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

[IDvsEGO]

Wish Othmann and Perreault were playing for USA at the world championships. Honesty I think it’s a tournament that’s a decent level for prospects right on the cusp of becoming NHL regulars. Kreider did well attending when he was a fresh face out of college

Othmann the kid from Canada?
Perreault played world juniors, he’s played a decent amount of hockey this year. I’m fine with him resting before training

 

[haohmaru]

McDavid is miles ahead of Panarin. Trying to shoehorn them into the same tier is just a wasted exercise so if you want to believe it, go for it but it's stupid and you should stop because I don't think you're stupid.

Again, I'm not comparing the two vs. each other. You are.

Again: if you can sign a top 20 player in the league in his 20's for nothing other than money and a signature you do it.

On the catering: I forget who had it (it may have been several people) but it was reported that Panarin refused to play with Kakko. Him getting off scot free and not facing any discipline for stupid play is well documented here.

Discipline? If McDavid, who you frequently bring up, says "I'm not playing with ______ because of ______ " you're going to discipline him and tell him to f*** off? Sure you are. Blackwell or Kakko with McDavid. Ridiculous.

This rest of this is utter nonsense and just a laundry list of the same excuses that have been made for this player.

I don't care who Guentzel plays with, HE ISN'T MAKING 11.6! Guentzel didn't have Crosby or Kucherov last year and he still had a better playoff run than anything Panarin has done in a Ranger uniform so you can miss me with this.

Guentzel is a gamer. No question. I'd love for the Rangers to have gotten him last year. Might've made the difference.

But lets take other guys out of the equation and just focus on the Rangers - Panarin has been outproduced by: Kreider, Zibanejad, Fox and has also produced less than Trocheck in the time that they've been teammates (still holds true if you want to use Trocheck's. Once again, forget the other elite guys, he's been getting out done by his own teammates (Zibanejad has 11 more points than Panarin, that isn't insignificant.) 5v5 he's been outproduced by Lafreniere who hasn't even gotten top 6 minutes in 2 of the 3 runs (side note: Laf is the only ranger with a xGF% above 50% in their 3 runs combined. He also leads the team in p/60 at ES, people should probably cool it on trying to run him out of town.)

Lafreniere had a nice run last year but you need to look at the seasons in their entirety. Look at this year. He was a train wreck. So was Zibanejad.

I mean, if your sole focus is JUST the playoffs then you're absolutely correct that he hasn't been worth his contract. Unfortunately for your argument, that's not all there is to it.

Also the "keyed on" and smothered argument is dumb. Firstly, do you think other teams just let the top players skate by unimpeded? No, they play through it and either they make shit happen or they don't (Panarin more often than not, does not.) Secondly, Panarin didn't draw Barkov, Zibnanejad did so its not like he was even facing the Panthers match up guys (Zibanejad also drew J.Staal the series before.) Panarin was getting owned by the Panthers 2nd and 3rd wave. Cherry picking his gwg's is cute though (2 of those 4 were basically insurance goals that just ended up turning into a GWG, but okay, he had 4 GWG's, what a stud.)

Zibanejad didn't produce, but Barkov largely didn't either. I read a lot of criticism about his performance last year but, honestly, keeping FL's Barkov line about even isn't really a bad thing.

I'm not going to dismiss GWG's though. You can. Doesn't change the fact that guy you're comparing him to didn't have ANY.

Lastly I'd check your math. Zibanejad and Trocheck both had more points than Panarin leading into he Panthers series. Trocheck (his line mate mind you) continued to outperform and out produce him in the Panthers series. If he can do it, why couldn't the elite player? They faced the same competition.
Ditto Lafreinere.

Agree with part A. Lafreniere had a nice run but, see above. It's vapor right now until he shows otherwise. This past season should be really concerning for everyone.

And no, it's not because they drew the attention of the Panthers. It's because those guys either went to the areas of the ice that he couldn't/wouldn't go to or were able to create something by themselves.

The supporting cast has actually more or less given you bare minimum production (at least relative to expectaitons) or better in both of their conference finals runs. Theres one guy in the top 6 who has drastically underperformed. I'll let you guess who that is.

