OT: Let's Remember Some Guys

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Does anyone remember Steven Delisle? He is playing tonight for Sparta Praha against Mlada Boleslav. This arena is f***ing insane. 18.000 seats and the roof looks like MSG

 
In reminiscing on all this, some of my old hates come back. I used to and still do detest the Islanders. That never stops. Same with Philly. Pens I have detested from go and it is all Maryo's fault. Crosby is marginally less of a cry baby. Though I will say that I could not stand Mike Flockheart at all.For some reason, the Devils have never rose to the level of "detest" that I have for the Isles or Philly.

I remember also disliking the Caps a lot. Bondra, Druce, etc. Clearly recall a fight between Barry Beck & Rod Langway. Utter slugfest.

The Pens have always been whiners. Whining about needing a stadium. Whining about how unfair the economics were. Whining and being gifted Crosby.
 
I still feel like Smith missed out on creating a dynasty by panicking, starting with the Weight for Tikkanen deal. You had a top 9 that could have had Messier/Weight/Nemchinov down the middle, with Graves, Amonte, Kovalev, Gartner on the wings, plus players like King and Turcotte in the mix. You also had Leetch, Zubov, Beukeboom, Karpovtsev and later Nordstrom on D. You could have still added Lowe and MacTavish for the minimal cost you paid. But, Smith ended up panicking after bowing out in 1992. There’s an alternative universe where Richter doesn’t allow the 90-footer to Ron Francis, and the Rangers win the Cup that year, and are set up for the rest of the decade.
Don't forget players like Tinordi, who had a fine career in Dallas or Ian Lapperiere who had a fine career as a third line center or a Marchant, who also had a fine career. Singin is right. Keenan did have some of his own demands, like Noonan .
 
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Don't forget players like Tinordi, who had a fine career in Dallas or Ian Lapperiere who had a fine career as a third line center or a Marchant, who also had a fine career. Singin is right. Keenan did have some of his own demands, like Noonan .

Agreed. If it was up to Keenan, both Leetch and Richter would have dealt, too. But, Smith started it with the trades for Tikkanen (who was a disaster that year) and Olczyk. They weren’t even a year away from winning the President’s Trophy. He gave up too much talent for role players.
 
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Agreed about 66. And the BS that was thrown at Adam Graves was always total garbage.

Crosby, to me, has always been a dirty player. Partly because he knows he will never held accountable for anything.
And that is the entitlement he gets from his mentor. That feeling that he can get away with anything because he knows Bettman will protect him.

Don't even get me started on that friggin' slash on Maryo. Utter POS for that fake job.
 
This organziation seems to have a bad habit of overpaying for role players (either in trades on in free agency). All the while, they never seem to develop them.
And then spend over spend money trying to reproduce them. Wash, rinse, repeat. Hoping that cycle breaks with Gorton.
 
Agreed. If it was up to Keenan, both Leetch and Richter would have dealt, too. But, Smith started it with the trades for Tikkanen (who was a disaster that year) and Olczyk. They weren’t even a year away from winning the President’s Trophy. He gave up too much talent for role players.

I also think Smith got a little seduced by the success that came from the many moves at TDL and fell in love with making big changes at the deadline. The Norstrom et al/Kurri et al move demonstrates that.
 
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I also think Smith got a little seduced by the success that came from the many moves at TDL and fell in love with making big changes at the deadline. The Norstrom et al/Kurri et al move demonstrates that.

Some of that was also Messier driven. He got more buddies from Edmonton, since he felt safe with them in a big spot.
 
Rangers Isles tonight.

Remember the Morrow triple (was it triple?) overtime goal that had me cresfallen. I sleeping upstairs and having to sneak to the top of the stairs to catch a glimpse of the tv. That game seemed to go on forever.

On the positive, Dan Cloutier challenging the entire Islanders team was one of the highlights of the dark ages.
 
