Rangers have lost 6 out of their last 7 games. What would you do if you were Dolan (the owner of the team) or Drury (the GM)?

[Ghost of Murph]

I wouldn't do anything right now. Decent enough roster with multiple guys slumping. See if they can work their way out of the funk. Lavi is a good coach. If the slumping continues he will be the obvious fall guy and the GM will see if they can get a bounce with a new coach. I just don't see this as a coaching issue, though, rather a players need to get their head out of their ass issue.

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

 

[LetsGoBLUES91]

They’ll be alright. But to be honest I would have fired Drury an hour after the Buchnevich trade

 

[Pure Slaughter Value]

Don't FALL for "win now with vets" BS

Trade expensive vets, play da kids

If Drury had listened to Bern Rangers would've expanded window

 

[TanguaySauce]

If I’m Dolan I start to care more about the Knicks because that’s literally what he does

 

[wunderpanda]

if i'm dolan...
-fly to quebec city, hartford, houston, atlanta and make sure someone tracks it on flightaware & posts about it
-meet with port authority or whatever office runs the train station under msg
-make a vague press release about the meetings not being related to relocation

now everyone will speculate about relocation instead of wins & losses, the gm can say the speculation in the media isn't a distraction and the coach & players can talk about how great the fans are.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Go back in time and trade whatever for Jack Eichel I guess

 

[SladeWilson23]

@Machinehead I saw your post in the now deleted Kredier to Van thread. You said they had two fluke runs to the ECF.

My question to you is how can you call those 2 runs to the ECF flukes when you also had another 50 win season in-between those 2 ECF runs?

 

[Machinehead]

@Machinehead I saw your post in the now deleted Kredier to Van thread. You said they had two fluke runs to the ECF.

My question to you is how can you call those 2 runs to the ECF flukes when you also had another 50 win season in-between those 2 ECF runs?

I'm gonna get heat for this, but the truth is, wins and losses are an absolutely terrible indicator of how you're playing.

Let's say you win 4-3. That's a pretty common score. The sample size is 7. Stretch that out over 10 games, and you have a sample of 70 scoring events. Basketball has 70 scoring events in a game. Ok, so basketball is pretty high-scoring. But in football you still have to go all the way down the field. Every yard is a measurable event. In baseball, every pitch is a measurable event. Both sports are sequenced play by play.

Hockey is a cacophony of speed and a rubber disc bouncing all over the place with no sequencing and very limited control over the object in play. Which shots go in is essentially random, and it's very rare that there's a win or a loss that isn't close to going the other way based on bounces and the whims of the universe.

The Rangers were extremely lucky last year. Add that on top of elite goaltending and an elite powerplay, and you win some games. Anybody who's paying attention to this team and not just saying "hey they won!" will tell you that this team has been an absolute chore to watch for four seasons now.

 

[TGWL]

@Machinehead I saw your post in the now deleted Kredier to Van thread. You said they had two fluke runs to the ECF.

My question to you is how can you call those 2 runs to the ECF flukes when you also had another 50 win season in-between those 2 ECF runs?

They have this ability on any given night to do absolutely nothing, and then find a way to make that 1 play out of nowhere to score a goal.

 

[Machinehead]

They have this ability on any given night to do absolutely nothing, and then find a way to make that 1 play out of nowhere to score a goal.

View attachment 943610

Right, which isn't terribly repeatable and is gonna go in peaks and valleys.

They're getting nothing right now in terms of things going their way.

They're probably not this bad but they were never that good.

 

[SladeWilson23]

I'm gonna get heat for this, but the truth is, wins and losses are an absolutely terrible indicator of how you're playing.

Let's say you win 4-3. That's a pretty common score. The sample size is 7. Stretch that out over 10 games, and you have a sample of 70 scoring events. Basketball has 70 scoring events in a game. Ok, so basketball is pretty high-scoring. But in football you still have to go all the way down the field. Every yard is a measurable event. In baseball, every pitch is a measurable event. Both sports are sequenced play by play.

Hockey is a cacophony of speed and a rubber disc bouncing all over the place with no sequencing and very limited control over the object in play. Which shots go in is essentially random, and it's very rare that there's a win or a loss that isn't close to going the other way based on bounces and the whims of the universe.