(They could have beaten the Panthers even with Panarin doing what he did if they had an actual capable body on the top pair instead of Lindgren and just left Trouba on the bottom pair so it isn't all on him, but he himself didn't do enough to help push them through.)

Edit: Here is a report that Panarin didn't want to play with Kakko, it was from Carp but I think Vince and/or Brooks had it too. So no, I wasn't making it up.

View attachment 1032677

Artemi Panarin given the choice of either Blackwell or Kakko lol. Only the Rangers. Horrendous.

I'll agree to disagree about Panarin. While I'd love better playoff numbers from him he's still the best UFA signed in Rangers history.

 

[IDvsEGO]

Again: if you can sign a top 20 player in the league in his 20's for nothing other than money and a signature you do it.

Yes 99% of the time you do it.
But that 1% is "you are just entering the middle of the tank". Which is when the rangers did it.


Gorton and Drury were clearing cap. Adding panarin closed off any cap we had, and forced them to make bad choices, like moving buch...

the move isn't made in a vacuum. This isn't the NFL where the cap is mostly imaginary.

 

[JohnC]

Meh. You can't just forget about the regular season when evaluating a player.

Panarin can definitely do better than he has in the post season, no question, but his contract covers the entire season not just the playoffs.

Are the Rangers a better team with or without Panarin? That's a pretty easy answer.

That being said, if this team fumbles again out of the gate and are teetering on the brink of a playoff spot at the next deadline, I move him without a second thought. He'd bring back A LOT of assets.

I'm not married to him being here but signing him wasn't a mistake. No one could've foreseen 1OA, 2OA, 7OA, 10OA all being less than the sum of their parts. If half of them turned out as good or better than we thought we'd be looking at all of this a lot differently.

His regular seasons have been mostly dynamite so you wouldn’t get an argument from me there. His playoffs have been suboptimal for a player of his caliber and salary.

I’d argue tons of reasons why signing him was a mistake, but they’re reasons I’ve argued ad nauseam that I’m not interested in arguing anymore.

If we want to play big what if games, there’s arguments people could make that #10s existence on this team played a not-insignificant role in why those draft picks ended up being less than the sum of their parts.

 

[JohnC]

On the catering: I forget who had it (it may have been several people) but it was reported that Panarin refused to play with Kakko. Him getting off scot free and not facing any discipline for stupid play is well documented here.

Memory’s a little foggy on this, but I think it was Edge who said it. Said Panarin and Strome (the original toxic bromance befor K&Z) explicitly did not want to play with Kakko and were very particular about their line mates. Which would explain the revolving door of Fast/Blackwell/Dryden Hunt at RW on that line.

 

[Fitzy]

Othmann is Canadian.

Oh man. That's embarassing.

I wonder if the fact that both he and Matthews did a pro year in Switzerland at 17 is what f***ed me up there.

 

[SA16]

Why did this coaching staff and management allow an ineffective, injured, K'Andre Miller to play at the end of the season with an injury so severe that it required surgery?

 

[Ruggs225]

Why did this coaching staff and management allow an ineffective, injured, K'Andre Miller to play at the end of the season with an injury so severe that it required surgery?

Did he have a brain transplant? Bc his decision making is the biggest problem

 

[bernmeister]

With Anaheim hiring Q, could that make it more likely that Panarin would waive to Anaheim? Iirc I remember people saying Panarin loved playing for Q, and it reunite him with strome, Trouba & Vatrrano. Would something like Zegras(I’d prefer mctavish but seems like Z is was rumored to be moved & Ana prob prefer to move the cap hit), & solberg be the basis of a deal?

Zeg as a core piece could work, but I'd prefer
bread at half to DAL for Bischel

do a separate deal for Zeg

 

[TGWL]

Jesus....Cizikas? Coleman? Hyman?

BARF.

We don't need older players who will decline faster than a banana left out in a blizzard.

This is old very old.

