Speculation: Roster Building Thread : Part XVIII ( TDL is March 7th)

[SA16]

He traded Lindgren and then replaced him with Lindgren. Is the Ranger defense any better than it was heading into the season? I guess to be fair we have to see what it looks like when Fox is healthy but there’s a case to be made either isn’t. And supposedly this is the defense they will be heading into next season with as well which isn’t exactly inspiring. He signed Igor to an extension that is questionable, and I say that as someone who thinks Igor is great. Trading for 32 year old J.T. miller is another questionable decision. Im glad he recognized the team wasn’t good enough, but it’s not like the moves he’s made has made them any better.

Also, before we start trading K’Andre why not just play him with Fox and see what happens over an entire season:

View attachment 990917

All I want to know is why anyone should expect any other GM to be different?

You have Colorado's GM who traded for actual Ryan Lindgren
You can be Tampa who trades 1st round picks away in perpetuity and their entire draft for Tanner Jeannot
You have Toronto giving up a 1st and a good prospect for Brandon Carlo
Columbus trading a mid round pick for Luke Kunin who consistently puts up some of the worst numbers in the league
Winnipeg giving up a 2 and a 4 for a depth third pairing dman in Luke Schenn
Detroit paying to get rid of Jake Walman in the offseason
Anaheim giving up assets for the whole contract of Trouba.

These guys all do the same stuff. Why would the replacement be better? At least I know that Drury does seem capable of recognizing when he's made some mistakes and trying to fix them (Goodrow/Trouba/early season announcement" being some of them. If they want to make a change I'm fine with that too, I just don't see it really making any significant difference. It's not like we have some great way to evaluate which GMs are good and which aren't and it takes years to see their effect anyway.

 

[NYR Viper]

He traded Lindgren and then replaced him with Lindgren. Is the Ranger defense any better than it was heading into the season? I guess to be fair we have to see what it looks like when Fox is healthy but there’s a case to be made either isn’t. And supposedly this is the defense they will be heading into next season with as well which isn’t exactly inspiring. He signed Igor to an extension that is questionable, and I say that as someone who thinks Igor is great. Trading for 32 year old J.T. miller is another questionable decision. Im glad he recognized the team wasn’t good enough, but it’s not like the moves he’s made has made them any better.

Also, before we start trading K’Andre why not just play him with Fox and see what happens over an entire season:

View attachment 990917

Soucy is a guy who can play down the stretch. He's a big guy who skates pretty well. I'm okay trading Lindgren for assets (2nd + Parsinnen) and then adding Soucy for a 3rd. He can be traded at a later time and the team needs depth and size on the back-end honestly.

 

[will1066]

Cant wait to get to the summer with this team.

Major changes needed. Problem is the person making them isnt likely the right person to make them

I want to give all the new players the benefit of a doubt. People already have their pitchforks out for them, but I think they've been brought into an environment where there are issues still. Of course, every locker room around the league has issues of some sort, but it's different here. Need to clean house here, fire the staff, get rid of the old-guard players, and have at least a feeling of a reboot -- especially for guys like Laf and Cuylle and the kids who are coming up.

 

[eco's bones]

Nobody will ever like the GM and the coach. Drury has made a ton of moves that everyone wanted made. He recognized early this season that things were not going well despite their record and tried to make more changes. People just want the GM and coach to do exactly what they would do and whenever they don't they get upset. He got rid of Goodrow and Trouba for no cap hit. He got rid of Lindgren. Those were three of the guys people wanted off the team the most. I'm not concerned that he signed Goodrow to the contract in the first place. He recognized it was a mistake and fixed it. But because he trades Kakko or got rid of some players "the wrong way", or doesn't play Zac Jones, or signs Igor to a bad deal it's all no good.

Yeah we cycle through the same thing every year or two. The coaches suck the GM sucks. Ad nauseam.

My own take on Drury is generally he made the right moves this year and sometimes did really well. I have the sense though there are some communication issues that start with him that could be better. I think he had a better sense of how good the team actually was though than the players and probably the coaching staff did which I don't think should be underestimated. Would I be disturbed if he were removed at the end of the year? Not really. Would I remove him? Probably not. I think despite the communication issues he's generally shown good judgement. I was pleased with a lot of moves he made.

