Speculation: Roster Building Thread: Part XVI

[GoAwayPanarin]

I'll be a bit surprised if Hayes goes as a rental. If he does, I would think there would be a conditional pick or two attached. There will be suitors for both price points. The tricky part is getting Hayes to forego the open market in July to sign with a team in January.

For me, Kreider is a guy I'm confident in signing and keeping around unless a team steps up and makes me an offer I can't refuse. He's a great player and seems to be taking his game to another level this season. He and Zibanejad have truly embraced their roles here and are thriving. There's a point at which a trade can be detrimental to a rebuilding team, even if the assets coming back are excellent. That's where Gorton has to be careful. Trading Kreider could net us some premium pieces but it could also rock the boat so much that it throws it off course.

Guys like Hayes and Zucc will sting but they won't have the ripple effects of dealing a Kreider or Zibby. At least that's the impression I get from the outside.

It goes beyond that for me.

This team sucked last year, but they didn't realllly start to suck until Kreider went down.

 

[effen]

Keep Hayes, if he's your 3rd C that's a bounty of riches. Unless someone gives 125c+ on the dollar for him. Depth down the middle is of the utmost. If you "have" to trade one of the 3 kids up front you can always do that to address areas of weakness. You can handle a 7.5% cap hit (6M on 80M) very easily even on the 3rd line.

The position you can't overpay is defense. Your 6th/7th guys in particular should both be under 2M combined. We're all very familiar with that.

 

[Ghost of jas]

It goes beyond that for me.

This team sucked last year, but they didn't realllly start to suck until Kreider went down.

A few posters have thrown out the idea of Kreider being the next captain. I understand the hesitation by some, but, unlike just about all of the captains after Messier, Kreider seems to have the personality for the role. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. The younger players outwardly respond to him. One of the biggest mistakes Tortorella made was not only not giving the captaincy to Dubinsky over Callahan, but not even giving him the ‘A’. Dubinsky had a brashness that Callahan didn’t have. Kreider, especially now has a cockiness that prior captains never exhibited. Lias has that, too. Having Kreider in the captaincy might be another way to groom the kids.

 

[bobbop]

The Rangers need to sign Kreider. In the right deal (emphasize right deal) I’d be OK trading Mika and keeping Hayes. If you don’t have a couple of high end veterans to anchor the front end, you end up with the Arizona Coyotes. That is not a flattering reference.

Hayes is a low end 2nd line, high end 3rd line center on a very good team. @Edge hit the nail on the head when he said he couldn’t imagine Lias and Howden doing Hayes job in the future. I could argue that Howden is almost there right now.

The good news is that Hayes should bring back a terrific return. Operators are standing by.

 

[Machinehead]

You guys know I'm not wild about "character" but I think Kreider is great for this team. Seems to have a positive relationship with everyone and his ability to speak Russian as an American certainly fits our prospect pool.

My whole thing with the locker room stuff is that it doesn't matter if you're awful on the ice. Kreider is fantastic.

Character is also not something I'm willing to pay for, but I don't see Kreider being obscene in his demands. I know it's a business, but he just doesn't seem like that kind of guy to me. Zibanejad was reasonable. So was Hank. Really, so were Staal and Girardi given their reputations. Players like being here for the most part.

 

[Tawnos]

I understand the sentiment but need to play devil's advocate here. At his current level of play, he can be a 2nd line center on virtually any team. Yes, you listed 6 Eastern teams that have it better. But you know as well as I, that such players are not easy to draft. There is just not that many of them. What you are describing, if you want "better" is virtually a scenario where you have two legit #1 centers and that allows you to man the second line with a top line player. The actual odds are probably against that. In fact, the odds are probably against you finding someone who will play at the level that hayes is currently exhibiting. Maybe you have a senario with a 1A/1B centers like they had with Brass & Stepan and get the high end wings in the draft? Add a Boldy to a Kravstov and keep Chytil as a wing and look at that game breaking ability? Just food for thought.

Again, I probably fall on your side and take the point to trade him and bring back a haul. Like you and Edge, I find myself not willing to trust what he will be in a few years. But, as I stated, we are Rangers fans. And if we see him hoisting a Cup while we spend the next 5 years trying to replace him.....well, it would sting and would not a complete surprise.

