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

[Kendo]

With the 80 being they just stink.

There may be some issues in the room that need to be settled but pouting over Goodrow didn't make them bad. They weren't a well put together hockey team this past year at all.

They weren't well put together for sure, but deployment was a HUGE factor. With better lineup decisions, there's less of a mountain to climb coming out of 4 nations and we sneak into the playoffs, get bounced in the first round, and give up this year's 1st rounder.

There would be less uproar in that timeline.

 

[Guyute]

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

Kreider
KAM
Zibanejad
Panarin
Schneider
Lafreniere

 

[RangerBoy]

Did anyone see The Point last night before the Florida-Toronto game on ESPN with Chris Pronger? He was discussing how the Maple Leafs defense is built for the playoffs. Brad Treliving has added defenseman with good size. OEL is 6-2. Chris Tanev is 6-3. Brandon Carlo is 6-5. Simon Benoit is 6-4. This guy is the ideal 6th D in the NHL. Treliving inherited Morgan Reilly and Jake McCabe. They are 6-1. Except for OEL, all of them weigh more than 200 pounds. That's the formula for success.

PK Subban was also on the set and he commented about the top D on a team can't get pushed. The Rangers top D is barely 5-11.

Craig Berube is a great coach. The Leafs are able to defend.

Matthew Knies has been great for Toronto. A big bodied winger who can play with the Big 4. I watching the CBC/Sportsnet feed of Ottawa-Toronto series one night and former Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde was an analyst during the intermissions. He was discussing Knies who was a late bloomer. Knies never played for the US Program teams. He played minor hockey in Arizona and then played in the USHL before going to Minnesota. What a terrific player Knies has become for Toronto.

I remember reading about Knies when the Leafs selected him in the 2nd round in 2021. The Rangers director of player personnel and scouting director John Lilley picked Knies when he was running the Leafs drafts.

Chris Drury can learn a few things from the Leafs. Mike Sullivan will try to get the Rangers to defend. The Rangers D group needs to be rebuilt.

If Mika wants his kid to have a big yard, Minnesota has big yards. Zucarrello was two kids. He loves living in Minnesota. His kids call Kaprizov "Uncle Kiril". Maybe the Zibanejad and Zuccarello kids can play together.

 

[cheech70]

The Post needs to let go of Mollie or at least hire someone else to write a majority of the non-Brooks Rangers articles.

Brooks says insane shit but at least there’s some substance behind it. Mollie writes 3000 words of rambling, incoherent drivel. Also, this isn’t a sexism thing. There are plenty of women in hockey journalism who are amazing at their jobs, like Emily Kaplan, Shayna, AJ, just to name a few.

Add in that the Post has a paywall along with Molly it will soon be the end for me

 

[kovazub94]

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.

Would you get / address the point if I didn’t mention Messier?

 

[eco's bones]

Did anyone see The Point last night before the Florida-Toronto game on ESPN with Chris Pronger? He was discussing how the Maple Leafs defense is built for the playoffs. Brad Treliving has added defenseman with good size. OEL is 6-2. Chris Tanev is 6-3. Brandon Carlo is 6-5. Simon Benoit is 6-4. This guy is the ideal 6th D in the NHL. Treliving inherited Morgan Reilly and Jake McCabe. They are 6-1. Except for OEL, all of them weigh more than 200 pounds. That's the formula for success.

PK Subban was also on the set and he commented about the top D on a team can't get pushed. The Rangers top D is barely 5-11.

Craig Berube is a great coach. The Leafs are able to defend.

Matthew Knies has been great for Toronto. A big bodied winger who can play with the Big 4. I watching the CBC/Sportsnet feed of Ottawa-Toronto series one night and former Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde was an analyst during the intermissions. He was discussing Knies who was a late bloomer. Knies never played for the US Program teams. He played minor hockey in Arizona and then played in the USHL before going to Minnesota. What a terrific player Knies has become for Toronto.

I remember reading about Knies when the Leafs selected him in the 2nd round in 2021. The Rangers director of player personnel and scouting director John Lilley picked Knies when he was running the Leafs drafts.

