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

All you Drury bootlickers are crazy. Take the Trouba and Goodrow moves out of the equation and his moves were still embarrassing and awful. He didn't want to move Kakko for Guentzel at the deadline last year and instead trades him 6 months later for Will f***ing Borgen and you guys are clapping like a bunch of seals waiting for a fish. He should have been gone the second he panicked and tried to change the narrative around Trouba with the dumbass Igor extension. The guy is so ill prepared for his job it's shocking. But cool, we got alpha male JT Miller, the same dude that wears out his welcome everywhere he goes, to change the culture. Drury own every bit of this team's failure.
 
I don't know - I look around the league and various GM's "treatment" of players etc...

Stamkos wanted to stay in TB and they said "No, we're good". Team scores the most goals in the league and breezes into the playoffs. And those players (Hedman, etc...) have played as long or longer as Mika and Kreider.

Carolina loses Necas. And Rantannen. No problem.

McDonagh returns to the team that jettisoned him into the sun. No problem.

Marchand leaves his Boston legacy behind and moves on. I'm not reading about the players in Boston quitting because he was traded.

And, honestly, the Rangers did what was best for the Rangers. They got rid of a 3.6M contract that had four goals last year and was just as bad this year. Trouba morphed into an overpaid 8.5M 3rd pair defenseman. Whatever was lost "in the room" should've been covered by the vets "in the room" with letters on their chests instead of moping around for the balance of the season.

I've never seen anything like this in professional sports. Ridiculous.

What you're describing isn't "treatment of players"

The McDonagh trade to Nashville is actually a GREAT example of how to handle this properly, and is in stark contrast to how things went with Drury last June. The Lightning GM sat McDonagh down at the team's exit meetings and told him what was up. McDonagh had a full-NTC, and there were deals being negotiated for a few weeks but none had come to fruition yet. Brisebois had set a deadline on when he needed to have the trade done, and if it wasn't going to be done by then, McDonagh would be put on waivers. The player *knew* this. Stamkos was told by the GM he wasn't going to be re-signed before he became a free agent. Marchand was told by the GM he was going to be traded before he was traded.

Meanwhile, Goodrow didn't know he was going to be waived until he was. Trouba was still under a NMC and Drury did not let him know that he was looking to trade him, and didn't find out until the deal to Detroit was pretty far down the road. It isn't about the fact that Goodrow was put on waivers and it isn't about the fact that Drury was trying to trade Trouba. It's about the fact that Drury treated the players like nothing more than assets, instead of treating them with courtesy and respect. It doesn't matter than both players were underperforming their contracts... they still deserved at least that from Drury.

-Does it absolve Trouba of the way he handled what came next? Of course not. He's allowed to use whatever methods his contract allows to prevent a move. But if you're going to do it the way he did, you better come into the season prepared to perform. Instead, he further poisoned the room.
-Does it absolve the rest of the team from the responsibility of their poor play the rest of the year? Absolutely not. You can be upset with your boss and still do your work with pride. Maybe it would take a few weeks to get over it, but it shouldn't linger any further than that.

In other words, the original sins that lead to this season were Drury's. The rest of it? That's on the players.
 
Drury had his chance to put his finger prints on this roster, he just didn’t do anything with it. He’s the one that extended Z, shesty, & fox. He botched the Buch trade which left a hole at rw that he’s been trying to fill since, he wasted away draft capital to fix his nemeth mistake. Troch was his only good FA signing. The only players who were signed long term under Gorton was Trouba, Panarin & Kreider.
The buchnevich trade yes, he botched, however it's not his fault that he expected a #2 overall pick to become a 65+ point top line right wing and had no choice to make future space for it.

Extending Zibanejad -- what options did he have outside of this? A free agent for $10M? Zibanejad was our version of Nathan MacKinnon, there were no options available at the time, and we're in competition for a cup. Nobody in their right mind would *not* sign him. I'll echo this same sentiment for Fox and Igor.

