Speculation: Roster Building Thread: Part XLV

[and 99 others]

I don't know about you guys, but I can't wait to see which AHL-level goalie the rangers choose to give a 2-year contract in order to meet the Seattle expansion draft requirements. Would be great to see Al Montoya retire with the organization that picked him 6th overall

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

Why is anyone bringing up Bozak? Thought nobody liked Gomez when he was here.

I'm not sure why he was brought up, but now that he has and I'm thinking about it, I'd definitely prefer him over Strome. You might take a hit in points, but he's shown he can play with star wingers and he's much better defensively than Strome (and since a lot of people love faceoffs, Bozak's worst year in FO% was higher than Strome's best by 1.2% and that was the only year Bozak was under 50%)

 

[Thirty One]

Was Vince not tweeting a lot of quotes from the team about how they see him as a RW going forward before game 2?

I don’t know. Would obviously override what I said.

 

[and 99 others]

If you're Seattle who are you taking: Lemieux, Howden or Hajek?

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

I don’t know. Would obviously override what I said.

took a second to find, and it seems like even though it’s heavily weighted towards “he’s a RW,” it still kind of leaves it up in the air

 

[Paulie Walnutz]

you've typed that enough that autocorrect thinks thats what you meant? lol

Political arguments with idiots lol.

 

[Paulie Walnutz]

took a second to find, and it seems like even though it’s heavily weighted towards “he’s a RW,” it still kind of leaves it up in the air

Finally some actual roster building we can discuss on here lol. So like I said if they envision VK as a rw and they already have Buch, KK, and they say Goat prefers rw, either someone is getting traded or Buch or KK move to lw. You don’t want anyone of those guys being wasted on the 4th line. I think Statboy Steve said KK played both wings his last year in Finland or maybe my memory is bad and it was VK. @Amazing Kreiderman

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

Finally some actual roster building we can discuss on here lol. So like I said if they envision VK as a rw and they already have Buch, KK, and they say Goat prefers rw, either someone is getting traded or Buch or KK move to lw. You don’t want anyone or those guys being wasted on the 4th line. I think Statboy Steve said KK played both wings his last year in Finland or maybe my memory is bad and it was VK. @Amazing Kreiderman

If I was going to guess what happens next year, unless he blows the doors off in camp I think VK will spend a good amount of time in Hartford and there's going to be some depth guy signed to be the 3rd/4th line RW with Gauthier

 

[Rangers394]

If VK can take a spot, i think that makes Buchnevich the odd man out very soon. If we do resign him, how much will he cost and for how many years? He's a good player but i don't think we can get too crazy with him. We have Kakko who hopefully becomes a legit 1st liner or a very good 2nd liner and then VK who we hope joins the top 6, are we playing Buch on the 3rd line? I'm not sure he will be worth paying that money to on the 3rd line.

 

[Avery16]

Lots of questions there.

Lots of questions now.

 

[Avery16]

Better center and mentor for Kakko: Mikael Granlund or Erik Haula?

Barkov.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Finally some actual roster building we can discuss on here lol. So like I said if they envision VK as a rw and they already have Buch, KK, and they say Goat prefers rw, either someone is getting traded or Buch or KK move to lw. You don’t want anyone of those guys being wasted on the 4th line. I think Statboy Steve said KK played both wings his last year in Finland or maybe my memory is bad and it was VK. @Amazing Kreiderman

Actually, I did both

 

[usekakkorightquinn]

You need to be realistic. Barkov is not realistic. The guy the Rangers probably could get who could really help develop their young players is Kopitar. I still think he's got 3-4 good years left and he's a beast on draws. He makes 10 million on the cap. So they would have to take Staal back or Smith for starters. Then I would try to send them Strome and a young player like maybe TDA or a couple of young guys like Howden and Hajek. I don't see any reason the Kings would keep Kopitar. That team is going to suck for years. He is useless to them at this point.

 

[pld459666]

Not sure why anyone is concerned about Gauthier being relegated to the 4th line.

He hasn't shown me to be anything more than that.

If our depth down the RW eventually is:

Buchnevich
Kaako
Kravtsov
Gauthier

I'm fine with that.

 

[Unusual Suspect]

And I'm not entirely confident Chytil will even be in the NHL in three years' time. He's soft and doesn't seem to be close to excelling in any aspect of the game. He's young and may find himself in those three years. At present he's not even a valid third liner on any really good team.

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

And I'm not entirely confident Chytil will even be in the NHL in three years' time. He's soft and doesn't seem to be close to excelling in any aspect of the game. He's young and may find himself in those three years. At present he's not even a valid third liner on any really good team.

This is so silly.

At the very least the kid is Benoit Pouliot.