I'm not pleased with the team on the whole. It's very easy though to overreact and do too much. It shouldn't be about punishing players either but seeing where improvements need to be made and correcting problems. And FWIW last year almost everything that could go right went right and this year it's opposite. We're chasing games all the time.....finding ways to lose at critical times and if we manage to make the playoffs it will be more because of what other teams couldn't accomplish than what we could. The psychology of this team has been a train wreck.

It's not that I don't think Laviolette is a good coach but I'm not a fan of this man to man D. Maybe it would work better if we had different defenders. You tend to get better performances when players are playing to their strengths and I don't get that that's happening all that much. Forwards as well.....it's not just the D. It seems as if the guys who are playing as expected or even maybe a little better are the younger guys. I'm kind of thinking the coaching staff is going to get shitcanned and if it happens I think we'll need a more structured defense from the next coach.....also a defense that has at least two offensive threats and moves the puck a little cleaner.

 

[Fitzy]

I'm still irritated, but more clearheaded. My plan forward is still

1) Kreider to Boston for Hampus Lindholm with a little retention, or a pick back.
2) Sign Matt Duchene if he's available to play a hybrid 2/3C role with Trocheck. Duchene's north south puck lugging we desperately need missing Chytil.
3) Run out Panarin's contract so that we don't waste the cap, but the money is free and available for the mega-shopping spree that will be summer 2026.
4) Re-sign Cuylle, 5x20 or 8x36
5) Look to trade Mika if you can, but don't freak out if you can't. He's frustrating but the versatility has value.
6) (Big one) Lafreniere, Othmann, and Schneider to OTT for Brady Tkachuk

Tkachuk-Miller-Zibanejad
Panarin-Trocheck-Perreault
Cuylle-Duchene-Berard
Edstrom-Carrick-Rempe

Lindholm-Fox
Miller-Borgen
Soucy-Vaak

Maybe none of that can happen. But that's a roster on paper that I'd actually look forward to watching try to win a cup. it has a real #2 defenseman in Lindholm, gets tougher and more competitive upgrading Laf to Tkachuk, rolls 3 solid centers deep. What we have right now doesn't cut the mustard with me.

 

[DanielBrassard]

All I want to know is why anyone should expect any other GM to be different?

You have Colorado's GM who traded for actual Ryan Lindgren
You can be Tampa who trades 1st round picks away in perpetuity and their entire draft for Tanner Jeannot
You have Toronto giving up a 1st and a good prospect for Brandon Carlo
Columbus trading a mid round pick for Luke Kunin who consistently puts up some of the worst numbers in the league
Winnipeg giving up a 2 and a 4 for a depth third pairing dman in Luke Schenn
Detroit paying to get rid of Jake Walman in the offseason
Anaheim giving up assets for the whole contract of Trouba.

These guys all do the same stuff. Why would the replacement be better? At least I know that Drury does seem capable of recognizing when he's made some mistakes and trying to fix them (Goodrow/Trouba/early season announcement" being some of them. If they want to make a change I'm fine with that too, I just don't see it really making any significant difference. It's not like we have some great way to evaluate which GMs are good and which aren't and it takes years to see their effect anyway.

I think you are somewhat correct that GM’s act similarly with a few exceptions but that doesn’t really inspire much confidence in Drury to be different and think outside the box which he hasn’t shown he’s been able to do.

And you go back and look at Drury’s track record and it’s all over the place. It all goes back to his first offseason of wanting to add toughness and grit, overpaying free agents and trading anything for Reaves while giving away Buchnevich for free. Then because of that he has to add scoring at the TD and give up a lot of draft capital to do so. It just feels rudderless and directionless.

 

[DanielBrassard]

Soucy is a guy who can play down the stretch. He's a big guy who skates pretty well. I'm okay trading Lindgren for assets (2nd + Parsinnen) and then adding Soucy for a 3rd. He can be traded at a later time and the team needs depth and size on the back-end honestly.

I’m not okay with it because it was completely unnecessary. We didn’t need another bottom pairing LD, we didn’t need to give away another draft pick. Calvin De Haan was perfectly acceptable filling in that role. Sure you could trade Soucy at a later time but that won’t be until next TD and by then you would have wasted time and cap space for no reason which could have gone to improving the top-4 D or the forwards.

 

[CLW]

We need a new Gm, and definitely a new coach. We have a lot of good players underachieving, there's obviously something not right. Fix it.

