Confirmed with Link: Kravtsov requests trade

[EdJovanovski]

Boo-hoo, let me get a tissue for Kravs. The kid has scored 4 lousy points in the NHL and is 21. He also had problems in the KHL. He's earned nothing. That's the way things go in sports and in life. Sometimes things don't work out as planned. It's happened to many yet some choose to whine and some choose to work on things to be successful. Chytil, Barron, and Jones, to name a few, could have similar arguments but chose a different path.

Problems in the KHL yea man leading your team in goals at age 20 and being the all time leader in playoff points among U-21 players in KHL history. 4 points when he’s on the 4th line with Howden & Rooney, has 2 phantom assists taken away, that beautiful first NHL goal he created off his aggressive forecheck taken away on an offside challenge, got absolutely robbed of scoring the GWG with seconds left in his first NHL game. First man in on every forecheck and first man back on every backcheck, 95% of the time before the Center and 75% of the time even before the 2nd dman. He was excellent and everyone said that if you go back and read the GDT’s. People are rewriting history because Chris Drury, the biggest dimwit in hockey, can do no wrong in their eyes.

 

[egelband]

Strome on the covid list and they call up Greg the leg.

Kravtsov is an idiot, this literally would’ve been him if he went down and took his assignment like an adult.

I believe there hasn’t even been a Hartford game yet so it would have been a zero game stint in the A. Amazing.

 

[pld459666]

I believe there hasn’t even been a Hartford game yet so it would have been a zero game stint in the A. Amazing.

Bad Management.

His reps should have told him take the assignment

 

[brakeyawself]

How do I know that teams weren't offering a first round pick? Because we didn't trade Buch for a first round pick. I can believe that Drury was overly conservative and didn't want to risk holding on to Buch to get more later because of the potential for injury. But to believe that there were 1st rounders galore being tossed like singles at a strip club, only for the GM to say "hmm, no, I'd much rather a 2nd, because 2 is MORE than 1!" He's an NHL GM, not a Pakled.

As for the draft odds, again, I know the odds are high (though I don't think it is quite as low a percentage as you have been saying). That 15% number I think comes from Doug Maclean's piece, where he found that, over a ten year span, only 15% of 2nd rounders became impact players. He found that 25% of 2nd rounders become solid NHL players (he was also a lousy GM, so there is that).

Looking at just the NY Rangers, even in our worst stretches of drafting, we do better than 25% in the second round. From 2005-2014, the team had 9 picks in the second round. They hit on three of them (Michael Sauer, Anisimov, and Derek Stepan) as NHL regulars (2nd line/2nd pair). Two others (Marc-Andre Cliche and Boo-Synergy Nieves) made it to the NHL for shorter stretches (151 and 76 games, respectively). Christian Thomas got a couple cups of coffee (25 NHL games) and only three of them (Antoine LaFleur, Ethan Werek, and Brandon Halverson) busted completely (though Halverson did get one game, and we were able to move Werek for the best three years of Oscar Lindberg's NHL career). So in one of the worst 10 year stretches of drafting in recent team history, they got impact players with 33% of their picks, got three fill-ins/plugs with another 33% of their picks, and busted on the final 33% (though they were able to spin one of those busts into a role player). Two of our most recent 2nd rounders, Robertson and Cuylle, are among our top prospects. TL/DR--the odds of landing a useful player on an ELC with a 2nd round pick are high enough that it's always a good idea to pick up a spare pick whenever possible to increase those odds even further.

Finally, I'm not rationalizing or excusing anything. I didn't like the trade. I'm not thrilled about the current situation with Kravtsov. What I am doing is getting past that disappointment and trying to get excited about what we actually have. Same reason why I'm excited about Robertson rather than being emo about losing Zuccarello. You want to live in the past and give yourself an ulcer over something you can't change? Be my guest, but I don't understand what anyone gets out of that approach.

Holy cow. I don't mean to be rude, but cherry picking a period for statistical evaluation doesn't change the FACT that the 2nd round has an awful success rate. Which means you are in fact trying to rationalize an unreasonable and irrational argument about draft success/failure.

