Speculation: Roster Building Thread: Part XX (WTF are we going to do this Off-Season edition)

[Machinehead]

Nope, 80 mutiny. Once they set on this path there was no turning it off.

Sometimes I really do hope there's a big purge so people can see what the roster is with only their favorites left.

 

[Kocur Dill]

Difference being that Brassard was firmly established as a middle-6 center by then, even if that outcome was pretty disappointing for someone picked where he was. He'd had two 40+ point seasons when the Rangers acquired him, and was pacing for a 3rd one.

Alex Turcotte only has one full NHL season under his belt.

That being said, I don't mind Turcotte as a target for this kind of thing. I don't think it'll result in a Brassard/Zibanejad/Strome outcome, but they do need a 3C. While Turcotte didn't play C last year, he could come back to it and if he takes a step forward from last year, then he could be a solid get for that role.

If he could blossom like Coyle did for Boston, coming from Minnesota, we'd have a pretty solid 1-4 Center core for a couple years.

Him, Clarke, +1st could be amazing value for 1 season of Panarin.

New GM gonna want to make a splash and I dont see Doughty/Kopitar being ushered out on bean-poles. Besides FLA w/Bob, Id have to wager LA is right there with Artemi's personality.

 

[Tawnos]

Right, they could've gotten us against the world (including FO) attitude instead.

Sorry I'm bringing up the ultimate leader in his prime but Messier was single-handedly keeping the team focused on the ultimate price while Keenan was playing his head games with players.

You write this like Messier wasn’t the ringleader of the players revolting against Neilson and then mailing it in under the interim replacement (Ron Smith) in 92-93.

Plenty of other issues that year, particularly related to injuries. And a player has more cachet to lead the revolt with 5 Stanley Cups, including the one captaining the Gretzky-less Oilers, than someone with any of these guys resume. But let’s not pretend that he was immune to being a big part of these kinds of off-ice problems.

Messier could lead the us against the world (or coach) thing when he wanted to. But if he didn’t want to, look out.

 

[Alluckks]

I'm sorry, but if Mika was saying this shit as a leader then he would have taken some personal accountability during his exit press interviews as well. Instead he was pushing off so much accountability that even Valiquette was railing on him on twitter the very same day.

Mika is more like a poison pill employee that stopped doing shit but just keeps waving a signed paper around yelling "I have tenure!!! You can't do shit to me!"

 

[Crease]

I will forever be grateful for Messier bringing home the only Cup since World War 2 but he was a cancer before 1994 and he was definitely a problem in his second stint.

 

[Irishguy42]

Sometimes I really do hope there's a big purge so people can see what the roster is with only their favorites left.

I couldn't care less about what people on HF think about the effort NHL players bring to the ice. A player could look like they aren't giving an effort on the ice, and they are giving 1000x more effort than what a HF poster considers "giving minimal effort" at minimum.

 

[IDvsEGO]

I will forever be grateful for Messier bringing home the only Cup since World War 2 but he was a cancer before 1994 and he was definitely a problem in his second stint.

And he’s a cancer now. Mr. Hire me as coach but only as HC for the rangers, and f*** going to work in hfd, “I’m too big for that”

 

[Tawnos]

I'm sorry, but if Mika was saying this shit as a leader then he would have taken some personal accountability during his exit press interviews as well. Instead he was pushing off so much accountability that even Valiquette was railing on him on twitter the very same day.

Mika is more like a poison pill employee that stopped doing shit but just keeps waving a signed paper around yelling "I have tenure!!! You can't do shit to me!"

There were plenty of times this year where I was annoyed at what Zibanejad was saying, but the breakup day media interview wasn’t one of them. When he was asked about his game, he said he wasn’t good enough. He said there were a lot of times he wasn’t playing like himself. He said it was a bit better when Miller came in, but he still wasn’t happy with his season overall. But the question about his game didn’t come until almost the end of the interview. When the PR guy said “last question.” All the reporters wanted to ask about was the team as a whole, and some of the broader topics we’ve been discussing. Is he supposed to pretend they asked something else?

 

[Tawnos]

I will forever be grateful for Messier bringing home the only Cup since World War 2 but he was a cancer before 1994 and he was definitely a problem in his second stint.

And apparently in Vancouver too.