Chris Drury can learn a few things from the Leafs. Mike Sullivan will try to get the Rangers to defend. The Rangers D group needs to be rebuilt.

If Mika wants his kid to have a big yard, Minnesota has big yards. Zucarrello was two kids. He loves living in Minnesota. His kids call Kaprizov "Uncle Kiril". Maybe the Zibanejad and Zuccarello kids can play together.

Rielly can run a power play. OEL can back him up.

Fox runs our power play. Right now we don't have a guy to back him up. K'Andre Miller is not very good at it and no Jones hasn't proved all that much as an offensive player and he's another little guy. I don't see the point to bringing him back for another year really. He's a Nils Lundkvist comparable and Dallas does just fine when Nils isn't in their lineup. There are no D in Hartford with any real offensive ability. Dorrington, Fortescue and Emery are all stay at home types and none of them have shown at any level that they can be guys who can run a power play. After Fox we're without throughout the organization. Skint. Nada. Zero.

A good team has to have a D that can run a power play.

Apart from that I have no problem finding big physical stay at home guys to fill out the roster right down to the 7 spot and your top call ups. If they can play the bigger, the meaner, the better. And yeah Toronto has done a good job here. Florida, the Lightning, the Caps did pretty much the same when they won Cups. It's a proven to work formula for winning Stanley Cups. It's also why sometimes these teams repeat or make several runs......because they've figured that out.

 

[kovazub94]

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!

Jeez, again my post wasn’t meant to compare Zibanejad to Messier. Concentrate on the “us against the world” part.

 

[kovazub94]

If it’s true that Zibanejad is selling his NYC townhouse then IMO the odds of him agreeing to be moved are a lot higher than I previously expected. I’m the list of more to less likely to be gone I’d put him second right behind Kreider now ahead of KAM.

 

[Mike in Houston]

If it’s true that Zibanejad is selling his NYC townhouse then IMO the odds of him agreeing to be moved are a lot higher than I previously expected. I’m the list of more to less likely to be gone I’d put him second right behind Kreider now ahead of KAM.

He has a place in Connecticut. A bigger place. This is likely nothing.

 

[Siddi]

If Mika wants his kid to have a big yard, Minnesota has big yards. Zucarrello was two kids. He loves living in Minnesota. His kids call Kaprizov "Uncle Kiril". Maybe the Zibanejad and Zuccarello kids can play together.

This is getting borderline desperate now. I think his yard in his house in Connecticut has that covered.

 

[kovazub94]

He has a place in Connecticut. A bigger place. This is likely nothing.

I know about CT. Is he money strapped? People don’t go around randomly selling $13m properties.

PS For whatever it’s worth I had the same read last year when Kakko signed one-year extension immediately after the season.

 

[Mike in Houston]

I know about CT. Is he money strapped? People don’t go around randomly selling $13m properties.

PS For whatever it’s worth I had the same read last year when Kakko signed one-year extension immediately after the season.

He turned a nice $4M profit on it though.

 

[Tawnos]

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.

It was just a thought another poster brought up. I think it's an interesting idea, but if it were true, I think the interpretation of it as brave leadership is off. It's not really bravery or leadership to say "I have the most protection against being moved, so I can be the one to speak out."

You just listed 5 players, 4 of which were not part of any leadership group and one of which was only a Ranger for a short time and considered expendable enough to let leave in free agency. Not the same thing as a 9-year veteran of the team, wearing a letter and on a long-term contract.

 

[Overcast]

It was just a thought another poster brought up. I think it's an interesting idea, but if it were true, I think the interpretation of it as brave leadership is off. It's not really bravery or leadership to say "I have the most protection against being moved, so I can be the one to speak out."

You just listed 5 players, 4 of which were not part of any leadership group and one of which was only a Ranger for a short time and considered expendable enough to let leave in free agency. Not the same thing as a 9-year veteran of the team, wearing a letter and on a long-term contract.

