Confirmed with Link: NYR Fire John Davidson and Jeff Gorton

[Kakko Schmakko]

Like a 4th or 5th round pick or a b/c prospect

no way it is that low.

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

NOPE! MESSIER IS COMING. DOLAN IS PULLING THE STRINGS! ARRR!

 

[cheech70]

 

[Jaromir Jagr]

I think Georgie's value at the time was nothing more than a mid to late rounder. Never had any value like some fans thought he had.

This only further highlights the absurd decision to buy out the last year of one of the most important players in franchise history. Not only would he have helped with a lot of the rumored locker room issues this year, but there was no need to blow dead space on him for multiple years.

 

[WojtekWolski86]

No one cares about ADA and there isn’t some conspiracy against him. He’s gone, thankfully. Hopefully we can stop bringing him up in every thread soon.

I can't believe after all this time people still claiming ADA as the lord and saviour. He was terrible defensively and although he had an amazing year last year offensively, that could have easily been an aberration. Meanwhile people here will say Ziba was a 1 and done performer.

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

my guess that public embarrassment/character assassination of ADA did not sit well with Drury?

Jeez..........

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

I just don’t want Dolan having any influence on the roster and pushing us to be a playoff contender for revenue purposes. Trust the process and hope Drury has the same vision as the fans.

I think that's the hope you have to have with Sather seemingly coming back into the picture more.....

 

[Edge]

I have been one of the most ardent defenders of the team's progress this year. I believe the strides made were impressive by many of the youngers (Fox, Laf, KK, etc.). And while I, like others, deeply appreciate your insight, I feel like you're leaning so hard into the "Dolan is a psychopath" angle here and might be a bit blind to the fact that real issues exist as a result of JD & JG. I can honestly understand why an owner would be upset with them and want them gone. Just a few that I've been thinking about since the firing:

• We've spent a lot of money on players in their prime. Panarin, Kreider, Trouba, etc. If we're not ready to compete soon, what were we thinking? Were these last two years Panarin's best? How much longer can we wait? This begs the question about what their position on re-signing 28-year-old Mika Zibanejad may have been if JDJG did not think we were ready to take the next step?
  
  
• I have to imagine the decision to choose Georgiev over keeping Hank around to mentor Shesty did not sit well. Georgiev was terrible for most of this year and is looking like a career backup. This was obvious to many of us on here who continuously pointed out Georgiev's erratic performances. We tossed aside one of the most important players in franchise history in favor of a guy we might now move anyway.
  
  
• The ADA situation. I believe the right call was made in getting rid of him. But how can you justify to your boss handing out the second largest contract on defense and then just months later excuse away banishing him. It's not like these issues with ADA weren't apparent prior to this. He didn't suddenly morph into a troubled human.
  
  
• JT Miller. The Ryan McD trade, where we just threw in JT Miller might very well go down as one of the worst in history. Miller is now a premier center in the NHL and he was nothing more than a toss-in. You can point out the other successful trades that have been made, but they don't make up for trading a #1 D-Man and a #1 Center for arguably the two worst players in the NHL and some picks.
  
  
• Lack of protection for our star players. We've gotten completely manhandled for the last week. The Islanders knocked out our premier D-Man and we did nothing. The same player who knocked him out elbowed our star center in the face and we did nothing. Wilson nearly killed our two top wingers and in the game we did nothing. It was obvious last year we needed some level of protection for them and instead, we built a fourth line around Rooney and Howden. A thug on skates would be as effective as Brett Howden. Everyone should be upset with what transpired there this year.
  
  
• Constant wastes of money. I don't care how rich you are, lighting money on fire with buyouts of Hank, Shatty, now ADA, etc. cannot make anyone happy. Every single year we have to talk about irresponsible contracts that we're forced to buy out. It's ridiculous and I'm sick of it and I'm sure the one floating the bill is even more so.

The fact is JD absolutely failed in Columbus and wasn't fully responsible for St. Louis. He could never get his teams over the hump when he took over a full rebuild. Same goes for Gorton who appears to just have become a lackey of JD rather than a Sather mentee, which is clearly what Dolan wanted. Chris Drury is extremely bright and I have a lot of faith in him. The team has been mired in mediocrity, a lot of the moves we've made have no direct other than sideways. How can you justify signing Trouba and Panarin to massive contracts in their primes when you also want to justify taking more years to rebuild? There's no logic here. There's no direction here.

I would have been fine keeping both of them on for another year or so. But I also am absolutely fine with moving on from them and think all the "sky is falling" posts in here are a severe overreaction to two guys who aren't even on the ice and have never played a premier role in getting their teams to the promised land.

Even if we take out the Dolan is a psychopath narrative, his approach is a proven failure for the teams he's been more actively involved in. There is no track record of success. In fact, there's some abysmal failures. So yeah, he doesn't have the benefit of the doubt coming into this situation.