"the only players signed were panarin Trouba and Kreider"... You realize that at the time those 3 players accounted for $28M, right? You talk of them as if they are nobody 3rd line players combining for $10M

The nemeth trade was dumb, I'll give you that one. It ended up being assets for assets, not sure why a #5 Dman is such a hated trade by most people.
 
All you Drury bootlickers are crazy. Take the Trouba and Goodrow moves out of the equation and his moves were still embarrassing and awful. He didn't want to move Kakko for Guentzel at the deadline last year and instead trades him 6 months later for Will f***ing Borgen and you guys are clapping like a bunch of seals waiting for a fish. He should have been gone the second he panicked and tried to change the narrative around Trouba with the dumbass Igor extension. The guy is so ill prepared for his job it's shocking. But cool, we got alpha male JT Miller, the same dude that wears out his welcome everywhere he goes, to change the culture. Drury own every bit of this team's failure.
I always thought this board could do better than go to bat for a GM whose entire vision for the team and the future is "must make playoffs, must save job".
 
The captain hindsight on Guentzel is hilarious. I can guarantee with out a shadow of a doubt that this place would have gone up in flames if they had moved Kakko for what would have eventually been a rental player (they wouldn't have been able to afford Guentzel.) The rumor thread probably still exists, almost everyone to a letter f***ing hated that idea and was relieved when it didn't go down.

JG would have been a poor fit here (1000000% would have been put on a line with Kreider and Zibanejad and he wouldn't have broken onto PP 1) and wouldn't have changed the outcome of the season at all. Sweeping the first 2 rounds would have been fun but Guentzel or no Guentzel, they weren't getting by Florida with the likes of Trouba and Lindgren in the top 4.

Any anger surrounding Kakko shouldn't be around who they didn't move him for or who they eventually did move him for, it should be around the fact that they botched his development to appease Panarin and chase the purple dragon of a playoff spot because the team was "ahead of schedule."
 
I always thought this board could do better than go to bat for a GM whose entire vision for the team and the future is "must make playoffs, must save job".
People like him because he wants to trade guys they don't like. I don't know how anyone can look at the job he's done here and be even remotely satisfied. He rode Gorton's team as far as he could, and everything he's done since then has been questionable at best. Even the timing of his moves are whack. But i guess he's intense and no-nonsense?
 
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All you Drury bootlickers are crazy. Take the Trouba and Goodrow moves out of the equation and his moves were still embarrassing and awful. He didn't want to move Kakko for Guentzel at the deadline last year and instead trades him 6 months later for Will f***ing Borgen and you guys are clapping like a bunch of seals waiting for a fish. He should have been gone the second he panicked and tried to change the narrative around Trouba with the dumbass Igor extension. The guy is so ill prepared for his job it's shocking. But cool, we got alpha male JT Miller, the same dude that wears out his welcome everywhere he goes, to change the culture. Drury own every bit of this team's failure.

My other favorite is that "this is still Gorton's team" despite the only 2 contracts of significance on the roster signed by Gorton are Panarin and Kreider. Panarin has produced well and helped drive regular season success every year he's been here, and Kreider has been a horse for this team and a big driver of the 2 ECF runs.

There is probably merit to both contributing to the negative culture with this group (1), but you also can't say they haven't been part of the team's success over the last few years.

He has thrown around a ton of asset value trying to improve this team. He has traded a few good/useful NHL players (Buch, M Barron, Howden (give him a pass)), 3 Firsts, 6 Seconds, 5 Thirds and essentially has nothing to show for it. All wasted on rentals and duds. If he invested this capital in options that weren't so bad or short-sighted, maybe he wouldn't still be managing "Gorton's team."