 

[JohnC]

You write this like Messier wasn’t the ringleader of the players revolting against Neilson and then mailing it in under the interim replacement (Ron Smith) in 92-93.

Plenty of other issues that year, particularly related to injuries. And a player has more cachet to lead the revolt with 5 Stanley Cups, including the one captaining the Gretzky-less Oilers, than someone with any of these guys resume. But let’s not pretend that he was immune to being a big part of these kinds of off-ice problems.

Messier could lead the us against the world (or coach) thing when he wanted to. But if he didn’t want to, look out.

And that’s not even getting into his Vancouver stint and then NYR 2.0 where he was the captain of the worst country club teams of the millennia!

 

[Tawnos]

And that’s not even getting into his Vancouver stint and then NYR 2.0 where he was the captain of the worst country club teams of the millennia!

I sometimes think about how the message boards and social media of 2025 would’ve reacted to a lot of that stuff. I know they were around a little bit for the country club years, but they weren’t the same thing they are today (not saying they were better, just different).

 

[McRanger92]

More Rossi chatter. I can’t understand why the wild don’t like him.

 

[JohnC]

I sometimes think about how the message boards and social media of 2025 would’ve reacted to a lot of that stuff. I know they were around a little bit for the country club years, but they weren’t the same thing they are today (not saying they were better, just different).

This place does not have the mental or emotional fortitude to deal with stretches like what Colorado dealt with after drafting MacKinnon, Florida after drafting Barkov, or Tampa after drafting Stamkos.

 

[egelband]

They can likely sign him for dirt cheap just making it a 1 way contract and he'll sign it. Should do it for 2 years as well. Quality depth on thr cheap is needed.

Will be interesting to see what they do with Kaliyev. Did they target him specifically? In which case I could see them bringing him back. Or was he just a random mid season addition to fill a hole. I feel like they had a few opportunities to drop him this year when they needed a roster spot but they held on to him.

 

[ThePeoplesPeople]

More Rossi chatter. I can’t understand why the wild don’t like him.

Let's take him off their hands

 

[egelband]

OK, but if you're the GM it's your job to know that's the group you have. Make changes to remove some of that fragility, yes... but do your best not to set the damn thing on fire.

One caveat. If Drury does indeed make big changes to the ‘veteran leadership core’ this summer, it’s possible burning it down this season was his version of taking one step backward to take three steps forward. Will be interesting to see where this story goes.

 

[McRanger92]

Let's take him off their hands

Would love to offer them #12

 

[ThePeoplesPeople]

Would love to offer them #12

Certainly worth it, I just think giving Pitt '25 and keeping '26 makes too much sense.

- If we stink, we have a nice pick
- If the summer goes well and we are in need of a 2026 1st to include in a deal, we have it.

I know the major roster turnover we fantasize about each summer rarely ever happens, but man there is such a huge opportunity to change the tides.

McLeod, Peterka, and Quinn are all RFA. Buffalo obviously needs to do something and make the damn playoffs already. Ripe for a deal.

McTavish RFA .. Rossi rumors .. Kreider/Panarin/Mika/K'Andre decisions .. figure it out Drury. Save us.

 

[kovazub94]

I'm sorry, but if Mika was saying this shit as a leader then he would have taken some personal accountability during his exit press interviews as well. Instead he was pushing off so much accountability that even Valiquette was railing on him on twitter the very same day.

Mika is more like a poison pill employee that stopped doing shit but just keeps waving a signed paper around yelling "I have tenure!!! You can't do shit to me!"

We see it from him on the ice too when every refs call seems to require his $0.02 even while the play is on-going.

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

Certainly worth it, I just think giving Pitt '25 and keeping '26 makes too much sense.

- If we stink, we have a nice pick
- If the summer goes well and we are in need of a 2026 1st to include in a deal, we have it.

I know the major roster turnover we fantasize about each summer rarely ever happens, but man there is such a huge opportunity to change the tides.

McLeod, Peterka, and Quinn are all RFA. Buffalo obviously needs to do something and make the damn playoffs already. Ripe for a deal.

McTavish RFA .. Rossi rumors .. Kreider/Panarin/Mika/K'Andre decisions .. figure it out Drury. Save us.

Saw you posted and got excited.

Not that this is a bad post, but I was hoping for some hot goss.

 

[ThePeoplesPeople]

Saw you posted and got excited.

