagree.

Saginaw/Soo and London had all not made their deadline deals. Cowan missed the start of the season and then him and Bonk missed time during the WJC. The way our team has performed post trade deadline is who we really are. IMO. Hamara was fine, I’ll agree but buried on the 3rd pairing and that wasn't going to move the needle as much as say Beck/.Bloom has for Saginaw or Hayes/Frasca have for the Soo.

As you know i was in the soft sell camp. Selling off Mesar/ Bru and Sop were my suggestions. I think those moves could have landed us some valuable assets to build for the future and honestly i think we may have still ended up 4th in the conference. We did not have the roster/Draft cupboard for this to be a "buy" year.

I do think we could still pull off some magic. Parson's has shown the ability to steal a game and we have enough scoring punch to compete with almost anyone. Can we defend well enough?, that remains to be seen. Losing Martin is a big blow I’ll admit. Not this year’s Martin but healthy Martin, the one we saw against Windsor last year. That player we could really use.

We can both agree that Punnett looks nice in Red/Blue and White unfortunately it's for the wrong club. It's not lost on me how well Osh has performed post deadline.

 

[dirty12]

I agree. Martin or not, our thin D won’t get us past round two. To be honest, we’d have a hard time taking any of the three teams ahead of us to six games.

I understand that at the start of the season, we’d have been thrilled with a fourth place finish in the standings. But not with an empty cupboard going forward. That’s what stings.

This team was at the top of the standings leading up to the deadline. That wasn’t an accident. It could be argued that all of Rehkopf, Sop, Brzustewicz, Andonovski, Swick, and Miseljevic performed way better than expected with only maybe Miseljevic tapering off a bit. Add to that the unexpected return of Mesar and Schmidt and there was every reason to believe that we had a contender on our hands.

The two things that look to have probably torpedoed the season were the Hamara trade demand and the decision by MM to go with Martin as the third OA as opposed to an OA D.

The team’s performance after the Hamara / Schmidt deals exposed that the huge weakness was D. I understand that MM may have been loyal to Martin, but considering our thin draft cupboard at the deadline, Martin out and Punnett in should have been the move at the deadline.

The word around the Aud for years was that we needed to follow the London model to win. Well one thing the Hunter’s do right is their shrewdness when it comes to allegiances to players. They’ve shown in the past that they were willing to move out family for the greater good (Logan Hunter. Rick Steadman). Certainly they wouldn’t allow an allegiance to a player, a player with ??’s as to their injury status, negatively effect the greater good. We saw that this year with Ethan MacKinnon. They held on as long as they could but once it was evident it was a gamble having him as the third OA, they moved on from him bringing in Kaleb Lawerence, on the cheap no less.

Along with a few other things under the London model, that is one that MM is going to need to adopt going forward.

Agree 100% with Punnet over Savard. It would have saved a pick or two as well since trading an ‘05 RD was not at all what Williamson wanted to do at the deadline.
Trading with the future in mind while being more competitive now is tough to do. Brantford may have pulled it off though. If nothing else, Brantford stockpiled picks.

 

[bobber]

Agree 100% with Punnet over Savard. It would have saved a pick or two as well since trading an ‘05 RD was not at all what Williamson wanted to do at the deadline.
Trading with the future in mind while being more competitive now is tough to do. Brantford may have pulled it off though. If nothing else, Brantford stockpiled picks.

Brantford seems to have the right blue print for success at this point in time. They make strategic moves and draft well. Keeps them competitive.

 

[bobber]

Not sure on Puggs, Ellinas is sick.

Pug Light is out for maintenance .

 

[Ward Cornell]

Brantford seems to have the right blue print for success at this point in time. They make strategic moves and draft well. Keeps them competitive.

Yeah...they get their owner to apply pressure to have his NHL draft picks to ask for a trade to his OHL team!

 

[bobber]

Yeah...they get their owner to apply pressure to have his NHL draft picks to ask for a trade to his OHL team!

That's how you build a championship. Some GMs and owners are great poker players. Always a card up their sleeves every year. Good guys finish last.

 

[All the Answers]

Why am I not surprised Burchell has assumed his usual position on his knees for this game. Worst case of LMS in the league.

 

[I Mac 80]

Hopefully Reid didn’t re-injure his thumb. He was looking at his hand when he left the ice and didn’t return for the rest of the period. Would be a huge blow if he’s out for any length of time.

 

[GeoBlue]

Why am I not surprised Burchell has assumed his usual position on his knees for this game. Worst case of LMS in the league.

Not sure who is worse........Burchell or Rogers TV. No replay on what happened before Swick flew in. Coverage team not explaining the penalties. Phantom penalty not shown on the clock. And how does one get a fighting penalty without a fighting partner?

 

[bobber]

Coach asked for an explanation. Ends up with a bench minor. Black and white always right. Sometimes you have to win in the trenches. Storm has more players with an edge. It's the Rangers barn. Show it.

 

[LostRangers]

Not sure who is worse........Burchell or Rogers TV. No replay on what happened before Swick flew in. Coverage team not explaining the penalties. Phantom penalty not shown on the clock. And how does one get a fighting penalty without a fighting partner?

Bigger issues at the Aud than the referees and TV crew. This team was great at moving the puck up until about the 40 game mark. Now we try impossible passes that get picked off and blind passes to the other team. Jussi needs to do something to get them back on the rails or it will be another extra early golf season for Rangers and their fans.

 

[OnlyUpFromHere]

Bigger issues at the Aud than the referees and TV crew. This team was great at moving the puck up until about the 40 game mark. Now we try impossible passes that get picked off and blind passes to the other team. Jussi needs to do something to get them back on the rails or it will be another extra early golf season for Rangers and their fans.

Just blame McKenzie… that’s the go-to ‘round here

 

[bobber]

Looks like Reid is gone. Storm got away with that infraction.

 

[All the Answers]

Looks like Reid is gone. Storm got away with that infraction.

If he's out, so are the Rangers in the 1st round.

 

[bobber]

If he's out, so are the Rangers in the 1st round.

Playing like they are these last two games they might be. Teams usually gear up for playoff hockey. Have to show your opposition it's you're barn not theirs. Home ice means nothing if the team your playing against loves playing on you're ice. Send some sort of message.

 

[EvenSteven]

Playing like they are these last two games they might be. Teams usually gear up for playoff hockey. Have to show your opposition it's your barn not theirs. Home ice means nothing if the team you’re playing against loves playing on your ice. Send some sort of message.

These last two games smells like a tank to allow Guelph into 5th place. I won’t accuse them of it, but some will.

 

[sbpointer]

Man I only listened to the last 5 mins of the Darcy Burchell show… I mean Rangers Storm game… What a gong show… How does the league not see a pattern here???

 

[Krangers08]

Hastings is at the game. Hopefully taking some notes on that first period.
Guelph looks to have found a stride.

 

[I Mac 80]

The rangers didn’t play particularly well but it’s extremely difficult when you spend at least a third of the game shorthanded. You can’t get any momentum and then when you lose to players it just makes it hard because you have to mix everything up. Burchell is by far the worst official in the league and has been for a long time. He makes it all about him instead of letting the players play. He has to be the centre of attention. News flash bud. Nobody is paying to watch your terrible officiating. What a donkey.