 

[cheech70]

With Anaheim hiring Q, could that make it more likely that Panarin would waive to Anaheim? Iirc I remember people saying Panarin loved playing for Q, and it reunite him with strome, Trouba & Vatrrano. Would something like Zegras(I’d prefer mctavish but seems like Z is was rumored to be moved & Ana prob prefer to move the cap hit), & solberg be the basis of a deal?

Anaheim is a good location for a half way house

 

[TGWL]

Next season will be great with players missing out on good off-season training and potentially camp, then being back for start of season.

 

[Guyute]

Interesting tweet. There's our old friend, Barclay. Trocheck is the only other Ranger to make this list. I would like to see the bottom of this list. I imagine Panarin is near the bottom. I still don't understand why we wouldn't give Danault the extra year when he was UFA.

I'm not advocating for trading Panarin and signing Marner. However, Marner does have an impact in the playoffs even when he doesn't score because of what he prevents on the other side of the puck. When Panarin isn't scoring, he tries to do too much, turns the puck over in bad spots, and causes tons of chances against.

 

[TGWL]

Interesting tweet. There's our old friend, Barclay. Trocheck is the only other Ranger to make this list. I would like to see the bottom of this list. I imagine Panarin is near the bottom. I still don't understand why we wouldn't give Danault the extra year when he was UFA.

This would be better if we just used their time here as a NYR.

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

Interesting tweet. There's our old friend, Barclay. Trocheck is the only other Ranger to make this list. I would like to see the bottom of this list. I imagine Panarin is near the bottom. I still don't understand why we wouldn't give Danault the extra year when he was UFA.

3rd worst on NYR. Kreider is at the bottom.

A smidge ahead of Laf for 2nd worst (.001).

Expected against? He's 2nd worst (behind Zibanejad) for forwards.

Using 500 TOI as the minimum here. Goodrow didn't qualify for his time as a Ranger.

 

[haohmaru]

If we want to play big what if games, there’s arguments people could make that #10s existence on this team played a not-insignificant role in why those draft picks ended up being less than the sum of their parts.

Not any more than you can make the argument that they are what they are. We'll never know. Kakko himself acknowledged that he had opportunities and botched them. Several of our picks aren't even in the NHL anymore and that doesn't bode well for the "development" argument since they had chances, in some cases multiple chances, elsewhere and couldn't make it work there either.

The Rangers made 6 1st round picks and 3 2nd round picks in the three years preceding Panarin's debut and two 1st's and a 2nd in 2020. Panarin didn't hinder anything. Precisely ZERO of those picks turned into star players. That's the real issue here.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

3rd worst on NYR. Kreider is at the bottom.

A smidge ahead of Laf for 2nd worst (.001).

Expected against? He's 2nd worst (behind Zibanejad) for forwards.

Using 500 TOI as the minimum here. Goodrow didn't qualify for his time as a Ranger.

 

[IDvsEGO]

Interesting tweet. There's our old friend, Barclay. Trocheck is the only other Ranger to make this list. I would like to see the bottom of this list. I imagine Panarin is near the bottom. I still don't understand why we wouldn't give Danault the extra year when he was UFA.

I'm not advocating for trading Panarin and signing Marner. However, Marner does have an impact in the playoffs even when he doesn't score because of what he prevents on the other side of the puck. When Panarin isn't scoring, he tries to do too much, turns the puck over in bad spots, and causes tons of chances against.

Danault is that high on that list, and he’s had how many losses vs Edmonton?
Because goals against doesn’t matter if you can’t score…

 

[Guyute]

3rd worst on NYR. Kreider is at the bottom.

A smidge ahead of Laf for 2nd worst (.001).

Expected against? He's 2nd worst (behind Zibanejad) for forwards.

Using 500 TOI as the minimum here. Goodrow didn't qualify for his time as a Ranger.

Just to be clear, your numbers are 5v5 goals against and 5v5 xgoals against, correct? For the past 5 playoffs?

 

[n8]

Why did this coaching staff and management allow an ineffective, injured, K'Andre Miller to play at the end of the season with an injury so severe that it required surgery?

