A mediocre team that overachieved riding their stud goalie last year. Their fans and GM turn on the captain, and very publicly try to dump him 6 months ago, finally succeeding recently. And you wonder why the team started playing like shit? There's two sayings that come to mind, 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' and 'f*** around and find out.'
I don't like the Rags, but they weren't broken. In fact quite the opposite, they've gone much further than they had any buisness going based on that roster. Especially with $20m in overpaid players like Panarin and Zib.
So what do they do? The fanbase turns on Trouba and the GM makes it his mission to dump the guy. Problem is he's still the captain, and correct me if I'm wrong, was still beloved by his teammates. That's not the guy you move even if he is slightly overpaid. And I don't blame the players for playing like shit when they just seen how the organization (and fans) treated their teammate and leader. Karma's a bitch and the Rangers are finding that out. I called this after the Goodrow situation and again when they finally dumped Trouba.
I respect the vigor with which the Rags treated a player they preceived to be a problem, I really do. I wish the Leafs and the fans would treat the muskoka 4 in a similar fashion. But next time scapegoat the right guy. Don't do it to the captain who's slightly regressed. Do it to a truly overpaid and useless f*** like Zib.
Look at Benn in Dallas. He's been their captain forever. He's regressed and is no longer worth the cap hit. But instead of turning on him, the team found a role a little lower on the depth chart, he's had a bit of a resurgence, the team is a cup contender, and he'll probably re-sign for a much nicer cap hit. That's how you properly handle the situation.
I agree with the majority of this very much. As a lifelong NYR fan turned Dallas local for quite some time (with no rooting conflict because of divisions) I follow these two teams extensively.
The handling of Benn has been perfect. Seguin too, and he was showing a resurgence before surgery this year as well - likely because the Stars have done a good job infusing the lineup with talent and putting guys in positions to succeed.
Trouba realistically is better than 4/6 of the D we now have on the roster. Rangers fans will come in here in droves to tell you he’s an ECHL level bag of trash, blah, blah but the reality is he’s beyond fine as a 4/5 D and his contract was the issue. Which is fine, except what are we even doing with the cap space? And why is our cap structure so shitty that Dallas can easily afford having Benn and Seguin decline and still be on massive contracts but NYR couldn’t navigate Trouba’s decline more gracefully.
The only part of your post I did want to chime in to disagree with was the mention of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Sadly, for the die hard Rangers fans, we have known it’s been broken for quite a while. Not as broken as it now reveals itself to be - that’s been compounded by malcontent players, physical declines for key players who very much relied on their physical tools (Kreider and Lindgren, chiefly) and the absolutely baffling implosion of Mika Zibanejad - but we knew our defensive structure and team commitment to D was problematic, our 5v5 offense was straight up anorexic, and our physicality/willingness to play in the tough areas or adopt a hardnosed, north/south game were all really, genuinely LARGE problems for years.
The decline of a few key pieces and the fallout of the handling of Goodrow and Trouba cap hits have certainly amplified those existing issues and resulted in them biting us much harder than anyone had anticipated, but it is irrefutable that this team had been not just overachieving, but flat out surviving entirely off of it’s PP and goaltending. Realistically, despite the President’s Trophy and ECF appearance, the QUALITY of the Rangers roster last year was much closer to deserving a wild card spot than being considered a contender.
This may sound quite familiar to you all, but as with Henrik Lundqvist, the NYR are an immensely mediocre team that has been propped up by world class goaltending efforts.