As for JD and Gorton, I don't think the question is whether or not they were perfect. The question was whether or not they were executing their plan --- and to that extent they were getting high marks from both fans and those around the sport.

I also don't think they were incredibly far off from taking advantage of those prime years you're talking about. I disagree with recent moves having us sideways as well. Look no further than this recent stretch without Trouba to get a glimpse of how things would've looked without him over a longer stretch. If anything, I think in some ways the moves almost made us too good and pushed us into the realm of people expecting the playoffs this season. So in that sense, I think they actually become a bit of a double-edged sword.

At the end of the day, I think there was significantly more good than bad, with even better days to come. I think we can look at most anyone in any position and find enough to fire them. That's not really hard to do. But I honestly think this wasn't a hockey decision, this was a Jim Dolan thing. And it's his toy chest and his toys, so here we are.

 

[Jaromir Jagr]

my guess that public embarrassment/character assassination of ADA did not sit well with Drury?

You sound like a conspiracy theorist. This is a proper response from any professional when asked such a question. Drury was very likely involved in the decision to boot ADA and I highly doubt there's any chance anything changes.

(Mod)

 

[Hi ImHFNYR]

Meaningful games are against better teams. Teams throughout the league, no matter how good they are, perform worse against the better teams. I posted the stats in another thread to back this point up. All the good teams are feasting on the worst and playing around .500 against the better teams, this year.

I agree. I wasn't saying anything to the contrary

The caveat is that obviously there is a standard a team like the NYR (nearly rebuilt) should meet against any team. Looking at Carolina and at how we all too frequently played against teams at all levels this year and THEN looking at the game in game out consistency issues, etc. I have felt for awhile like this was not us heading in the right direction. At least, not ENOUGH in the right direction. Like we should be 3 or 4 steps and we're only 2....and one of those steps was way too reliant on luck

Like I was mentioning before, the way this team has been coached since AV and the way the roster has been built since then led to us being a team that has some glaring deficiencies when it comes to physicality. We don't need Brashear. We need Cally, Dubs, Prust, Boyle types. Guys of varying skill levels who inject that throughout the lineup while still being good players for us

Back then we'd have killed for a Panarin and Zib to add to that group.

We finally got them but we didn't slowly add the heart and soul guys to compliment.

Lemieux was an attempt at least but we saw how that went. He just wasnt that great at it. Smith will get chippy but his overall game just isn't up to snuff.

 

[Larrybiv]

okay now it makes sense if that’s the case.

I respect the decision now.

So in essence, they ran (afraid of the oncoming wrath from Bettman) and when Dolan found that out, he considered it to be a form of treason by not supporting Dolan and his decision?

Would that be right? If so, well then maybe I'd fire them as well. Bettman doesn't cut their paychecks, last I checked. (and I didn't).

 

[DialUp]

NOPE! MESSIER IS COMING. DOLAN IS PULLING THE STRINGS! ARRR!

Coming around, nice

 

[Clark Kellogg]

Looked everywhere even on their site. Nothing.

Same here. I guess we we all have to wait until it’s posted later.

 

[chosen]

I thought we could make the PO’s this year at the beginning, and put it at 50/50 odds. I think that we are right about where i thought we would be.

the reason i think people see this season as a failure is because how we got manhandled in crunch time. If we lost those three games against the isle but were competitive in them i dont believe people would be this upset. But we got manhandled, and showed a completel lack of anything resembling emotion from the team.

i think that is why people are so down on them. And rightly so. We didnt go down swinging. We went down like a little bitch crying and sagging our shoulders.

Except that many of those same people had the same attitude before the season even started.

 

[Matt Rentfree]

No one cares about ADA and there isn’t some conspiracy against him. He’s gone, thankfully. Hopefully we can stop bringing him up in every thread soon.

I find it amusing that your username describes his posts perfectly.

 

[Brief Candle]

I find it amusing that your username describes his posts perfectly.

Have they mentioned anything about the ADA situation being Orwellian yet?

 

[cheech70]

 

[Ruggs225]

Except that many of those same people had the same attitude before the season even started.

i honestly cant remember anymore.
I just know this is how i feel. I thought we would wither barely make it in or barely miss. I am highly disappointed with the teams play the last few weeks. And the complete lack of effort on the ice.
But thats just me.

 

[haveandare]

I hope he isn't joshing us here

Lol Dolan cleans house for “underachieving” snd gives Drury both jobs. Drury doesn’t want to commit to being a playoff team.

Again I don’t mind him being GM but I’d like to hear why we actually impulsively fired the front office because it’s very clearly not about underachieving

 

[JCProdigy]

not a whole lot is going to change other than he’ll be more aggressive in making some adds than JG was.

JG’s patience was a double edged sword for him.

But he had no choice but to be patient with the way things were structured with the organization. He couldn't go adding any more cap until all the money came off after this year. I believe that after this year was always the plan. Especially after the pandemic hit.

Some of that was his own doing of course. BTW he wasn't patient when signing Trouba, Krieder, and Smith and he was blasted for each (understandably so to varying degrees).