The bold just simply isn't true. Forwards the Rangers have drafted who have played at Hayes' level, or better, in a span from 2004-2011: Dubinsky, Callahan, Anisimov, Stepan, Kreider, and Miller. Yes, some of these players have different strengths and weaknesses than Hayes, but every single one of them is or was at least a 2nd liner. That's 6 top-6 caliber forwards in 8 drafts, including 2 non-elite 1st liners. After that, the Rangers didn't have 1st or 2nd round picks in a lot of years, and their more recent picks remain to be seen. These players aren't hard to find overall. In the pick-drought years, they still managed to find Buchnevich, who is pretty much right with Hayes in points per game though obviously not the complete player Hayes currently is (and really, who saw this in him after his 3rd year anyway?).

Not every team is going to draft a good 2-way 2C, because that's the way the draft goes sometimes, but he's not a rare commodity.

 

[Bacon Artemi Bravo]

With Nylander still unsigned, Gorton would be nuts to not give them a call, no? We could definitely send a package with NHL players and salary retained that would make them better/deeper for a run in the short term.

 

[Ghost of jas]

You guys know I'm not wild about "character" but I think Kreider is great for this team. Seems to have a positive relationship with everyone and his ability to speak Russian as an American certainly fits our prospect pool.

My whole thing with the locker room stuff is that it doesn't matter if you're awful on the ice. Kreider is fantastic.

Character is also not something I'm willing to pay for, but I don't see Kreider being obscene in his demands. I know it's a business, but he just doesn't seem like that kind of guy to me. Zibanejad was reasonable. So was Hank. Really, so were Staal and Girardi given their reputations. Players like being here for the most part.

Who knew Chris Kreider could be such a uniting force on the HF Ranger board...clearly captain material.

 

[DanielBrassard]

If Kreider would be willing to take a shorter term deal I would hope something like 4/32 could get it done.

 

[SA16]

Why would a low end 2C yield a terrific return?

 

[Rongomania]

With Nylander still unsigned, Gorton would be nuts to not give them a call, no? We could definitely send a package with NHL players and salary retained that would make them better/deeper for a run in the short term.

Oh, I’d love Toronto to get boxed in with Nylander and take whatever more than decent package we could come up with. We could definitely make them immediately deeper & better for the rest of this season/playoffs.

 

[Irishguy42]

less than 96 hours until the Nylander saga concludes.

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

I almost want them to not get a deal done and not trade him

 

[Trxjw]

With Nylander still unsigned, Gorton would be nuts to not give them a call, no? We could definitely send a package with NHL players and salary retained that would make them better/deeper for a run in the short term.

Allegedly the Leafs want a top-4 RHD of similar age/pedigree if they were going to deal Nylander. We don't have that to offer up.

 

[Edge]

I like Hayes. I like him a lot. He’s just not a special player. At this stage of things, we don’t have room for non-special players on long-term contracts that take them into their 30s. If it comes to contending time, and a Hayes level player is our missing piece, then we will find one via trade or UFA. His non-specialness, combined with his age and contract status makes him the definition of expendable asset.

Kreider is a special player.. and maybe a unique player in the league (remember, unique means one of a kind. Something can’t be more unique or very unique). Zibanejad is a special player. Hayes is not.

And maybe that’s also gnawing at me as well.

If we were a team looking to slot him into a lineup that was really hitting its zone, the potential contract he’s looking at would be the price of admission.

But it just feels like a forced fit — a relationship forged out of the fear that we’ll never find someone better, but not necessarily convinced that we belong together either.

 

[Leetch3]

With Nylander still unsigned, Gorton would be nuts to not give them a call, no? We could definitely send a package with NHL players and salary retained that would make them better/deeper for a run in the short term.

guaranteed he has called several times but we don't have anything they want

 

[Trxjw]

At this point with Nylander/Dubas there's no real incentive to beat the deadline by any meaningful margin. There's probably a bridge deal on the table that isn't moving a whole lot up or down. Dubas knows what the trade offers are. So it's a staring match to see if they can close the gap on whatever is left separating them on the long-term contract. I'd be surprised if anything happened before Friday afternoon.

Interesting bit in Friedman's 31 column about how the Oilers and Smyth couldn't bridge the gap over $100k per year and that's why he ended up getting dealt.

 

[Bacon Artemi Bravo]

Allegedly the Leafs want a top-4 RHD of similar age/pedigree if they were going to deal Nylander. We don't have that to offer up.

Doesn't that value come down quite a bit as we get closer to the deadline? We sure as heck have a top 4 RHD on a sweetheart deal that we can retain on.