Have you considered K'Andre is so megabrained that his body broke trying to keep up with an IQ that thinks at the speed of light? No? Ok <quietly withdraws>

The optimist in me can only hope my humorous narrative has some truth to it. I really hope all our players were just injured last year and come back like bats out of hell. The silver lining is maybe we resign K'Andre to fair market value. He signed his current contract coming off a 43 point season. Perhaps his regression will lower his price down.

 

[Guyute]

Danault is that high on that list, and he’s had how many losses vs Edmonton?
Because goals against doesn’t matter if you can’t score…

Every successful cup winner has a shutdown line

 

[mas0764]

Because some people don't exclusively consider "working out" to mean winning the Stanley Cup - an unlikely outcome even for the best team in the league. Winning a presidents trophy and making the ECF twice is quite a good result.

In any given year, sure.

After 30 years you kinda have to start aiming for winning a Cup, not just being "good enough to get in the playoffs and we'll see what happens," -- and the continued failure is in fact failure.

 

[IDvsEGO]

Every successful cup winner has a shutdown line

And not every shutdown line wins a Stanley cup

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

Not any more than you can make the argument that they are what they are. We'll never know. Kakko himself acknowledged that he had opportunities and botched them. Several of our picks aren't even in the NHL anymore and that doesn't bode well for the "development" argument since they had chances, in some cases multiple chances, elsewhere and couldn't make it work there either.

The Rangers made 6 1st round picks and 3 2nd round picks in the three years preceding Panarin's debut and two 1st's and a 2nd in 2020. Panarin didn't hinder anything. Precisely ZERO of those picks turned into star players. That's the real issue here.

Panarin's existence did have an impact on Laf and Kakko though.

I don't think it's at all a stretch to say that they would have been pretty bad with out him in 2019-20. He pretty much single handedly kept them afloat until the new year when Fox took a quantum leap and then Zibanejad got insanely hot. It's been my biggest sore spot with Quinn since he did it, but there was no reason for Kakko to have been taken off of the top PP. It didn't get hot just because Strome was on it, it got hot because Zibanejad started to score on 1 out of every 3 shots he took. That was the one area where Kakko was pretty decent in his rookie season (which was a struggle otherwise) and thats one area where he should have continued to be used but he got taken off in december the second it cooled down a bit.

But no, the illusion of a playoff push got in the way and we got what we got. It also was likely the catalyst to Kreider extending instead of being liquidated (and tbf, even with his performance this past season his current contract has been a bargain), Strome hanging around as long as he did, etc. Those guys were around and took up spots on PP1 and the top 6 for all of Kakko's ELC and 2 of the 3 years on Lafs. Those guys are not going to get better at playing in that situation by not playing.

I'll say this: Strome was a phenomenal stop gap player - Thats the kind of player you want while you're in the middle of a rebuild as he isn't completely inept and he could soak minutes as a 2C. The problem is Panarin came along and all of a sudden he was deployed like a featured player.

Lias and Kravtsov were lost causes (at least they were able to turn Lias into Cuylle who is good) but it would have probably been wise to hold off on Panarin while continuing to accumulate assets. Even if he was "just cap space" a ton of guys who are younger/better have been moved since he signed and it would have been nice to have the space/chips to make a play for some of those guys. They tried to stuff the guy in at the very beginning of the whole process before we knew what the f*** any of these young players were and sell us on having him "accelerate" the rebuild but instead, they just tried to build around a guy who we now know you can’t build around.

This isn’t captain hindsight either. I never wanted him to begin with because I knew this would happen. There are other surprises along the way that I wasn’t expecting (I didn’t think he’d still be this productive 6 years into his contract, I also didn’t think he’d be as bad as he’s been in the playoffs) but the rebuild was doomed the second he signed.

 

[haohmaru]

In any given year, sure.

After 30 years you kinda have to start aiming for winning a Cup, not just being "good enough to get in the playoffs and we'll see what happens," -- and the continued failure is in fact failure.

You do know that nearly all teams (with the exceptions of examples like AZ who did not have the $ to properly do anything) are "aiming for winning a Cup", right? I mean, they all think that their plan is the correct one - just like you do. Only one team aims right every year though.