But firstly "
How do I know that teams weren't offering a first round pick? Because we didn't trade Buch for a first round pick. " That is completely fallacious logic. We have no clue if Drury called 1 team or 30 teams. All we have to go on is that on is that that deal went down on July 23rd. Which means he had about 2 more months before the season started. Or at least one month if you want to get that player in for preseason. Many believe he targeted Blais specifically, which likely means he did not shop Buch around but targeted the Blues and Blais. And while it is likely he had other targets, it's unlikely he shopped Buch around because of how early he made the deal. So there is no way we can know the extent that he shopped him. It just appears, based on the evidence at hand, that he did not do a whole lot of shopping him around as this was one of the earlier trades made.

But on to the draft, everything you listed is a statistical outlier. You just found a bunch of outliers and pretended they were an actual argument. That's not how it works. You can only do that in hindsight and with selective choosing successes over failures. That is statistically meaningless.

As far as the draft statistics. What we are talking about here are "impact players" or players that will have a genuine career. For instances, the percent of 1st rounders seeing A game or a handful of games in the NHL is over 90%. And it differs between forwards, defenders and goalies. Only about 25% of forwards in the entire draft have a chance at playing 200+ games, let alone becoming impact players or even having a full career. 21% for Defenders and 19% for Goalies.

So obviously, we aren't talking about players that see any NHL games. That wouldn't count as "making it in the NHL". And personally, I don't think counting players that played <200 games would matter much either. So yea, we are talking about players that will have an "impact" and a full career, however we want to define that.

 

[NYR]

Just be thankful JG isn't no longer here to trade him for a 4th in the 2025 draft

 

[PuckLuck3043]

Problems in the KHL yea man leading your team in goals at age 20 and being the all time leader in playoff points among U-21 players in KHL history. 4 points when he’s on the 4th line with Howden & Rooney, has 2 phantom assists taken away, that beautiful first NHL goal he created off his aggressive forecheck taken away on an offside challenge, got absolutely robbed of scoring the GWG with seconds left in his first NHL game. First man in on every forecheck and first man back on every backcheck, 95% of the time before the Center and 75% of the time even before the 2nd dman. He was excellent and everyone said that if you go back and read the GDT’s. People are rewriting history because Chris Drury, the biggest dimwit in hockey, can do no wrong in their eyes.

Didn't he have some issues in KHL? Wasn't he demoted or sent to another team for a while? I can't remember details. He played well for a few games last year when he came over and did forecheck and backcheck, and yes he probably should have had more points if he played with more skilled players but that can be said for a lot of players. He also was invisible for quite a few games as well. With a new coach this year and the injury I guess he didn't show enough to make the team AT THIS TIME. Jones also played well and didn't make the team AT THIS TIME, neither did Barron. I believe he would have been on this team in a very short amount of time if he accepted being sent down. Make no mistake, I want him on this team because he will make them better. Give him a call and see if you can broker a deal to get him back with the team instead of ordering out and getting fat.

 

[EdJovanovski]

Didn't he have some issues in KHL? Wasn't he demoted or sent to another team for a while? I can't remember details. He played well for a few games last year when he came over and did forecheck and backcheck, and yes he probably should have had more points if he played with more skilled players but that can be said for a lot of players. He also was invisible for quite a few games as well. With a new coach this year and the injury I guess he didn't show enough to make the team AT THIS TIME. Jones also played well and didn't make the team AT THIS TIME, neither did Barron. I believe he would have been on this team in a very short amount of time if he accepted being sent down. Make no mistake, I want him on this team because he will make them better. Give him a call and see if you can broker a deal to get him back with the team instead of ordering out and getting fat.

No, he was sent to the VHL for a few games during a break in the KHL schedule. But I’ve seen people on social media/Reddit run with a false narrative about it so I see why you thought that

But yes I agree, Kravtsov AND Drury need to put their egos to the side. Everyone is losing in this situation right now

 

[gravey9]

No, he was sent to the VHL for a few games during a break in the KHL schedule. But I’ve seen people on social media/Reddit run with a false narrative about it so I see why you thought that

But yes I agree, Kravtsov AND Drury need to put their egos to the side. Everyone is losing in this situation right now

Kravtsov is in a sh*tty spot right now. He's got nowhere to go unless the Rangers agree to loan him somewhere.