(1) If you want to talk about culture issues Panarin is probably exhibit A, but he produces so it flies under the radar. He has never really changed how he plays the game across various coaches; fair because it works in the regular season, less fair when it leads to clear issues in the postseason. He has been very stubborn about this, vocally so via his proxy Ryan Strome. He never speaks to the media. $11.5M a season and gets a complete pass on this, is a complete joke. He also expressed not wanting to play with Kakko in his rookie season. Fair enough to a degree given what we have seen from Kakko, but another example of forcefully doing his own thing regardless of what the coaching staff or org wants.
 
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I do get that the players are annoyed, because especially the Goodrow thing was really an unorthodox way of doing business, probably the first time it was done in league history that way. And while no rules were broken, it was really against the spirit of the contract. I also get the feeling that Drury didn't really go to Trouba and Kreider before he sent out the memo, and they found out after the fact. Trouba obviously had previous discussions about a trade that he declined, but I think Drury didn't ask or inform him this time around, and neither Kreider. I can see how that rubs the players the wrong way. There are many cut-throat organizations and general managers around the league. Drury took it to the extreme.

All that said, it is still truly unprecedented how this type of stuff could break the club in a way that it did. There is no excuse. If you have a shitty person as a coach, you can understand it more easily because you are working and interacting on a daily basis. That is not the case with the general manager. You can talk among yourselves about how shitty GM and person Drury is, and still do your job.

IMO the thing is that this group had the entitled attitude and was "hard to coach" before all this went down. The giving up on the season was perhaps a result of the Goodrow and Trouba moves but the attitude that lead to it was already ingrained and has been there for years.

I think part of this was Drury taking on that attitude for better or worse
 
The buchnevich trade yes, he botched, however it's not his fault that he expected a #2 overall pick to become a 65+ point top line right wing and had no choice to make future space for it.

Extending Zibanejad -- what options did he have outside of this? A free agent for $10M? Zibanejad was our version of Nathan MacKinnon, there were no options available at the time, and we're in competition for a cup. Nobody in their right mind would *not* sign him. I'll echo this same sentiment for Fox and Igor.

"the only players signed were panarin Trouba and Kreider"... You realize that at the time those 3 players accounted for $28M, right? You talk of them as if they are nobody 3rd line players combining for $10M

The nemeth trade was dumb, I'll give you that one. It ended up being assets for assets, not sure why a #5 Dman is such a hated trade by most people.

This is giving Drury a ridiculous pass. He's the GM of the team with no one over him. His job is to figure it out and put the team in the best place to succeed, ideally beyond the next 6 months.
 
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I do get that the players are annoyed, because especially the Goodrow thing was really an unorthodox way of doing business, probably the first time it was done in league history that way. And while no rules were broken, it was really against the spirit of the contract. I also get the feeling that Drury didn't really go to Trouba and Kreider before he sent out the memo, and they found out after the fact. Trouba obviously had previous discussions about a trade that he declined, but I think Drury didn't ask or inform him this time around, and neither Kreider. I can see how that rubs the players the wrong way. There are many cut-throat organizations and general managers around the league. Drury took it to the extreme.

All that said, it is still truly unprecedented how this type of stuff could break the club in a way that it did. There is no excuse. If you have a shitty person as a coach, you can understand it more easily because you are working and interacting on a daily basis. That is not the case with the general manager. You can talk among yourselves about how shitty GM and person Drury is, and still do your job.

IMO the thing is that this group had the entitled attitude and was "hard to coach" before all this went down. The giving up on the season was perhaps a result of the Goodrow and Trouba moves but the attitude that lead to it was already ingrained and has been there for years.

And yeah Panarin probably is low key one of the driving forces behind ignoring what the coaches say. He gets sommmme slack since he's far better than anyone else on the team but it seems like other players have taken that to heart and acted the same way
 
All you Drury bootlickers are crazy. Take the Trouba and Goodrow moves out of the equation and his moves were still embarrassing and awful. He didn't want to move Kakko for Guentzel at the deadline last year and instead trades him 6 months later for Will f***ing Borgen and you guys are clapping like a bunch of seals waiting for a fish. He should have been gone the second he panicked and tried to change the narrative around Trouba with the dumbass Igor extension. The guy is so ill prepared for his job it's shocking. But cool, we got alpha male JT Miller, the same dude that wears out his welcome everywhere he goes, to change the culture. Drury own every bit of this team's failure.
very few if any are on Team Drury.