I still feel like Smith missed out on creating a dynasty by panicking, starting with the Weight for Tikkanen deal. You had a top 9 that could have had Messier/Weight/Nemchinov down the middle, with Graves, Amonte, Kovalev, Gartner on the wings, plus players like King and Turcotte in the mix. You also had Leetch, Zubov, Beukeboom, Karpovtsev and later Nordstrom on D. You could have still added Lowe and MacTavish for the minimal cost you paid. But, Smith ended up panicking after bowing out in 1992. There’s an alternative universe where Richter doesn’t allow the 90-footer to Ron Francis, and the Rangers win the Cup that year, and are set up for the rest of the decade.

Hindsight is 20/20. In many ways, that 92 team was better than the 94 team. I was rather young, but it's difficult to describe the pressure that gathered on the Rangers after that debacle in the 92 playoffs, followed by an utter disasterous season in '93. People thought the organization was legitimately cursed, and they had every right to do so. Point being, I won't blame Smith for what he did leading up to '94 in lieu of the longshot potential of a dynasty because it worked. They won it all. Almost every decision he made after that, however, was disgraceful. The team chased the dragon for almost 10 years after that and paid severely for it.
 
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A bit lost in history is how good TGO's first two seasons here were.

True. I remember thinking, especially early on his Ranger tenure, that his linemates were utterly unprepared for the unbelievable feeds they were getting from Gretzky. I also seem to remember Niklas Sundstrom stapled to his wing for some reason. Ahhh, the mid-late 90's. Fun times.
 
Hindsight is 20/20. In many ways, that 92 team was better than the 94 team. I was rather young, but it's difficult to describe the pressure that gathered on the Rangers after that debacle in the 92 playoffs, followed by an utter disasterous season in '93. People thought the organization was legitimately cursed, and they had every right to do so. Point being, I won't blame Smith for what he did leading up to '94 in lieu of the longshot potential of a dynasty because it worked. They won it all. Almost every decision he made after that, however, was disgraceful. The team chased the dragon for almost 10 years after that and paid severely for it.

That 92 team should have won the Cup. Also, lost in all discussion about that team was that Smith had a deal in place for Adam Oates and Jeff Brown that included Nemchinov and Patrick going the other way. (There was another piece on each side). Smith went to Nielsen, who said Smith shouldn’t disrupt the team at that point. Imagine having Messier and Oates for the next five years down the middle.
 
That 92 team should have won the Cup.
You are talking about the 92 team that was heading for greatness were it not for Maryo whining and dropping to the ice following the "slash" by Graves? That still gets me mad. Though Richter giving up a 150 goal to Francis did not help matters.
 
You are talking about the 92 team that was heading for greatness were it not for Maryo whining and dropping to the ice following the "slash" by Graves? That still gets me mad. Though Richter giving up a 150 goal to Francis did not help matters.

That goal is etched into my memory along with the huge 1940 FOREVER banner the Pens fans unfurled. And while we look back on it with satisfaction, '94 was no picnic either. Lots of late goals and heartache. This organization was very very very close to not having a single cup in 78 years and counting.
 
This organziation seems to have a bad habit of overpaying for role players (either in trades on in free agency). All the while, they never seem to develop them.

I feel the opposite - to me most of the players NYR drafts are a role/support player. JT Miller, Hagelin, Weise, Fast, Kreider, Dubinsky, Callahan, Anisimov just from recent memory. All decent to good players, all nice pieces, but none in that upper echelon of players. None that could be The Guy™. We just in turn use those kinds of guys to get established NHLers (Brassard [who we turned in to Zib], Nash, Zib, MSL). What they can't do (and it's really no fault of theirs as an organization) is get a truly top flight forward/defenseman through the draft. Maybe Cherepanov could have been that, maybe Kravstov could be that actual gamebreaker down the road. Not just a ~50 point player at their peak.

At any rate, Nigel Dawes was one of my favorite players growing up. I've been watching NYR since I was knee high to a duck and got to see them win in '94 (granted I was like 6 and remember absolutely none of it) and didn't really watch much during the dark ages. My interest picked back up in high school/college after the lockout, and for whatever reason I thought Dawes was amazing.
 

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