Does it matter what position/rank they held when they said something? People are acting as if Mika is blazing a trail here by saying what he did. I'm saying a number of other players, even rookies, have spoken out against the FO/coaches in very recent times, very publicly, and repeatedly.

 

[Tawnos]

Would you get / address the point if I didn’t mention Messier?

I get your point, and I've said dozens of times that the players' response wasn't good. They could've chosen a different course, if not right away, within a few weeks of Trouba being traded. They should have, but on some level I do understand why they didn't despite being critical of it.

The poster you were quoting was saying "I doubt they unionized"... but they already ARE unionized. Putting myself in their shoes for a second, in a broader look, you have employees with far more power in their workplace than typical, even of union members. There are two reasons for that. One is that professional sports is different than most other industries, in that the players are the product. That's very different than an auto worker, where the car is the product. The second is that the players are a small group relative to the size of the business. The smaller the group, the more power each member has. The players should, (and definitely seem to in this generation), feel more empowered individually to try to improve their working relationships and working conditions than nearly any other employee in any other business.

I'm not happy with the way they went about it, but I do empathize with the underlying point-of-view it reveals. That point-of-view comes across to most of us normal workers as entitled, but that doesn't really feel right to me. Or, at the very least, the feeling of entitlement is earned rather than not.

I know I went off on a tangent there, but I find that kind of stuff fascinating.

 

[Slaydagnar]

Calvin de Haan on Drury. Surprisingly positive:

 

[Tawnos]

Does it matter what position/rank they held when they said something? People are acting as if Mika is blazing a trail here by saying what he did. I'm saying a number of other players, even rookies, have spoken out against the FO/coaches in very recent times, very publicly, and repeatedly.

Yes, it matters. It matters a lot. Have you ever worked somewhere that there were people who were more effective at communicating with management because of their time of service and/or earned respect? That latter can be through being competent, but there are plenty of times that isn't the case.

Either way, most workplaces have people who are more likely to be paid attention to if they complain.

 

[haohmaru]

Did anyone see The Point last night before the Florida-Toronto game on ESPN with Chris Pronger? He was discussing how the Maple Leafs defense is built for the playoffs. Brad Treliving has added defenseman with good size. OEL is 6-2. Chris Tanev is 6-3. Brandon Carlo is 6-5. Simon Benoit is 6-4. This guy is the ideal 6th D in the NHL. Treliving inherited Morgan Reilly and Jake McCabe. They are 6-1. Except for OEL, all of them weigh more than 200 pounds. That's the formula for success.

PK Subban was also on the set and he commented about the top D on a team can't get pushed. The Rangers top D is barely 5-11.

Craig Berube is a great coach. The Leafs are able to defend.

Matthew Knies has been great for Toronto. A big bodied winger who can play with the Big 4. I watching the CBC/Sportsnet feed of Ottawa-Toronto series one night and former Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde was an analyst during the intermissions. He was discussing Knies who was a late bloomer. Knies never played for the US Program teams. He played minor hockey in Arizona and then played in the USHL before going to Minnesota. What a terrific player Knies has become for Toronto.

I remember reading about Knies when the Leafs selected him in the 2nd round in 2021. The Rangers director of player personnel and scouting director John Lilley picked Knies when he was running the Leafs drafts.

Chris Drury can learn a few things from the Leafs. Mike Sullivan will try to get the Rangers to defend. The Rangers D group needs to be rebuilt.

If Mika wants his kid to have a big yard, Minnesota has big yards. Zucarrello was two kids. He loves living in Minnesota. His kids call Kaprizov "Uncle Kiril". Maybe the Zibanejad and Zuccarello kids can play together.

Cale Makar is 5' 11" and, oh look, he won a Cup.

Toronto D is big enough to win a Cup but they probably aren't talented enough. We'll see if their top 6 can keep saving their asses.

 

[Crease]

I don’t think you can infer anything from Mika selling his brownstone. He’s in his 30s and has a young kid, maybe he’s just moving full time to the suburbs.