 

[Shesterkybomb]

I'm not sure why he was brought up, but now that he has and I'm thinking about it, I'd definitely prefer him over Strome. You might take a hit in points, but he's shown he can play with star wingers and he's much better defensively than Strome (and since a lot of people love faceoffs, Bozak's worst year in FO% was higher than Strome's best by 1.2% and that was the only year Bozak was under 50%)

He's 34...wtf is wrong with people.

 

[Shesterkybomb]

If you're Seattle who are you taking: Lemieux, Howden or Hajek?

Lemieux hands down

 

[rangers1314]

Marc Staal being on this roster next season is a way bigger problem than Hank being here next season.

I'd love to make a run at signing Joel Edmundson, i just worry he'll get wildly overpaid in UFA.

 

[DutchShamrock]

I posted in the PGT I think the org should be careful about letting the bubble influence player decision making too much, but if nothing else I hope it exposes how flawed this roster still is and how much still needs to be done.

I was not a fan of how the deadline unfolded (Kreider extension, Fast kept) and thought the team as making moves in advance of where they really were. If nothing else the last week should maybe raise some eyebrows about that type of thinking.

100% agree. First, and I'm not making excuses, it wouldn't be smart to take this unique situation and try to extrapolate critical information from it. Second, people have failures all the time. I'd like to see how the coaches and players respond before I cut bait, even Quinn. If you constantly get rid of people for failing their first time, you won't ever take the next step.

I'm not sure what's going on with the roster decisions. But most of them are written in stone and Gorton can't change them now. We knew left d was an issue before bubble hockey. We knew about the bottom 6. Maybe Gorton gets bailed out with Lundqvist and Staal retirements.

Regardless, they really need to put their skilled prospects in a place to... literally do anything. I know @Amazing Kreiderman tweeted this thought the other day, but we need the Kratsov types getting put into a position to learn and play. Kakko was maybe the one silver lining in the series and took a step forward when, surprise surprise, given a shot.

Team looked like trash as usual in front of Hank. The real surprise was how bad they were in front of Igor. We saw how bad play and effort can undermine a great goalie. Team had been night and day this season depending on who was in net. Its criminal that Lundqvist may have played his last game and he couldn't get his due from the fans.

 

[Leetch3]

You need to be realistic. Barkov is not realistic. The guy the Rangers probably could get who could really help develop their young players is Kopitar. I still think he's got 3-4 good years left and he's a beast on draws. He makes 10 million on the cap. So they would have to take Staal back or Smith for starters. Then I would try to send them Strome and a young player like maybe TDA or a couple of young guys like Howden and Hajek. I don't see any reason the Kings would keep Kopitar. That team is going to suck for years. He is useless to them at this point.

lol we have no cap space and you want to bring in kopitar for the last 4 years of his career at $10 mil per year so he can teach the kids?

 

[Leetch3]

I posted in the PGT I think the org should be careful about letting the bubble influence player decision making too much, but if nothing else I hope it exposes how flawed this roster still is and how much still needs to be done.

I was not a fan of how the deadline unfolded (Kreider extension, Fast kept) and thought the team as making moves in advance of where they really were. If nothing else the last week should maybe raise some eyebrows about that type of thinking.

if these 3 games impact any decisions then we are in big trouble cause it means that JD & JG were dumb enough to think this team was better than they are. its one thing for fans to think it, but god I hope the front office wasn't surprised by anything. the only thing we were exposed to was reality. aside from panarin and mika not doing well (assuming they aren't hurt), there was really nothing exposed in these games that shouldn't have already been known or expected this early in the rebuild. we got over-excited and ahead of ourselves, but if you viewed things rationally they should have known about our lack of depth, etc

 

[Avery16]

You need to be realistic. Barkov is not realistic. The guy the Rangers probably could get who could really help develop their young players is Kopitar. I still think he's got 3-4 good years left and he's a beast on draws. He makes 10 million on the cap. So they would have to take Staal back or Smith for starters. Then I would try to send them Strome and a young player like maybe TDA or a couple of young guys like Howden and Hajek. I don't see any reason the Kings would keep Kopitar. That team is going to suck for years. He is useless to them at this point.

We just got swept in the pre-playoffs, let me have a little fun.

 

[TheBloodyNine]

This was a very constructive series loss for the Rangers, and it's not all about the draft pick. Rangers young players now have a taste of what is needed to win in the post season, and Rangers management gets a better idea of what kind of depth they need in order to succeed. If it's possible to find a loss satisfying then this is it. Usually, when young teams first make the playoffs they get their butts handed to them. We got to have that happen in a season where we might not have even made the playoffs, and our rebuild can still chug along by acquiring more top prospects.

 

[NYSPORTS]

Assuming Kravtsov is here next season i hope everybody remains patient. We saw a more battle tested Carolina team sweep a team with many kids. History will likely repeat itself before this team takes the next step.