 

[egelband]

No, he was sent to the VHL for a few games during a break in the KHL schedule. But I’ve seen people on social media/Reddit run with a false narrative about it so I see why you thought that

But yes I agree, Kravtsov AND Drury need to put their egos to the side. Everyone is losing in this situation right now

That’s another thing that bugs me. Kravtsov had issues with management. Who doesn’t take issue with their management. Corporations suck at managing people as a rule, virtually. From the top down. People don’t like what the people above them decide. Turnover is a thing. And I’m sure that VK had reasonable frustration with how he was handled. But that was Gorton and Quinn. I know Drury was there and maybe even a big part of the “heated” exit interview. But it’s basically a new regime. Give it a few months to work out.

 

[BBKers]

Where was Kravtsov going to play? The top 6 Wingers were seemingly set in stone. Two hyped top-2 recent Draft lottery picks and Two veteran Assistant Captains. Both With new contracts. Was he going to beat out Barcaly Goodrow on the third line that just got a new 6 year deal? Blais was just acquired for a 1st liner in Buchnevich. There is No way management saw him (or Kravtsov Post Quinn) as a 4th line option. Reaves was set in stone there with a new role and totally different bag of tricks. The bottom six coming With a skill set Which management constantly preached was being their new identity moving forward.

Kravtsov was the odd man out here and he likely saw that himself. As Did the organisation - that Did not know How to deal with it nor communicate what they had in store. They should have dealt him before this blew up. Both sides screwed this up. For sure. But it was inevitable and could easily have been dealt with in a different way. There is also a lot more to this that I am not at liberty to talk about, but let’s just say that it is not only a question about what most people have been bringing up here. The emotional simple answer. But since they do not know what goes on behind the scenes it is hard to fault people’s opinions, although some would think the same way regardless.

 

[smoneil]

For f***'s sake you guys are exhausting.

First--I didn't "cherry pick a period for statistical evaluation." If I wanted to cherry pick, I'd have slid the range a bit earlier so that my "point" would have been bolstered by the inclusion of Dubinsky and Tyutin. Or I would have zeroed in on 1978 into the mid-80s, where we landed NHL regulars with 7 of our 2nd round picks in a 10 year span (plus two 100+ NHL game role-players). I'm also pretty certain that you don't know what "statistical outlier" means, as you kept using it incorrectly. If I wanted to focus on statistical outliers, I would have made a list of second rounders ONLY from years where we hit on them. I also didn't try--as you accuse here--to say that a player getting a handful of NHL games is "landing an NHL player." I clearly broke that decade's worth of draft picks into three categories--guys who had real, meaningful NHL careers (Anisimov, Stepan, and Sauer), guys who made it for a season or two, and guys who busted or only got a cup of coffee. 33% of our second rounders in that span had meaningful careers. That's more than double the odds you were spouting in your quest to prove that 2nd rounders are worthless.

What I did was take a ten year span--that happened to coincide with some of our WORST drafts in recent memory--that didn't include drafts where players are still developing. You want to include all the drafts since 2014? Fine. That's a total of 5 more second rounders, including two busts (Gropp and Lindbom), two guys who are currently among our better prospects (Robertson and Cuylle) and a question mark (Henriksson). Still doesn't help your case. My argument is based on literally the most recent 10 (now 15) years worth of Ranger second round drafting (ie: the ONLY data set that means anything when trying to figure out the value of a 2nd round pick in the NY Rangers draft room for next season). Yours is based on a vaguely remembered and inaccurately represented "stat." Which one of us is making an irrational argument again?

Second--You are correct that we can't know what happened behind the scenes of the Buch trade. That said, my assumption is that--if they were presented with a significantly better offer (like a 1st rounder rather than a 2nd)--they would have taken it. Your assumption is that there is some sort of conspiracy where Drury is a total moron because he didn't bring back what you (or I) thought Buchnevich should be worth. Your version of events requires Drury to be either astoundingly stupid or actively out to ruin the franchise. That is why I think your version of events, even though there is literally no proof for either of our theories, is dumb. There's an old saying about how to interpret things that walk, talk, and quack like a duck. Look into it.

Third-- I will make this very easy for you. Since you are clearly a fan of Pavel Buchnevich rather than a fan of the NY Rangers, I offer you some useful directions:
St. Louis Blues

Holy cow. I don't mean to be rude, but cherry picking a period for statistical evaluation doesn't change the FACT that the 2nd round has an awful success rate. Which means you are in fact trying to rationalize an unreasonable and irrational argument about draft success/failure.

