It's quite simple what's going on. The Rangers have 8 service-able forwards and in a shortened season with no training camp to condition, it's killing them. They looked gassed and couldn't get control of the puck most of the game. Rupp, Halpern, Newbury, Asham and Bickel are just not going to cut it. They don't provide enough speed, skill to play regular minutes and be effective out there. And so it's really hard to keep your top guys off the ice. This team lost its depth and they're just not going to be able to recover this year without some serious changes or some young guys figuring out how to play in the NHL and fast. Most specifically - Hrivik, Kreider. They need some damn skill on those last two lines. Halpern, Rupp, Bickel (as a forward) and Newbury CANNOT KEEP UP with the play. And when they do get the puck, they look downright panicked. This is a disaster for a shortened season. It needs to be rectified if they care about this year. This team suddenly can't even roll 3 lines. When Rupp is on your third line and he's barely getting by, we're in trouble. He should be the 12th forward, not 9th. Anisimov, Mitchell, Prust, Feds - these guys all played bottom 6 and gave us big minutes and could play along the walls and cycle. The good news is, we're only talking about filling a few bottom 6 roles. The bad news - we don't necessarily have any bodies in the organization ready to step in this year. If I were Sather, I dump Gilroy ASAP. I look to make a trade where we can get a guy where half his cap hit stays with his team of origin. So, get a third line guy who's a bit over-priced but get him for 1.5 mil/yr cap hit. I don't know what they'd need to give up to do this, probably a draft pick and maybe a second-teir prospect, but I don't know any other way to fix this squad.
