Speculation: Roster Building Thread Part XI: We can read between the lines

[Lindberg Cheese]

I believe management really has to go through with this and rebuild from now through the draft. The Rangers are in an unprecedented position where they can revamp this entire organization within two years.

Analyzing this team's future core is exciting. We have three blue-chip prospects in our system (Chytil, Andersson, Shestyorkin) and a decent 25 and under core, as well as pieces like Kreider and Shattenkirk who will still produce at their current level when the team is ready to compete again.

First things first, fire AV. Team won't go anywhere with him at the helm.

Zuccarello would be a great add for a contender. Boston. Could we get DeBrusk and a 1st out of them? If so, do it.

Send Grabner to Nashville. His speed and versatility is invaluable for a deep playoff run. Depth scoring. Dante Fabbro and a 3rd round pick as a return.

Nash has to be moved. I think Anaheim would bite. Retain half his salary and acquire their 1st rounder.

Holden and DD can be of use to bubble teams looking for extra depth. Walking away with a 4th and a 5th would be a victory.

I think a McDonagh trade, as painful as it would be to move him, is the right move. Trade him to Vancouver for Olli Juolevi and Vancouver's 1st at the draft.

Draft day. Due to injuries and a deadline day sell off, the Rangers hold the 9th overall selection. Vancouver has the 7th overall pick. Boston picks 27th. Anaheim 29th.

Trade the 9th overall and the 27th overall for pick #3 or 4.

Draft Filip Zadina. Oliver Wahlstrom at #7. Pick Jett Woo at #29. Take chances on some skill players in the second and third round.

Suddenly you have all of these players with legitimate NHL potential under 25

C -- Filip Chytil, Mika Zibanejad, Lias Andersson, Boo Nieves, Gabriel Fontaine
RW -- Filip Zadina, Pavel Buchnevich, Jake DeBrusk, Ty Ronning
LW -- Oliver Wahlstrom, JT Miller, Jimmy Vesey, Vinni Lettieri
D -- Brady Skjei, Olli Juolevi, Jett Woo, Dante Fabbro, Tony DeAngelo, Neal Pionk, Sean Day, Ryan Graves, Brandon Crawley
G -- Igor Shestyorkin, Adam Huska

Add to that players such as Kreider, Hayes, Shattenkirk, Smith who are all under the age of 30.

You can add some UFAs to augment the young guys. There will be growing pains. But with an embarrassment of riches in the prospect pool, you set yourself up with a world of possibilities. In today's NHL, cost controlled assets are insanely valuable and this organization could go from bottom tier to top tier in a matter of months in that regard.

And engulf the planet in hot liquid magma.....

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

The rebuild will last however long it takes us to find franchise players at center and defense.

Funny, cause we already had our #1 defenseman.

Until we bought him out.

 

[Machinehead]

Until we bought him out.

Don't do that to me

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Are you allowed to just release RFA's? Or is there some provision saying you have to tender them an offer?

 

[Off Sides]

Are you allowed to just release RFA's? Or is there some provision saying you have to tender them an offer?

Teams do not have to qualify RFAs, if they do not, the RFA turns into a UFA and any other team can sign them.

Yet if a team does sign them, if the player still has RFA years left, he becomes a RFA again.

 

[Mac n Gs]

Are you allowed to just release RFA's? Or is there some provision saying you have to tender them an offer?

You can just not tender them, but I don’t see the point since tendering yields you compensation if that player signs an offer sheet. I don’t see any reason to do this with any of our RFAs.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

I'd tender Vesey an offer, but if he wants anything over the minimum, release him.

Miller's going to be a tougher decision. I'd try to keep him, but if he wants a big deal, I wouldn't be against trading him. Same situation with Skjei, don't want to overpay him because he had secondary assists in his rookie season. If he wants too much, you threaten a trade.

 

[Mac n Gs]

I'd tender Vesey an offer, but if he wants anything over the minimum, release him.

Miller's going to be a tougher decision. I'd try to keep him, but if he wants a big deal, I wouldn't be against trading him. Same situation with Skjei, don't want to overpay him because he had secondary assists in his rookie season. If he wants too much, you threaten a trade.

I knew this would be about Vesey

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

I knew this would be about Vesey

Brooks wrote about it yesterday. I'm giving my opinion on the issues the team likely wanted him to put out in the media.

