Speculation: Roster Building Thread II (2022-23): The Puck is Prepared to be Mounted

[McRanger92]

I see its time for our weekly bitching and moaning session about the Buchnevich trade

 

[EdJovanovski]

Lmfao

 

[duhmetreE]

 

[Boris Zubov]

I see its time for our weekly bitching and moaning session about the Buchnevich trade

It's the leagues' fault for giving us 3 days between games.

 

[Machinehead]

At least Brodzinski is playing. I quite like him.

 

[Glen Sathers Cigar]

Having a hard cup sucks. Teams have to lose players they don't want to lose entirely because of the fact that they can't fit the contract. Other leagues have to consider contract status for certain reasons but the NHL is the only league where a team will get rid of a player who is in his prime because they can't afford his fair market rate contract (Buchnevich perfect example). It's a league where accounting comes first and building the best team possible comes second. Having to explain to casual fans why your team is making a move that makes the team worse on the ice because of the salary cap implications sucks. The Rangers are the richest team in the league, they should be able to do things (within reason) that a team like Arizona can't do the same way the Yankees or Dodgers can flex their financial muscle in the MLB compared to low budget teams. The Rangers bring in so much more revenue to the league than the lower teams in the league and they can only spend the same amount. Sure you can benefit with front loading deals (league trimmed that benefit back of course) and signing bonuses (I'm sure the league will do something about that) and stuff, but it pales in comparison to what they should be able to do.

Players are paid less than the other pro sports and yet the fan experience is exceedingly expensive. All this system benefits is the owners.

Having a basically flat cap for 3 years straight on top of the hard cap system is a nightmare.

NHL GMs are conservative in the modern era, but that's really a product of the cap forcing them to be so conservative. Can't take any big swings because of the cap implications.

Player movement is fun. Trades are fun. Aggressive GMs trying to get better every season is fun. The current system sucks. I'm fine with a sort of Cap, but this 100% hard cap system is shit, especially with a cap that barely creeps up.

Every year Buttman is talking about record revenues and things have never been better and yet the fan costs are out of control ( I have to basically refi the mortgage on my home to take my family to a random January Rangers game) and players are squeezed out of their worth salary wise and the salary cap has been virtually flat for 3 years. Idk what the answer is but it's not a hard cap.

 

[IDvsEGO]

Friedman made a good point on Marek’s show the other day: Hard to pass judgment without seeing the underlying numbers. The NHL added a lot of new revenue streams, but the players also owed the owners a ton of money from covid. Would the players be even further behind without the new revenue streams? Are the owners cooking the books? We don't have access to the underlying number.

Hard to pass judgment without seeing the underlying numbers. The NHL added a lot of new revenue streams, but the players also owed the owners a ton of money from covid. Would the players be even further behind without the new revenue streams? Are the owners cooking the books? We don't have access to the underlying numbers.

Here’s the thing, no other professional sports league made the players split the difference. That’s what insurance was for. Baseball played without fans, football had reduced crowds, basketball had no fans.

Didn’t matter.

They all had insurance to pay out on lost revenues.
The nhl likely did too, and there’s a good chance the owners are double dipping, and without an audit there’s no way to catch it.

 

[Oscar Lindberg]

I didn’t expect Gallant to change lineup after the win but god the Rangers are good at torpedoing their top picks value

 

[Raspewtin]

Panarin-ZIbanejad-Goodrow is a line that's so laughably bad I can't believe someone over the age of 13 thought of it, let alone stuck to it.

Goodrow really fooled a lot of people into thinking he's anything more than a good #9 on the F depth chart

 

[duhmetreE]

Having current day Trouba and Sammy "yet to score" Blais on PP2.

How can you logically come to these conclusions? The mental gymnastics would have to be olympic worthy.

 

[EdJovanovski]

 

[Raspewtin]

I see its time for our weekly bitching and moaning session about the Buchnevich trade

As much as it's boring reading the same talking points, we are paying dearly for this trade and its consequences.