But firstly "
How do I know that teams weren't offering a first round pick? Because we didn't trade Buch for a first round pick. " That is completely fallacious logic. We have no clue if Drury called 1 team or 30 teams. All we have to go on is that on is that that deal went down on July 23rd. Which means he had about 2 more months before the season started. Or at least one month if you want to get that player in for preseason. Many believe he targeted Blais specifically, which likely means he did not shop Buch around but targeted the Blues and Blais. And while it is likely he had other targets, it's unlikely he shopped Buch around because of how early he made the deal. So there is no way we can know the extent that he shopped him. It just appears, based on the evidence at hand, that he did not do a whole lot of shopping him around as this was one of the earlier trades made.

But on to the draft, everything you listed is a statistical outlier. You just found a bunch of outliers and pretended they were an actual argument. That's not how it works. You can only do that in hindsight and with selective choosing successes over failures. That is statistically meaningless.

As far as the draft statistics. What we are talking about here are "impact players" or players that will have a genuine career. For instances, the percent of 1st rounders seeing A game or a handful of games in the NHL is over 90%. And it differs between forwards, defenders and goalies. Only about 25% of forwards in the entire draft have a chance at playing 200+ games, let alone becoming impact players or even having a full career. 21% for Defenders and 19% for Goalies.

So obviously, we aren't talking about players that see any NHL games. That wouldn't count as "making it in the NHL". And personally, I don't think counting players that played >200 games would matter much either. So yea, we are talking about players that will have an "impact" and a full career, however we want to define that.

 

[bobbop]

Ryan Poehling to NYR for Vitali Kravtsov??

Helps and fixes a need for NYR. Does it do the same for the Habs? Another playmaking center isn’t a bad issue to have especially with the wingers Rangers have,

I don’t see Poehling as a top six player long term. Dont think that’s the right deal.

 

[bobbop]

Bad Management.

His reps should have told him take the assignment

This is correct.

But I wonder if he is the player you tell anything to.

 

[egelband]

Where was Kravtsov going to play? The top 6 Wingers were seemingly set in stone. Two top Draft lottery picks and Two veteran Assistant Captains. Both With new contracts. Was he going to beat out Barcaly Goodrow on the third line that just got a new 6 year deal? Blais was just acquired for a 1st liner Buchnevich. There is No way management saw him as a 4th line option. With a skill set Which management constantly preached was being their identity moving forward. Kravtsov was the odd man out and he likely saw that himself. As Did the organisation - that Did not know How to deal with it nor communicate what they had in store. Both sides screwed this up. For sure. But it was inevitable and could easily have been dealt with in a different way. There is also a lot more to this that I am not at liberty to talk about, but let’s just say that it is not only a question about what most people have been bringing up here. The emotional simple answer. But since they do not know what goes on behind the scenes it is hard to fault people’s opinions, although some would think the same way regardless.

I for sure agree this was poorly handled by everyone involved. But I do think that there’s a spot in the top nine with Kreider playing 3LW. If not immediately, at least down the line. Definitely the lineup is pretty hard to crack now but all it takes is an injury, and already see Blais and Strome out of the lineup. Followed by taking that opportunity and winning a spot. Then trades happen. That’s the pro sports cycle of life. VK was right on the doorstep and instead of opening the door he was waiting for the doorman to open it for him.

 

[egelband]

I don’t see Poehling as a top six player long term. Dont think that’s the right deal.

Yeah. I think we either package him (please take Hajek and Georgiev) for another team’s young center prospect. Or just move him for a pick or picks.

 

[BBKers]

I for sure agree this was poorly handled by everyone involved. But I do think that there’s a spot in the top nine with Kreider playing 3LW. If not immediately, at least down the line. Definitely the lineup is pretty hard to crack now but all it takes is an injury, and already see Blais and Strome out of the lineup. Followed by taking that opportunity and winning a spot. Then trades happen. That’s the pro sports cycle of life. VK was right on the doorstep and instead of opening the door he was waiting for the doorman to open it for him.

Logically and with the publicly available information at hand - you are correct. But there is more here.

 

[mike14]

There's an elegantly simple solution to all this where we trade Kravy for top-6 help and allow EdJo to continue his angst-ridden existence...
Kravy to Vancouver for the triumphant return of J.T Miller

 

[egelband]

Logically and with the publicly available information at hand - you are correct. But there is more here.