He sucks ass but the players are the biggest issue IMO and the swamp needs to be drained.

Maybe not the biggest issue (NYR organizational rot is the biggest issue) but its the low hanging fruit that can be addressed immediately
 
People like him because he wants to trade guys they don't like. I don't know how anyone can look at the job he's done here and be even remotely satisfied. He rode Gorton's team as far as he could, and everything he's done since then has been questionable at best. Even the timing of his moves are whack. But i guess he's intense and no-nonsense?
Pretty much. It’s one hell of a case of Stockholm syndrome.

Say what you will about how unlikeable some of the players became this year, this toxicity did not exist under previous regimes and it begs the question of why?
 
Forty pages of the same shit over and over. Who gives a shit what these guys say in their exit interviews, what do you all expect. The core has shown us who they are. This f***ing team absolutely quit, lied down, took their puck and went home, folded, decided they did not want to or needed to compete, TWICE!!! Game 7 against the Devils in ‘23 and for a f***ing month and a half of this season. I mean it’s nuts, I’ve never witnessed anything like it in my life. There are bad teams or young teams that may show you these tendencies, but this team was neither. They just simply decided Twice that they clearly did not give enough of a shit to compete. f*** you!!!
 
Universally former players are publicly shitting on Mika for those comments. He's a player, he isn't a part of management. And mika's comments are completely in line with what I shared prior to Thanksgiving that this was coming bc the players had become so entitled that they thought they were in charge, and hence here Mika acts like he should have been included in these decisions in some manner. The big dogs in the league that are actual star players don't pull this garbage. Mika thinks he's something more than he is and clean out day as a whole is just an example of the issues with this core. You're getting paid 8.5m a year and you're talking about your feelings for 7 f***ing months that you played lifeless hockey. Be sad, process, and then do your job. Or at the very least keep a consistent effort if you want to wear an A on your jersey. You're a rep of the players in the room and you took zero accountability and instead pointed to everything else. This guy is no leader at all, and if he is a leader for your group then this season is what you should expect. Again, people don't realize just how much and how important trouba and Goodrow were because they managed THIS lack of internal accountability and pulse. You rip them out of the room and it gave more space for the entitled zombies to have a bigger voice. Fox, Mika, kreider, panarin? Dear good, what a bunch of betas. No wonder they prioritized getting the Miller deal done to get an alpha back in the room to replace trouba. People shouldn't think it's a coincidence that Mika gets pulled away from kreider and put with Miller? Clean out day should demonstrate just how little of a pulse this group has. No one even seemed pissed they were leaving, they all wanted to go home and feel bad for themselves.
Colorado traded Raantanen without even talking to MacKinnon first and Mika Zibanejad thinks he needs to be consulted on what management is up to in order to play well? It's a joke what a baby he is. He's nowhere near the player MacKinnon is, he has nowhere near the status or the actual achievements and yet somehow Nate is able to perform but Mika can't.

I absolutely hate Mika saying "that's what my contract says so I'm going to be here, I earnED it" it's just an incredibly selfish way to frame his situation.

How about saying you want to win here and you're going to do everything you can to get back to the level you know you can be at and bring a championship to New York? That contract goes both ways, you're paid what you are and have the clauses you do with the understanding that you have to perform at a certain level.
 
This episode was a fantastic listen. LB and Boyle were spitting fire the entire ep and really nailed it from start to finish, from the criticism of the players to coaching and everything in between.