Blais is absolute dog shit (through no fault of his own but he wasn't good before the Subban thing either) and seemingly has a spot locked in regardless of what he does

he still doesnt have a damn goal! Buchnevich has more goals as a Blue than Blais has SHOTS as a Ranger! It's such a cataclysmic organizational failure that it really can't be avoided.

 

[Boris Zubov]

Here’s the thing, no other professional sports league made the players split the difference. That’s what insurance was for. Baseball played without fans, football had reduced crowds, basketball had no fans.

Didn’t matter.

They all had insurance to pay out on lost revenues.
The nhl likely did too, and there’s a good chance the owners are double dipping, and without an audit there’s no way to catch it.

All those leagues were intelligent enough to see the bigger picture & not treat this as a short sighted money grab. The NFL as greedy as & slimy as they are understands that keeping people interested, whether it's in the stadium or even more so on TV, is the lifeblood of their business. Same with the NBA....they're smart enough to promote & market their stars, and do everything they can to keep people watching. Sure it's an awful product, IMO, but the league has figured out their fans love their dynasty teams & their rivalries, with tons of player movement from year to year.

All the NHL does is give me more reasons to stop watching. We have most teams that cannot afford to add a decent 3rd liner without dressing 7 4th liners or a bunch of AHLers.

When the season began you could argue we had six 4th liners
Goodrow
Reaves
Vesey
Hunt
Carpenter
Blais

SInce then we've upgraded them with
Gauthier
Brodzinski

If the cap stays stagnant yet again, the projection for 23-24 looks even bleaker for our bottom 6. We'll be forced to move on from Goodrow & dress guys like Cuylie & Rydahl who may be completely overmatched at the NHL level. Nevermind trying to actually IMPROVE the team. Yet, this is the leagues' marquee USA franchise.

This is the same league that is allowing one of their teams to play on a college campus with a capacity of 4700 seats. The same league who forces Leah Hextall & Emily Kaplan down our throats, and now these obnoxious interactive ads on the boards that intentionally distract viewers during game play. I could go on & on, but on Day 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals, Bettman will make his State of the NHL address & tell me that the league & the "game" have never been better, so clearly I'm the only one who has a problem with this.

 

[duhmetreE]

once again, Gallant is scared to put some kids on his vet lines to play defense. If that's the case it can still work with Kravtsov.

Panarin Zibs Kakko
Laffy Chytil Kravtsov
Kreider Trocheck Goodrow
Vesey Brodz Gauthier

but no.

 

[Fitzy]

Sometimes I read discussions like this and wonder existentially about the future of sports. Will people still be interested in hockey and football 100 years from now? A thousand?? Are we in the infancy of sports such that future generations will have to wear three digit numbers or will sports eventually turn back into a primarily amateur affair?

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

Kravtsov being scratched is a nothing burger. He sucks.

These lines are stupid though.

 

[Boris Zubov]

Sometimes I read discussions like this and wonder existentially about the future of sports. Will people still be interested in hockey and football 100 years from now? A thousand?? Are we in the infancy of sports such that future generations will have to wear three digit numbers or will sports eventually turn back into a primarily amateur affair?

I completely agree. Kids these days are already growing up without a fanatical approach to following their teams that just 15-20 years earlier seemed highly unlikely. MLB viewership numbers in that demographic are frightening...& with good reason, the sport is unwatchable in its current form.

 

[MrAlmost]

Owners don't have to cook the books. No one else is allowed to audit them so they are nigh untouchable at this point. Pieces of shit.

Well, I like Chytil and Kakko as a pair, just not sure about Laf. Not moving his feet enough. Would just rather see Laf-Z-Kakko stapled together. Balances the lines better with Panarin and Chytil. As has been said, sometimes you just gotta tell these babies you are playing with who I say and shut the f*** up.