 

[Inferno]

Vesey and a 4th for Galchenyuk

Git r dun.

 

[Kovalev27]

I like vesey but I think he’s a 4th line winger that can score some goals for you. He could give you 20 goals too but under 5 assists a year. Can’t kill penalties.

He’s a tough one. But I like his size skating and nose around the net. But the kid can’t make a pass to anyone.

Ideally I’d love to see him on a 4th line with Nieves and Fast next year.

 

[Kovalev27]

Miller is a keeper

 

[Inferno]

Miller is a keeper

Not at 5m...which is what he'll get. I'd be interested in flipping him for a high upside prospect or established defenseman. Preferably a lefty.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

The team has tough decisions to make, and I don't think they should make any of them based on trying to remain competitive. If we gut the team of Miller and Skjei, and trade for picks/prospects, we'll be even worse. Trading McDonagh and Zuccarello would already make us bad, but I don't think we should make bad decisions just to keep a competitive team. I'd like to keep all of those players for the right price, but if you don't get it, don't give out bad contracts.

I'm completely fine with a big rebuild, I know others aren't.

 

[Off Sides]

Usually teams almost always qualify their RFAs, in general the only time it becomes an issue is if the qualifying offer is higher than a team wants to go to.

That does not happen often, unless the player was bridged. It happened with Del Zotto for example, Rangers used the bridge , the last year salary of that bridge was 2.9M, any qualifier would have added, I think 10%, so the Rangers ended up trading him as they did not think he was worth it. Nashville took him on and ended up not qualifying him. He signed as a UFA with the Flyers, but turned to a RFA, they still held his RFA rights. They bridged him again for 2 years.

Vesey will be qualified, at that point if he or the Rangers can not come up with something both sides are happy with, they can go to arbitration. Vesey in my opinion ends up on a 2 year bridge deal of around 1M cap hit, similar to what Fast received, which will leave him at end of that contract as a RFA with one year left as such, they'd still hold his rights.

Miller is a different story, he has, I believe only 1 RFA year left, 5x5 (although I think it would be a little less) does not seem out of the question. Yet I wonder if they try to sign him for 3 or 4 years instead, which would lower the cap hit as it's less UFA years. and it leaves him able to get a pure UFA contract sooner. For those who would not want a 5x5, compare that to the 4x4.35 Smith received. So relative to the Rangers I don't think it's that bad, relative to the rest of the league, it fits his production, yet I can understand the reservations given his up and down play.

All the same, cap space in general, without Nash, with an elevated cap, and if they really are building through draft development, it should not be that much of an issue going forward.

 

[LeetchisGod]

Miller is a keeper

Miller's putrid playoff performance to this point is a concern. You can't have a top six forward who is a consistent no show in the playoffs.

 

[Mac n Gs]

Brooks wrote about it yesterday. I'm giving my opinion on the issues the team likely wanted him to put out in the media.

He’s cheap depth and is good for 15-10 a year. He has size, speed, and can generate a lot of chances around the net. If AV didn’t constantly overdeploy him, I don’t think we’d have as much of a problem with him.

He’s another one of those kids that have won at every level playing as fierce competitiors that have suddenly started playing like they don’t give a shit.

 

[SA16]

Better strategy is to throw any analysis that includes the words “in the playoffs” out the window

 

[Mac n Gs]

Better strategy is to throw any analysis that includes the words “in the playoffs” out the window

What, small sample sizes spread out over years isn’t your cup of tea?

 

[Gardner McKay]

He was definitely asking for Sergachev+++ at one point.

Pretty sure he asked for Chabot at one point from Ottawa as well. Ryan Murray from Columbus was a rumor for a while. He got a decent package, but not anywhere close to what he was rumored to have been asking for at first.

Well, there is the first problem. Sakic is an idiot. But even as poorly as Sakic played the whole Duchene ordeal, he still got a truckload for the kid. Gorton knows what else is available around the NHL.

If Gorton asks for Heiskanen + 1st + 2nd from Dallas and Dallas says no but... here is what we can offer, 1st + 1st + 2nd + something else, maybe JG can find a Dougie Hamilton situation and snag him for a few picks instead. My overall point was don't settle for anything less than what you want value wise. If you take something different from what you want, only do it because you know for certain it can help you get what you want.