Boyle was ready to throw hands at Zibanejad.
I'd like every player to watch that episode. Boyle and Larry were both spot on the whole time.
 
My other favorite is that "this is still Gorton's team" despite the only 2 contracts of significance on the roster signed by Gorton are Panarin and Kreider. Panarin has produced well and helped drive regular season success every year he's been here, and Kreider has been a horse for this team and a big driver of the 2 ECF runs.

There is probably merit to both contributing to the negative culture with this group (1), but you also can't say they haven't been part of the team's success over the last few years.

He has thrown around a ton of asset value trying to improve this team. He has traded a few good/useful NHL players (Buch, M Barron, Howden (give him a pass)), 3 Firsts, 6 Seconds, 5 Thirds and essentially has nothing to show for it. All wasted on rentals and duds. If he invested this capital in options that weren't so bad or short-sighted, maybe he wouldn't still be managing "Gorton's team."




(1) If you want to talk about culture issues Panarin is probably exhibit A, but he produces so it flies under the radar. He has never really changed how he plays the game across various coaches; fair because it works in the regular season, less fair when it leads to clear issues in the postseason. He has been very stubborn about this, vocally so via his proxy Ryan Strome. He never speaks to the media. $11.5M a season and gets a complete pass on this, is a complete joke. He also expressed not wanting to play with Kakko in his rookie season. Fair enough to a degree given what we have seen from Kakko, but another example of forcefully doing his own thing regardless of what the coaching staff or org wants.
I can understand why he traded Buch, cap space and Kakko, so I won't kill him for the move. But the return was just terrible and a horrifying glimpse into his mindset. You signed Reeves because of what went down with the Caps, great but you also need to bring in Lemieux? Is the guy even in the league anymore?
 
very few if any are on Team Drury.

He sucks ass but the players are the biggest issue IMO and the swamp needs to be drained.

Maybe not the biggest issue (NYR organizational rot is the biggest issue) but its the low hanging fruit that can be addressed immediately
Agree, I wont' shed any tears if he's fired. I think some shit is revisionist history (like, I don't care that he spent some picks at the deadlines when the Rangers were going into the playoffs and looking good, he generally didn't blow up the farm and it was worth a shot to some extent, and especially in 2023-2024 as the presidents trophy winner taking a shot shouldn't be criticized much later). But lots of other moves are meh or done badly, seems like he could have handled this without trying to be a hardass, and the culture of the whole organization seems to be a disaster right now. How much of that is directly his fault and how much is he attempting (poorly) to clean up? I dunno, but it doesn't matter. Things have been dramatic under him and things shouldn't be dramatic in these ways.

I don't think he's gonna get fired so I'll just hope he can manage to do some shit to weasel out of the mess

But I don't "love" him or try to praise all his moves here

There's plenty of space for most people to hold multiples thoughts at once. If you can't get your head around "players and GM bad" then I dunno, work on that
 
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If you go back to 23-24, if you polled many people on this board, almost universally we would have agreed that Chytil's career was nearly done and his contract was going to be a problem moving forward (LTIR rules, etc). Move forward in to 24-25 and he starts the season well but in hindsight, was he that good? He played a grand total of 56 games, had another head injury which sidelined him again which isn't great based on his track record and scored a whopping 26 points.

I wouldn't see many teams lining up to add a player like that
Ok, but like, here's the thing: people keep propping this up as getting rid of a potential problem contract in Chytil, meanwhile we added $40m with a no movement clause.
 
I can understand why he traded Buch, cap space and Kakko, so I won't kill him for the move. But the return was just terrible and a horrifying glimpse into his mindset. You signed Reeves because of what went down with the Caps, great but you also need to bring in Lemieux? Is the guy even in the league anymore?
wait what?

Gorton brought in Lemieux. Rangers traded for Lemiuex in the 2018-2019 season, Drury didn't take over until 2021. In fact, Drury trade Lemiuex away to the Kings shortly after becoming GM
 
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