Krav aint gonna play. Got to let it go. He will be traded for something. What that is, I don't know, but you better pray it isnt Kane cause he isn't what we need. We shouldn't cater to Panarin who doesnt have a shot on goal in 2022 and might be on his way out sooner rather than later.

I like the Kreider-Tro-Vesey line. That one can stay together. They work well.

I think once the team gets that top 6 RW they want, Goodrow-Brod-Goat makes for a great 4th line. Speed, aggressive, physical and not without some talent.

f*** Blais. Who holds the record for most games played for the Rangers without a goal?

 

[SA16]

Is anyone concerned that it seems the Habs are ruining Slavkofsky? He's only played 11:39 a game. His most common center is Jack Evans. He's 13th among MTL forwards in 5v5 mins/game among those with 100+ mins played. He's 10th on the team in 5v4 minutes/game amongst forwards. For a rebuilding team they really don't seem to trust him much. I'd have thought they'd just give him top line top PP minutes and let him go. Would they consider something around Kravtsov and one of our firsts?

 

[Fitzy]

I completely agree. Kids these days are already growing up without a fanatical approach to following their teams that just 15-20 years earlier seemed highly unlikely. MLB viewership numbers in that demographic are frightening...& with good reason, the sport is unwatchable in its current form.

It also just seems to me that the ratio of people who enjoy sports versus people that are really into celebrities/the bachelor other competing forms of entertainment are skewing further and further away from our favor among generation Z. Maybe I’m overstating the issue but I’ve never seen young adults less into sports than today

 

[GAGLine]

I do agree with you, generally. It's hard to say from the outside without full access to the numbers.

What I do know is that COVID was a (hopefully) once in a lifetime "act of God". What I do know is the owners collectively possess billions of dollars worth of assets. What I do know is they surely could have access to a ton of capital based on this collateral at historically low interest rates.

I recognize COVID massively impacted revenue. I recognize the CBA governs that the players collective earnings are determined based on league revenue. But the NHL and NHLPA had to negotiate one-time CBA adjustments to return to play post-pandemic.

As part of this negotiation the owners COULD have agreed to pay player salaries, or even a portion of player salaries, for a set period of time regardless of HRR. They could have collectively borrowed the money to do that and paid it off over 10, 15, 20 years. Excluded it from current or future cap calculations, recognizing that the entire world was experiencing a calamity because they had the means to do so.

So that there wasn't still a massive operational overhang on the entire league years after returning to full capacity stadiums. So that it didn't impact the on-ice product. Hell, they could have sold jersey, board, and glass ads to me under the guise of repaying that debt and I would have been ok with it.

They didn't do that, they didn't even entertain it. They took advantage of the situation to line their own pockets at the expense of their customers via the on-ice product. To say the least that sits poorly with me as a paying customer.

They could have cut player salaries to account for lower revenues and enforce the 50/50 split each year, but they didn't do that either. Instead they paid the players their full salaries and then let the players pay them back over time.

Would you rather the salary cap had dropped by 10 mil or more?

 

[TominNC]

Let's keep the winning going

 

[Leonardo87]

Lmfao

They won 4 in a row. Kids are starting to produce and contribute. Lines aren’t changing

 

[TominNC]

It also just seems to me that the ratio of people who enjoy sports versus people that are really into celebrities/the bachelor other competing forms of entertainment are skewing further and further away from our favor among generation Z. Maybe I’m overstating the issue but I’ve never seen young adults less into sports than today

I don't see that within my family. My kids, nephews and nieces are all mid-20 to mid-30. Of the 15-20of them including significant others, 90% follow sports and 80% are pretty fanatical.

 

[EdJovanovski]

They won 4 in a row. Kids are starting to produce and contribute. Lines aren’t changing

He scratched Krav after winning 2 in a row. Also the lines literally changed throughout winning those 4 in a row lol, Laf & Kakko were on the 1st line. We're winning in spite of this moron coach's decisions, not because of them.