 

[Daves a mess]

I still think there is disgust at the highest levels about how meekly we got swept by the Candy Canes.
We know Gorts and JD were livid.
But maybe part of it was an earful from Slick Jimmy that started it all.

 

[Matt Rentfree]

Have they mentioned anything about the ADA situation being Orwellian yet?

I sincerely hope some other team signs ADA next season just so that guy can go post on some other team's board.

 

[cheech70]

 

[Larrybiv]

I think Slats is going to be more involved behind the scenes as a liaison between Drury and Dolan.

Probably. Maybe I should have said "half joking". Lol.

 

[Edge]

i honestly cant remember anymore.
I just know this is how i feel. I thought we would wither barely make it in or barely miss. I am highly disappointed with the teams play the last few weeks. And the complete lack of effort on the ice.
But thats just me.

I think the challenge is that people get very up or very down on a team.

The Rangers make a push for the playoffs, win an unprecedented four of four from a team and you hear "Teams just don't do that in the NHL."

They get manhandled by a team they match up poorly against and people are seeing the four horseman riding up over MSG.

We have these wild swings from fans sometimes that tend to be very reactionary. That's somewhat expected. You live with it, and ultimately it doesn't change anything. But when the person in charge does it, that's when things get a bit dicey.

 

[Hi ImHFNYR]

I have been one of the most ardent defenders of the team's progress this year. I believe the strides made were impressive by many of the youngers (Fox, Laf, KK, etc.). And while I, like others, deeply appreciate your insight, I feel like you're leaning so hard into the "Dolan is a psychopath" angle here and might be a bit blind to the fact that real issues exist as a result of JD & JG. I can honestly understand why an owner would be upset with them and want them gone. Just a few that I've been thinking about since the firing:

• We've spent a lot of money on players in their prime. Panarin, Kreider, Trouba, etc. If we're not ready to compete soon, what were we thinking? Were these last two years Panarin's best? How much longer can we wait? This begs the question about what their position on re-signing 28-year-old Mika Zibanejad may have been if JDJG did not think we were ready to take the next step?
  
  
• I have to imagine the decision to choose Georgiev over keeping Hank around to mentor Shesty did not sit well. Georgiev was terrible for most of this year and is looking like a career backup. This was obvious to many of us on here who continuously pointed out Georgiev's erratic performances. We tossed aside one of the most important players in franchise history in favor of a guy we might now move anyway.
  
  
• The ADA situation. I believe the right call was made in getting rid of him. But how can you justify to your boss handing out the second largest contract on defense and then just months later excuse away banishing him. It's not like these issues with ADA weren't apparent prior to this. He didn't suddenly morph into a troubled human.
  
  
• JT Miller. The Ryan McD trade, where we just threw in JT Miller might very well go down as one of the worst in history. Miller is now a premier center in the NHL and he was nothing more than a toss-in. You can point out the other successful trades that have been made, but they don't make up for trading a #1 D-Man and a #1 Center for arguably the two worst players in the NHL and some picks.
  
  
• Lack of protection for our star players. We've gotten completely manhandled for the last week. The Islanders knocked out our premier D-Man and we did nothing. The same player who knocked him out elbowed our star center in the face and we did nothing. Wilson nearly killed our two top wingers and in the game we did nothing. It was obvious last year we needed some level of protection for them and instead, we built a fourth line around Rooney and Howden. A thug on skates would be as effective as Brett Howden. Everyone should be upset with what transpired there this year.
  
  
• Constant wastes of money. I don't care how rich you are, lighting money on fire with buyouts of Hank, Shatty, now ADA, etc. cannot make anyone happy. Every single year we have to talk about irresponsible contracts that we're forced to buy out. It's ridiculous and I'm sick of it and I'm sure the one floating the bill is even more so.

The fact is JD absolutely failed in Columbus and wasn't fully responsible for St. Louis. He could never get his teams over the hump when he took over a full rebuild. Same goes for Gorton who appears to just have become a lackey of JD rather than a Sather mentee, which is clearly what Dolan wanted. Chris Drury is extremely bright and I have a lot of faith in him. The team has been mired in mediocrity, a lot of the moves we've made have no direct other than sideways. How can you justify signing Trouba and Panarin to massive contracts in their primes when you also want to justify taking more years to rebuild? There's no logic here. There's no direction here.

I would have been fine keeping both of them on for another year or so. But I also am absolutely fine with moving on from them and think all the "sky is falling" posts in here are a severe overreaction to two guys who aren't even on the ice and have never played a premier role in getting their teams to the promised land.

Hot damn did this ever break shit down.

I've made these points all season. JD and Gorton had some very serious warts (especially Gort. I think quite a few moves were made before JD got here)

One of the biggest being I think we significantly hampered the progress of a LOT of players with our coaching hires and our GM turning a blind eye to what our coaches were doing.

There has been way too much off ice dysfunction too. Could be just bad luck but it IS there