The Rangers were extremely lucky last year. Add that on top of elite goaltending and an elite powerplay, and you win some games. Anybody who's paying attention to this team and not just saying "hey they won!" will tell you that this team has been an absolute chore to watch for four seasons now.

I actually don't disagree with any of that. I do believe that there are certain scenarios where a full season or even multiple seasons can in fact be small sample sizes.

I'm on record saying a goalie's SV% can be artificially deflated over entire seasons and even careers when playing on strong defensive teams. Brodeur playing on such strong defensive teams deflated his SV% because he played in so many low shot total games. HD chances is actually not correlative to total shots.

Anyways that is a different topic altogether albeit coincides with the idea of full seasons being small sample sizes.

I still don't know if "fluke" is the word I'd use. It is proven that teams can play the PDO game and win Cups that way.

 

[Tawnos]

Luck really does not describe what we've seen from the Rangers over the last few years. There are some people who go too hard-in on statistics and decide that there are only two elements to performance. Statistics and luck. Basically, they form opinions as if the human element to the game doesn't exist. I enjoy statistics, but in small sample sizes (which are rightly pointed out), it's easier to make statistical outcomes take a back seat to other things.

The Rangers weren't lucky last year. They weren't lucky in 2022 either. They had a team capable of willing itself to wins at a high level... right up until they had to play against a team that could match or best their will, and best their talent too.

The problem sometimes with that kind of thing is that sometimes it can be fickle. It relies a huge amount on confidence. If the Rangers had found a way early on in this stretch to come back in one of those games like they did so often last year, they would have kept winning. Instead, they failed to do what they'd become accustomed to doing and it destroyed their confidence. That started a self-perpetuating cycle. Then it hurt them even more that their captain couldn't get out of his own head.

It doesn't help that Laviolette doesn't have them playing a system that they can always fall back on when things go south. But it was never just luck.

 

[mphmiles]

The next 15 games or so will likely determine a lot of futures in NY. Rangers have benefitted from an extremely soft schedule to start the year (2nd easiest in the league) and they have a couple more cupcakes before their schedule becomes a gauntlet. 4 games from now:

Stars
Hurricanes
Devils
Lightning
Panthers
Bruins
Blackhawks
Stars
Devils
Vegas
Colorado

They have a very short window to get it figured out or they're going to be heavily behind the 8 ball for the 2nd half of the year.

 

[umma gumma]

They should target Brady Tkachuk.

 

[FoxysExpensiveNYDigs]

The next 15 games or so will likely determine a lot of futures in NY. Rangers have benefitted from an extremely soft schedule to start the year (2nd easiest in the league) and they have a couple more cupcakes before their schedule becomes a gauntlet. 4 games from now:

Stars
Hurricanes
Devils
Lightning
Panthers
Bruins
Blackhawks
Stars
Devils
Vegas
Colorado

They have a very short window to get it figured out or they're going to be heavily behind the 8 ball for the 2nd half of the year.

Actually hoping they get slaughtered in that run of games to cement Drury's position into moving the rotten core and end any thoughts of buying at the deadline.

They should target Brady Tkachuk.

Shhhhhh! You'll get accused of "Soft Tampering."

 

[FiveTacos]

Hockey is a cacophony of speed and a rubber disc bouncing all over the place with no sequencing and very limited control over the object in play. Which shots go in is essentially random, and it's very rare that there's a win or a loss that isn't close to going the other way based on bounces and the whims of the universe.

The Rangers were extremely lucky last year. Add that on top of elite goaltending and an elite powerplay, and you win some games. Anybody who's paying attention to this team and not just saying "hey they won!" will tell you that this team has been an absolute chore to watch for four seasons now.

I don't know about "extremely lucky" ... a great goalie and an excellent PP, those are legitimate parts of a team. Great saves and PP goals count, and I don't consider those things luck. If your great goalie stole you games, if your PP saved you in a few situations, those are legit ways to win. The problem is if you're so dependent on just a couple things, and any of those slip just a little, you could go from top team to mediocre in a hurry.

I would describe it more as "fragile" than "lucky" I suppose. I think the Rangers' generally good record in recent years has indeed felt a little fragile, yet it was still real.

But if they were ever gonna win a Cup, it was going to be one of those "goalie goes nuts with a good enough team," scenarios, as opposed to where they're just the better team 4 series in a row.