We are waiting for Godot. The next coach of the NYR will be Mike Sullivan it's the NYR way.

 

[hardnosed]

K'Andre and Schneider need to be trade bait this summer. Neither are progressing here and both still hold value around the league. Capitalize now before its too late. Probably late with K'Andre but teams are dying to get their hands on Schneider.

Schneider + for Peterka
K'Andre for a late first

I'd pony up for Gavrikov or Chychrun on July 1. If we have all three of K'Andre Soucy and Vaak on the left side the season is over before it starts. In a perfect world Soucy and Borgen can be an excellen bottom pairing but if we are going to force these guys to eat 20+ minutes, nothing is going to change.

Every defensemen on this team is playing below where they should be. Everybody is saying we have Fox and 6,7 3rd pair guys. Schneider and especially KAM should not be playing like scrubs. They are 1st round picks. So before trading them, how about we get a better defensive coach and a better system. It has to be dawning on everyone by now, not one defensemen has grown under this regime.

 

[Fitzy]

I’m not okay with it because it was completely unnecessary. We didn’t need another bottom pairing LD, we didn’t need to give away another draft pick. Calvin De Haan was perfectly acceptable filling in that role. Sure you could trade Soucy at a later time but that won’t be until next TD and by then you would have wasted time and cap space for no reason which could have gone to improving the top-4 D or the forwards.

Honestly a 3rd rounc draft pick doesn't bother me as much as the opportunity cost of 3.25 million.

Will that stop us from bringing in a Chychrun or real top pairing guy for 8-9 million? Can we afford that with Soucy?

Call me the Stars but I'd rather have a topheavy lineup and worry about fixing the 3rd line an 3rd pairing on the flyu than have a bunch of guys playing and getting paid over their heads, which in my opinion is a much harder problem to fix

 

[Machinehead]

I’m not okay with it because it was completely unnecessary. We didn’t need another bottom pairing LD, we didn’t need to give away another draft pick. Calvin De Haan was perfectly acceptable filling in that role. Sure you could trade Soucy at a later time but that won’t be until next TD and by then you would have wasted time and cap space for no reason which could have gone to improving the top-4 D or the forwards.

If you told me in a vacuum "this guy is gonna play for the Rangers" and that guy is Carson Soucy and he's gonna be the #6 or whatever, I'm not really mad at that guy.

It's every stupid thought that went into it

1) You just know he's gonna be next to Fox at some point and they'll decide they love it.

2) They just replaced Calvin de Haan who is better than Soucy because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[RangerBoy]

We should thank the hackers for waiting until this morning to take down X instead of doing it on trade deadline day on Friday.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Cant wait to get to the summer with this team.

Major changes needed. Problem is the person making them isnt likely the right person to make them

OK -- I'll bite: who is the right person and what are the "right" changes?

 

[SA16]

I’m not okay with it because it was completely unnecessary. We didn’t need another bottom pairing LD, we didn’t need to give away another draft pick. Calvin De Haan was perfectly acceptable filling in that role. Sure you could trade Soucy at a later time but that won’t be until next TD and by then you would have wasted time and cap space for no reason which could have gone to improving the top-4 D or the forwards.

What if he's better than a bottom pairing D? I would not make my entire evaluation based on a couple of charts. They are very finnicky for dmen. You have guys like Ristolainen who we were told was horrible for years and now suddenly the last three years he's good. You have guys who change teams and suddenly have a massive change in results. Let's say Brady Skjei as a quick and obvious example off the top of my head.

I don't know if he's good or bad. I don't see the harm in delaying the pick by a year (since as stated he can be traded later) to find out.

I have still yet to get an answer to the question of "If Soucy is so bad, why does he have the 8th lowest GA60 of the 120 dmen to play 5,000+ minutes since his first full year (6 years). It's not because he was great 5 years ago because he ranked 14/217 just last year (500+ mins). If you can't answer that question then I don't think it's fair to make a strong declarative statement without seeing things through. Yes, Lindgren ranks 12th but I can give you reasons as to why Lindgren would. Playing with Fox. Playing in front of Igor. I think we need to remain skeptical and get more information.