Not that this is a bad post, but I was hoping for some hot goss.

I've thought about how 95% of my posts are going to be major letdowns when people come here excited and then see what it actually is

 

[eco's bones]

We see it from him on the ice too when every refs call seems to require his $0.02 even while the play is on-going.

Mika's head didn't really seem to be in the game this year or at least not until JT showed up and by then it was kind of too late.

The two players that made the most and also made the most egregious mistakes that directly cost us points last year were Mika and K'Andre. More of K'Andre's than Mika's---like bad pinches were from trying to do too much though K'Andre found lots of ways to get lost in his positioning and throwing pucks away. Mika's positioning as a C in 5v5 situations in the first half was just wretched and he made numerous easy plays into soft plays that got turned over and wound up in the back of our net. If he continues with the Rangers his best position might be RW. Personally if we could move him though that would be optimal.

More often it seems that a team goes to shit because their depth kind of sucks. They'll have a few scorers but when they're not on the ice the rest of the team gets exploited. This year it was mostly our best players that let us down and our third and 4th lines were consistently good no matter who was playing on them. There's hope there. But whoever are supposed best guys are next year they'll need to play like it.

 

[Overcast]

Unfortunately, that kind of thing isn't fully realistic. You only end up getting half-measures done, like we saw here.



Also can look at it Zibanejad is the only one willing to say anything publicly about it. A lot of people don't want to hear it from him, and I don't really blame them. But it makes me think a lot about how much complaining there is that players don't say a lot of non-cliche stuff, and I think it's a bit of a "careful what you wish for" situation. I think a lot of people would be upset with players more often than not if they consistently spoke their mind.

F1 embraces that stuff and leans into the interpersonal dramas that it ends up involving, but plenty of people would have a problem with a lot of that same type of thing coming from players.

I don't understand where this notion that Mika is suddenly this brave leader, the only player to have spoken out against this FO/coaches/whatever.

..except for the other half a dozen players that have passed through here in the last ~8 years that have openly expressed their discontent over something the FO/coaches did. Strome, Kakko, de Haan, Andersson, Kravstov off the top of my head had very public, very straightforward messages that they were unhappy with some decision the FO/coaches made. Ice time, micromanagement, spots in the roster, medical treatment options.

 

[Kendo]

I think the only pros of keeping him are that it's a contract year and he's always produced well when motivated (regular season) and that it keeps the FO from spending his cap space on other shit that isn't really needle moving - we're going to want space 2 summers from now.

I know there is some talk of replacing him with Marner but that isn't really a 1 for 1. Now you'd get back assets for Panarin but you're probably spending 1.5-2 million (at minimum) extra on Marner and that would probably require sending someone else out and takes you out of the running for any of the big tickets that may/will hit the market in 2026.

Marner is a better player and has way more positive impact on the defensive side of the ice but I don't think thats a guy I'm hitching my wagon to, even with him not panarin'ing in the playoffs (so far.)

Based on age alone, you do that "1 for 1" twice on Sunday if it were guaranteed and long term. Top top W that may not necessarily stick to the structure. Sounds like a lateral move on an integral piece (even if they might be frustrating at times) for market rate with more certainty and longevity.

We have a bunch of younger Kreiders/Callahans on the wing. I'm not sure Gabe will ever be a Panarin/Gaborik, and Marner sort of already is. And we need one. Every team needs one. It's two of them that gets tricky.

We can make room next offseason if we can't at the deadline. It "could" work. I'm not betting on it. Just entertaining it.

 

[Alluckks]

Certainly worth it, I just think giving Pitt '25 and keeping '26 makes too much sense.

- If we stink, we have a nice pick
- If the summer goes well and we are in need of a 2026 1st to include in a deal, we have it.

I know the major roster turnover we fantasize about each summer rarely ever happens, but man there is such a huge opportunity to change the tides.

McLeod, Peterka, and Quinn are all RFA. Buffalo obviously needs to do something and make the damn playoffs already. Ripe for a deal.

McTavish RFA .. Rossi rumors .. Kreider/Panarin/Mika/K'Andre decisions .. figure it out Drury. Save us.

Based on nothing at all, out of curiousity, rank these guys in order of likelihood they are moved this summer:

Kreider
Panain
Zibanejad
Lafreniere
K'Andre Miller
Schneider