The problem that some people have with your point of view is:
1.) Draft picks are a crapshoot. We could finish dead last and still not end up with the 1st overall pick. A top 5 pick is nice but it doesn't mean a damned thing (see: Edmonton) if you don't build the right way around them with the right kinds of players (vets, young guys, character guys, 1st and 2nd year pros, etc...)
2.) You're constantly characterizing younger guys (like Hayes, 26) as if they're over the hill and should be traded for even more picks. At some point you have to keep some of your talent. Particularly if it's a guy you drafted or developed.
3.) Your version of that you think the Rangers should be building also isn't going to guarantee anything either.
4.) There's no magic formula to winning a cup. You have to draft smart, You have to have the right coaching staff in place to match the team you've assembled, you have to manage the cap intelligently, you have to have leaders in the room, you have to have luck through an extended playoff run, you have to have minimal injuries during that playoff run, etc...
Winning the Stanley Cup has become harder and harder as the NHL progresses and the Cap, and the subsequent parity, magnifies that.
97% of NHL teams fail to win a Stanley Cup EVERY year. That's a lot of failure.
Yeah, I would've liked to win the Cup during the timespan you mentioned. Came close. Didn't. Still pretty proud of that group of guys that achieved more than most of us around here would've thought they could. I get that that isn't enough for you but I'd venture that most of the posts in this "Roster Building" thread are by Rangers fans that want to win a Cup that have a differing viewpoint on how to get there. Maybe you should be a little more tolerant about those alternatives and a little less snarky with those that have a different vision than yours. Seems like we all want the same thing.
While I think that is all true, I just think about it a bit differently
If Draft picks are a crap shoot, then the more free rolls you have the better the odds, if the odds of winning increase the earlier you take those rolls it makes sense to have them earlier. The Kings team that beat the Rangers, two of the major players were drafted #2 and #11. They used a former #5 to trade partially for another key member. Point being they stank they draft highly, eventually built a team that was a Cup winner. Rangers have had #7, and #9, I think without the #2 or so they are going to still be missing something, perhaps even without another top 10 pick doing something. Every Edmonton, Buffalo, Arizona is countered by LA, Hawks, Pens, there may be just plain market forces as well as managerial prowess that differentiates them.
Hayes is not over the hill, he is just not going to put up the elite/near elite production that some players are going to have to in a Cup run. As a secondary player that draws match-ups sure he could be helpful but without a center, some wing, some top pair D playing around/above him at an elite/near elite level the timing is just not there for the Rangers.
There are no guarantees I agree, there is however history that shows from the salary cap on the teams that have won the cup have done things in a similar manner. There is a comparison that can be made between all of them with perhaps only the Bruins being the outlier and even they drafted some players that in hindsight should have gone at or near the top of their drafts. Do the Rangers want to go with luck with later picks or do they want to follow what the non outliers have done?
It's not a magic formula, it's how the CBA is set up, it rewards bad teams and punishes those who are stuck in the middle. There is a built in supply and demand, there is timing to that, teams can either fight against all that and try to come out on top or they can just accept that more or less that is the way it is, go with it for a couple years and then eventually change gears.
Quite honestly it's not like I have a solution, or would do much differently than what the Rangers are, other than have kept the youngest prospects in the AHL. So it's not like I am bashing them, in fact they are progressing pretty well. It's just that even with that progress, the group that is progressing, I just don't see a elite/near elite core being built, more so a core that seems to more closely resembles all the cores they have had that failed to win a Cup. Perhaps Kravtsov, Miller or whoever else they have drafted who are just starting their draft plus seasons will provide some of that at the NHL level some day, I hope so.
Yet if they do not and the Rangers decide enough with this stockpiling, it's time to flick the switch, It sure seems to me like it's still going to end up a insurmountable uphill battle once they face the teams in the playoffs who did not flick the switch until they did draft and knew they drafted some elite/near elite stuff. Everything else just falls into place way easier if there is already a couple players on their entry levels who are among the best of their peers at the top line, a top pair, without that foundation everything else always has to play above where they probably should.
