Ok, so forget the ELC. Do you see this team having a whole roster by the time Hughes (hypothetically) is on his second contract? Frankly, I don't see a team without lots of holes for 6-7 years.
But you're right, there's too many moving parts to say that. Except, as you said, keeping franchise players. That's an important point. Our next franchise defenseman might not even be alive right now. That really, really bothers me. It's why I'm not really on board with this. It's why I'm not on board with trading the closest thing we had for a mediocre return. If we got a great return for McDonagh, again, different story. We didn't, and we didn't because for some reason, we were absolutely desperate to trade him and the league knew it. I still don't see where the gun was to our heads on that. The contract? I'd rather pay McDonagh what he's making than pay Skjei what he's making. What if this team is ready to roll by 2021 except Brady Skjei is still our 1D? Say hello to mediocre, which is the thing everyone is afraid of.
You're entitled to your opinion, but I haven't seen a neutral source that has us any higher than 9th. I haven't liked any of Gorton's drafts. This is the same front office that went from Cup contenders to rebuilding, but we've given them unwavering trust to commandeer the rebuild. Gorton has been a factor longer than most realize or want to admit. At best, he was Sather's AGM and hand-picked replacement. It's not the radical change it's made out to be.
Was this a close game, really? We might have one of the best lines in hockey. Good for the Rangers on that. However, this was men versus boys when that line wasn't on the ice. They left Kreider and Zibanejad alone because they just assumed Andersson and Chytil would be ready now. They're not. And yet they talk about their "glut of centers" and they're taking that same gun they put against their heads on McDonagh and putting it back to their heads on Hayes. This team can't plan short-term let alone long-term.
I’m going to start this by saying I don’t think I’m honestly all that far off from you on a lot of this stuff, but I’m generally an optimist by nature, so that may make me more lenient on some things.
In 6-7 years? Honestly the only hole based on the pieces within the organization right now (plus the hypothetical of adding Hughes) is the high end of the defense, but even without adding anything I think there’s at least 4 guys with varying probabilities that they’ll be better than Brady Skjei, which I know in your book (and kind of mine) a) isn’t/shouldn’t be that hard and b) isn’t saying all that much. But what I think the main thrust of all of this rebuilding has been to establish a new core group of players and to build up the organizational currency of picks, players, and prospects to put themselves in a good position for when an unforeseen player becomes available via trade or even free agency. But in a cap world, even Stanley Cup teams have holes in their rosters, for better or for worse (I lean pretty far towards worse) this league wants everything from the lottery to the playoffs to even free agency to essentially be coin flips.
The return for McDonagh sort of relies on how you feel about Hajek and Howden, but also relies on historic precedence for trading away ‘star’ players. There’s the outlier here and there of the younger player coming back being better than the one traded away, but by far these trades are very formulaic in their returns and I think the McDonagh trade followed that general formula and when I look at returns for a lot of those trades, I feel really confident in saying the Rangers got a lot better quality in the prospects they received than a lot of those other teams (Hajek is one of the guys I’m very confident will be better than Skjei).
As to the letter and basically announcing they were going to trade McDonagh, based on some reports, the decision to rebuild came from Dolan rather than Gorton and co, so the gun to his head really might’ve been losing his job. A similar thing, but on the other side of this coin, just happened with Vancouver this offseason where their ownership decided they wanted the team to make the playoffs this season, Linden felt that they weren’t ready for that yet and that it would be detrimental to their long term vision and eventually stepped down because of it, Benning took ownerships side and went out and signed a bunch of plugs to 4 year deals.
For the prospect pool rankings, it’s really hard to gauge, but here’s how I feel about these neutral sources: they’re just opinions of 1-5 people who might be more or less informed than HF posters (HF boards voted the Rangers prospect pool 5th or 6th like a month and a half ago. I keep thinking more and more lately that all of this rankings stuff just ends up being an appeal to authority, but an authority of your choosing. I personally feel like the Rangers have as deep of a prospect pool as any other teams, but that’s not to say it’s without its holes, which isn’t that surprising considering it’s only started being overhauled like 15 months ago.
As for the general front office, I’m hot and cold on them and don’t think they’re without their faults (the attempted retool thing, while I think the individual moves were fine, I think it was a profound misstep and led them to the rebuild). While I’m more on your side in that Gorton isn’t a radical departure and that there’s not really a clear line to be drawn because he was a big part of the old front office, he was also a part of the front office that turned those mediocre Rangers teams into legitimate Stanley Cup contenders and in doing so, also changed how the entire NHL plays hockey (even if it ended up giving the Penguins the blueprint for them to win back to back cups, whether they really deserved them or lucked into them) and I don’t think their detractors give them enough credit for that.
I only got to see the third period and overtime yesterday so I can’t really speak on whether it was a close game or not, but I will say I think Chytil and Andersson are ready to be in the NHL full time, but I also think they’re not quite ready to be completely consistent from game to game in the NHL, some of that is from their youth and some of that is from them just needing to learn and adjust to the NHL. My outlook on the short term future of this team is that they’re going to use this season as an extended training camp for next season, take their lumps and bumps along the way, cut what fat they can and are willing to cut, sign a Panarin or (hopefully Karlsson) this offseason (y not both?) and make a go at the playoffs next season.
*exhale*