Most of the players in the top 10 there have been considered very strong defenders. Carlo, Spurgeon, Forsling, McDonagh, McAvoy, Heiskanen, DeMelo (fox 11th). Grzelyck and Mikey Anderson are 1-2 which definitely feels a bit weird but Anderson is likely a function of being stuck to Doughty (13th best). Not sure what Grzelcyk's deal is outside of being in Boston since he wasn't always with Boston but the results were great. That said, they are bad this year in Pittsburgh but they've also had atrocious goaltending.

 

[Fitzy]

What if he's better than a bottom pairing D?

Then we play him on the 3rd pairing to start and when there's inevitably an injury he gets promoted and shows he deserves it. Just like Stralman and Klein did at times. You want decent upwardly mobile defensemen on the third pairing. It's why I call Vaak a 6th at best- he isn't the guy you want in the top 4 when a guy is out. That can be Soucy.

 

[will1066]

We should thank the hackers for waiting until this morning to take down X instead of doing it on trade deadline day on Friday.

Huh?

 

[RangerBoy]

Huh?

X or twitter is having major issues this morning. It was down early this morning and the issues have returned again.

 

[Pawnee Rangers]

I wish the hackers would hack Housley and Lav's minds so they stop insisting this team plays man on man.

 

[Machinehead]

OK -- I'll bite: who is the right person and what are the "right" changes?

The right person probably isn't a particular name. We can't get inside anyone's head.

The right changes would be identifying exactly what the team is doing wrong and making it a mission to change the philosophy, as opposed to just a different version of what we're doing now with different players.

The next guy needs to understand that the defense needs to be significantly upgraded, not bring in a different version of Soucy instead of Soucy.

Maybe Drury will work out, but so far, he's made a lot of band-aid moves, and that's not what people are looking for.

 

[will1066]

X or twitter is having major issues this morning. It was down early this morning and the issues have returned again.

There's a Chromecast outage as well, since yesterday.

 

[TGWL]

Looking at the numbers, I think Kreider may end up being a buyout candidate. I’m not sure the Rangers can get enough of a return to justify a trade with how much they would have to retain.

Additional thought, K’Andre is still very much on the bubble. I think he will be a summer trade candidate, especially if the Rangers can sign someone like Jeff Chychrun.

I think Rangers could retain 2-2.5, and get something of value back rather than just buyout Kreider. Retaining 50% would be smarter than buying out Kreider. Obviously this comes down to the M-NTC wanting him, or Kreider agreeing to waive.

 

[will1066]

I wish the hackers would hack Housley and Lav's minds so they stops insisting this team plays man on man.

Really makes me wonder how much consultation they had with Drury on the roster moves. Maybe it was minimal, but Drury has to know in his mind that these guys coming in will be playing their crap system. And maybe Drury understands this and is playing the long game. Or maybe he doesn't and is an idiot. Borgen walked in and for the most part has played like he knows the system. Soucy has been the total opposite, like he doesn't understand it at all. Vaak, I say around 65/35.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

I'm still irritated, but more clearheaded. My plan forward is still

1) Kreider to Boston for Hampus Lindholm with a little retention, or a pick back.
2) Sign Matt Duchene if he's available to play a hybrid 2/3C role with Trocheck. Duchene's north south puck lugging we desperately need missing Chytil.
3) Run out Panarin's contract so that we don't waste the cap, but the money is free and available for the mega-shopping spree that will be summer 2026.
4) Re-sign Cuylle, 5x20 or 8x36
5) Look to trade Mika if you can, but don't freak out if you can't. He's frustrating but the versatility has value.
6) (Big one) Lafreniere, Othmann, and Schneider to OTT for Brady Tkachuk

Tkachuk-Miller-Zibanejad
Panarin-Trocheck-Perreault
Cuylle-Duchene-Berard
Edstrom-Carrick-Rempe

Lindholm-Fox
Miller-Borgen
Soucy-Vaak

Maybe none of that can happen. But that's a roster on paper that I'd actually look forward to watching try to win a cup. it has a real #2 defenseman in Lindholm, gets tougher and more competitive upgrading Laf to Tkachuk, rolls 3 solid centers deep. What we have right now doesn't cut the mustard with me.

Why is a rebuilding team trading for Kreider?

The Kreider to Boston ship has sailed.

 

[RangerBoy]

I wish the hackers would hack Housley and Lav's minds so they stops insisting this team plays man on man.

I wish they would hack some stupid tablets teams use on the bench during games.

 

[TGWL]

Before you get the right person, you have to cut the heads off the chickens running around.