 

[bernmeister]

Did anyone see The Point last night before the Florida-Toronto game on ESPN with Chris Pronger? He was discussing how the Maple Leafs defense is built for the playoffs. Brad Treliving has added defenseman with good size. OEL is 6-2. Chris Tanev is 6-3. Brandon Carlo is 6-5. Simon Benoit is 6-4. This guy is the ideal 6th D in the NHL. Treliving inherited Morgan Reilly and Jake McCabe. They are 6-1. Except for OEL, all of them weigh more than 200 pounds. That's the formula for success.

PK Subban was also on the set and he commented about the top D on a team can't get pushed. The Rangers top D is barely 5-11.

Craig Berube is a great coach. The Leafs are able to defend.

Matthew Knies has been great for Toronto. A big bodied winger who can play with the Big 4. I watching the CBC/Sportsnet feed of Ottawa-Toronto series one night and former Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde was an analyst during the intermissions. He was discussing Knies who was a late bloomer. Knies never played for the US Program teams. He played minor hockey in Arizona and then played in the USHL before going to Minnesota. What a terrific player Knies has become for Toronto.

I remember reading about Knies when the Leafs selected him in the 2nd round in 2021. The Rangers director of player personnel and scouting director John Lilley picked Knies when he was running the Leafs drafts.

Chris Drury can learn a few things from the Leafs. Mike Sullivan will try to get the Rangers to defend. The Rangers D group needs to be rebuilt.

If Mika wants his kid to have a big yard, Minnesota has big yards. Zucarrello was two kids. He loves living in Minnesota. His kids call Kaprizov "Uncle Kiril". Maybe the Zibanejad and Zuccarello kids can play together.

yeah but lots of places have nice burbs...
the best possible fit is LA-ANA
nyc vibe on beautiful w'c, w/milder winters
5 yrs of Disneyland for very young daughter he is devoted to
still plenty of room for white picket fence deal somewhere

If it’s true that Zibanejad is selling his NYC townhouse then IMO the odds of him agreeing to be moved are a lot higher than I previously expected. I’m the list of more to less likely to be gone I’d put him second right behind Kreider now ahead of KAM.

esp if zib moves there is no reason to deal Kreider until we know where he is at medically
can then decide [whichever option is best based on return assets then offered] --- to keep or sell at higher price later = smart; to sell now at lowest return is dumb ass dumb

zib is another story
don't want him here
no one else ever again gets that type of contract

----------------------
Rossi is interesting but is he like 5'10-ish?
good big man >> good smaller man

there can be room for him maybe but all variables need to be weighed

 

[Machinehead]

 

[kovazub94]

He turned a nice $4M profit on it though.

Profit wasn’t going anywhere. Again, this could be nothing but IMO it is just too much of a coincidence that on a heels of a “turbulent” season his almost immediate action is this.

 

[NickyFotiu]

This is the part I don't get:

"I'm really unhappy with this organization... also... I AIN'T LEAVING!!!!!"

Or some fans saying a player quit last season but that shouldn't be a concern for next season.

 

[kovazub94]

Calvin de Haan on Drury. Surprisingly positive:

BS, he’s lying of course (won’t be surprised if Rangers made him say it or else). Drury is a monster, devil in disguise

 

[Overcast]

Yes, it matters. It matters a lot. Have you ever worked somewhere that there were people who were more effective at communicating with management because of their time of service and/or earned respect? That latter can be through being competent, but there are plenty of times that isn't the case.

Either way, most workplaces have people who are more likely to be paid attention to if they complain.

I understand that more tenured people may be more readily listened to in an organization, but that does not negate the fact that Mika is not breaking new ground by speaking out. He is not the first to say something. Multiple players already have, and were much more pointed with their words.

Strome was Panarin's closest teammate when he talked about being micromanaged, I think that would hold some weight. Kakko was 1 of the 2 highest draft picks in org history when he was talking about his usage/ice time, I think they would listen to that. Andersson with his treatment options, Krav also high picks and highly touted players, I think they would be important to listen to. These guys weren't nobodies they found on the street.