Sakic got SIX pieces, 3 of them are NHL ready pieces for basically Stepan minus the clauses.

If that is the case, McDonagh brings back at least a Sergachev, a 1st rounder, a 2nd rounder, an immediate roster replacement, and a throwaway prospect.

Not to mention Duchene is absurdly overrated.

When Beezer was the same age as McDonagh now, Neil Smith decided to trade him because Richter emerged as clearly capable as a starter. Smith searched for the perfect trade for over a year and refused to trade VBK until he found that trade. Eventually, he got to the 1993 expansion draft and had to deal Beezer for Doug Lidster, by then an aging #7 defenseman.

A more recent, but less extreme example of that was Talbot. Apparently there was a first round option available, but the Rangers went chasing something better and got very little at the end.

If you don't find what you want then no big deal as you start to explore re-signing him. We don't HAVE to trade McDonagh now. I personally believe we will get a better deal if we do but maybe Gorton is able to pull of an absolute heist at the draft. We have options and he is too important of a piece to just take the best deal we can get. This isn't a Talbot situation. Talbot was basically found money.

 

[Mikos87]

Fantastic ****ing post. I take it you have some info that we don't have in the public space

I'm lumping all of these together so that everyone sees them.

Some fantastic assets coming back. You're looking at an eventual McD replacement, at least 2 1st round picks, couple of 2nd round picks, couple of mid round picks, and at least one top prospect, if not two.

Thanks... I posted this about a month ago, but BUF is the team holding up the market.

EKane & Mike Green will be the highest yielding rentals... and that's with some teams not willing to touch EKane.

So for those teams.. Nash & Grabner are options A & B or B & C if they want EKane. That's all I can account for at this stage.

This year, there are maybe 3 real deal contenders.. TB, BOS, NSH... then you have STL, WPG, LV..... WSH, TOR.. DAL, LA

Unless some team goes on a tear, I don't see other teams buying.

You'd have to imagine 5-6 are willing to pony up for their needs.. and the rest are smaller buys.

Out of those teams... BOS, TOR, STL, WPG have absolutely stacked farms & picks. NSH is mildly depleted from the Turris deal... TB.. they aren't filled with hot prospects but have some good depth.

I would say the Rangers have 5 good dance partners.

 

[Nopuckluck]

I'd tender Vesey an offer, but if he wants anything over the minimum, release him.

Miller's going to be a tougher decision. I'd try to keep him, but if he wants a big deal, I wouldn't be against trading him. Same situation with Skjei, don't want to overpay him because he had secondary assists in his rookie season. If he wants too much, you threaten a trade.

Bottom six guy. Gritty. Two years in the league. Scores 15-20 goals. Let’s get rid of him!

 

[GAGLine]

That does not happen often, unless the player was bridged. It happened with Del Zotto for example, Rangers used the bridge , the last year salary of that bridge was 2.9M, any qualifier would have added, I think 10%, so the Rangers ended up trading him as they did not think he was worth it.

If the prior year salary is 660k or less, it's 110%. If the salary is > 660k and < 1 mil, it's 105%. If the salary is >= 1 mil, it's 100%. So Del Zotto's QO would have been 2.9 mil.

 

[Off Sides]

If the prior year salary is 660k or less, it's 110%. If the salary is > 660k and < 1 mil, it's 105%. If the salary is >= 1 mil, it's 100%. So Del Zotto's QO would have been 2.9 mil.

Thanks I did not feel like looking it up

All the same I'm pretty certain Vesey gets qualified and was just trying to add some background as to why some players do not.

 

[GAGLine]

Thanks I did not feel like looking it up

All the same I'm pretty certain Vesey gets qualified and was just trying to add some background as to why some players do not.

Oh, he will definitely get qualified. It's rare that a player, playing in the NHL and coming off his ELC, doesn't get qualified. Vesey hasn't lived up to a lot of people's expectations, but that doesn't make him a bad player. He's still trying to figure out what sort of player he is at this level. He's used to being a scorer, but he may need to develop more of a defensive, grinding game to find his niche in the NHL.

The good news is, he isn't going to get much of a raise. He'll get a 2 year deal at something under 2 mil per year, would be my guess. I think we'll give him at least another year to see if he can carve out a role on this team. If not, maybe he gets traded for some other team's player with unrealized potential.