 

[Edge]

I’m getting the sense that you, @Edge and I should just go ahead and form our own mutual admiration society.

Oh this board would reeaaaallly love that.

 

[Trxjw]

Doesn't that value come down quite a bit as we get closer to the deadline? We sure as heck have a top 4 RHD on a sweetheart deal that we can retain on.

I don't think Shattenkirk is what they want. They've long been rumored to be talking a lot with Carolina because they have Pesce, and I think that's the kind of guy they want: A match-up defensemen not a PP specialist type.

The safety net for Toronto has always been the bridge deal. They can kick this can down the road the same way the Jets did when Trouba held out. Everyone thought he was gone, that there was just too much bad blood, and then he signs a 2 year bridge and that was that. Of course now it looks like Trouba might want to leave again but I digress. A bridge allows the Leafs to keep him and manage their cap. Then Nylander gets to prove himself a big time player and see what Matthews and Marner get as a comparable.

 

[Edge]

You guys know I'm not wild about "character" but I think Kreider is great for this team. Seems to have a positive relationship with everyone and his ability to speak Russian as an American certainly fits our prospect pool.

My whole thing with the locker room stuff is that it doesn't matter if you're awful on the ice. Kreider is fantastic.

Character is also not something I'm willing to pay for, but I don't see Kreider being obscene in his demands. I know it's a business, but he just doesn't seem like that kind of guy to me. Zibanejad was reasonable. So was Hank. Really, so were Staal and Girardi given their reputations. Players like being here for the most part.

Even if Kreider cools down on his scoring pace, which seems likely, I appreciate his ability to impact the game in other ways and that’s what I will be looking to see continue.

I also can’t help but think that while we’re intently focused on the center position, we’re going to need impact wingers to play with our centers — Kreider fits that bill and would be one of the few known quantities in a post-Zucc world for the Rangers.

 

[Bacon Artemi Bravo]

I don't think Shattenkirk is what they want. They've long been rumored to be talking a lot with Carolina because they have Pesce, and I think that's the kind of guy they want: A match-up defensemen not a PP specialist type.

The safety net for Toronto has always been the bridge deal. They can kick this can down the road the same way the Jets did when Trouba held out. Everyone thought he was gone, that there was just too much bad blood, and then he signs a 2 year bridge and that was that. Of course now it looks like Trouba might want to leave again but I digress. A bridge allows the Leafs to keep him and manage their cap. Then Nylander gets to prove himself a big time player and see what Matthews and Marner get as a comparable.

Fair enough, and totally understandable for them to desire that type of return. If they were a couple of years down the road and on the verge of a cup run, potentially they'd be more apt to take on a veteran as a main piece coming back. Will be interesting to see how it all unfolds. I agree that they probably have a bridge deal ready to go, there is zero chance he sits out the rest of the year.

 

[Trxjw]

Fair enough, and totally understandable for them to desire that type of return. If they were a couple of years down the road and on the verge of a cup run, potentially they'd be more apt to take on a veteran as a main piece coming back. Will be interesting to see how it all unfolds. I agree that they probably have a bridge deal ready to go, there is zero chance he sits out the rest of the year.

For sure. I think a Nylander sort of acquisition is in the cards for the Rangers, but probably not until next year or the year after. The time will come when they have chips to cash in to get that final piece but right now they're still developing.

 

[Edge]

For sure. I think a Nylander sort of acquisition is in the cards for the Rangers, but probably not until next year or the year after. The time will come when they have chips to cash in to get that final piece but right now they're still developing.

There’s that timing aspect that’s so important.

It’s not that the Rangers will never make a move again, or that they’ll hold on to every player who is currently a prospect. That’s unrealistic, even if it is fun to dream.

It’s more a matter of when, than if. And when will depend on who emerges, who doesn’t, and a host of other factors.

With more assets, the hope is for additional players, additional depth and additional options. The goal would be to deal from a position of strength, and not rob Peter to pay Paul.

 

[TheGuarantee]

There’s that timing aspect that’s so important.

It’s not that the Rangers will never make a move again, or that they’ll hold on to every player who is currently a prospect. That’s unrealistic, even if it is fun to dream.

It’s more a matter of when, than if. And when will depend on who emerges, who doesn’t, and a host of other factors.

With more assets, the hope is for additional players, additional depth and additional options. The goal would be to deal from a position of strength, and not rob Peter to pay Paul.

Buchnevich