I wish I was as confident about the Rangers not changing approaches, I am cynical by nature yet I can not imagine them being patient for two or three straight years. Like Go Away Staal said above, if it had not been for some of the contradicting moves made, buyout Girardi, trade Stepan, sign Shattenkirk, Smith and even the McQuaid trade I'd feel more confident. Even before that, the E Staal rental in particular.
I feel as if the teams record last season dictated their moves, I feel had this season kept going well or if it turns around for some reason, that will change their approach. If all those moves were Sather and friends ideas and Gorton was not acting autonomously, I'd probably understand it but I am not so sure that is the case.
I am also not sure why there seems to have been such a hurry to get Howden, Chytil, Lias, Georgiev into the NHL this season. As injury call ups I would see that as something that jives with a patient rebuild approach but removing a RFA year from Chytil and Lias, it kind of to me seems like it lends itself to they are trying to accelerate this.
I can't help but feel that as fans, especially on this board, we often run the risk of creating a catch-22 for the team.
If they bring the kids up slowly, it's never fast enough for us. If they bring them up sooner, we're rushing them and accelerating things. If we sign more vets to let the kids cook in the minors, that spawns a whole new set of concerns and debates.
I think when we start looking at some of the other moves, we were looking at the dying days of the old roster we assembled. So it's somewhat hard for me to look at them through the same prism as 2018 or 2019.
Gorton specifically mentioned his concerns heading into the 2017-2018 season about being in the dreaded middle. But I think it became painfully obvious by December and January that a new chapter was around the corner and that's the way we've been operating since.
The amount of picks we've acquired has been unprecedented and so it's hard to compare it to any other time in the franchise's history. I think the Rangers are continuing that approach this season. Honestly, the only conversations I see about the record changing our approach tend to be among fans --- specifically those on social media and websites. I haven't heard many, if any, people in the industry even hint at a direction change. At the very least, not those who are trying to generate business with clicks or content purchases.
The kids are playing because they're good enough to play. Not good enough to dominate, not good enough to be flawless, but good enough to learn and grow. Now that's not to say there aren't things I would do differently, the deployment of Andersson immediately springs to mind. But, all in all, I don't think there's anyone up who looks overwhelmed at the moment.
I would say that we are not nearly as far into this process as people think or may want to believe. At the very least, the accumulation of prospects and picks still has at least another half-a-year of runway ahead of it.
After that, I think you'll start to see movement and trades and acquisitions of older talent. But I'm pretty confident that this part of the journey is pretty straight forward.