In that he wasn’t ever going to get a fair shot?

 

[BBKers]

This is correct.
But I wonder if he is the player you tell anything to.

I thought so too. Initially. Now I am a bit less sure. It could also actually be that the player representative wanted to force the issue. As they had reached an impasse.

But yeah, in Rome, do as the Romans. Or more adequately defined, in Texas, do as the Cattlemen tell you and refrain from listening to the other cattle’s gossip. Otherwise you’re just a quick meal on a platter somewhere else…

 

[smoneil]

I for sure agree this was poorly handled by everyone involved. But I do think that there’s a spot in the top nine with Kreider playing 3LW. If not immediately, at least down the line. Definitely the lineup is pretty hard to crack now but all it takes is an injury, and already see Blais and Strome out of the lineup. Followed by taking that opportunity and winning a spot. Then trades happen. That’s the pro sports cycle of life. VK was right on the doorstep and instead of opening the door he was waiting for the doorman to open it for him.

This. I don't think for a second that anybody thinks that 30 year old Chris Kreider, after playing more than 650 NHL games (incl post-season) exclusively on the left wing, is a serious long-term consideration for a top 6 RW spot. It screams "stop-gap" to me.

Also, even a fraud fortune teller could have predicted a Blais injury. The kid hasn't been able to stay healthy for the last four years and hasn't played more than 58 games (including both AHL and NHL in years where he was on, as per St. Louis media, the "Sammy Blais Expressway" between the two leagues) in any season since 2016-17 (his first pro year, spent entirely in the AHL).

And again--earning a spot isn't about getting rid of anyone who is competing for that spot. It's about playing better than those guys and taking their spot. See Ryan McDonagh and how Michal Rozsival became a Dallas Star. Getting an injury opportunity becomes a full time job if you make yourself too valuable to be sent back down.

 

[RickChartraw]

Logically and with the publicly available information at hand - you are correct. But there is more here.

looking forward to hearing it, if/when you are able to share. understand that may be never, but this is an odd situation that i don't fully understand.

 

[EdJovanovski]

There's an elegantly simple solution to all this where we trade Kravy for top-6 help and allow EdJo to continue his angst-ridden existence...
Kravy to Vancouver for the triumphant return of J.T Miller

LOL

 

[BBKers]

This. I don't think for a second that anybody thinks that 30 year old Chris Kreider, after playing more than 650 NHL games (incl post-season) exclusively on the left wing, is a serious long-term consideration for a top 6 RW spot. It screams "stop-gap" to me.

Also, even a fraud fortune teller could have predicted a Blais injury. The kid hasn't been able to stay healthy for the last four years and hasn't played more than 58 games (including both AHL and NHL in years where he was on, as per St. Louis media, the "Sammy Blais Expressway" between the two leagues) in any season since 2016-17 (his first pro year, spent entirely in the AHL).

And again--earning a spot isn't about getting rid of anyone who is competing for that spot. It's about playing better than those guys and taking their spot. See Ryan McDonagh and how Michal Rozsival became a Dallas Star. Getting an injury opportunity becomes a full time job if you make yourself too valuable to be sent back down.

Logically and historically your answer is correct. Kreider does however have 5 years, mostly trade protected, on his contract remaining. And Kravtsov has one.

And let me tell you one thing that I can totally agree upon that for my generational mind frame is extremely annoying and frustrating - that the younger generation (especially those that think they “got it”) is in general inherently impatient and short sighted. They want it all and they want it right now. This is not an exception any more and will put huge dents in society everywhere moving forward, not just on a professional sports team.

 

[smoneil]

Logically and with the publicly available information at hand - you are correct. But there is more here.

I fully get that people with inside scoops can't spill all the beans, but at the same time, I worry that vague posts like this won't do anything more than fuel the conspiracy theorists (who have convinced themselves that Drury has insulted Krav's mother, kicked his puppy, and sent him down to Hartford so he could put the moves on his sister, haha).

 

[smoneil]

There's an elegantly simple solution to all this where we trade Kravy for top-6 help and allow EdJo to continue his angst-ridden existence...
Kravy to Vancouver for the triumphant return of J.T Miller

Even better--now that we have one less blue chip prospect who would need a raise, why not trade Kravtsov for Buchnevich? Jovo and a few others can simultaneously hate and love the trade.