Larry Brooks: Sather must decide: Is dealing Girardi best for Rangers?
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CharlieCharleschuk
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- Nov 26, 2013
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Somebody pointed out earlier today that this is an almost unheard of event: the NYR are trying to resign their own home-grown UFAs. Good to see, if true.
haohmaru
boomshakalaka
Anyone listen to the Detroit feed on Sirius tonight? They pretty much we're saying how can you NOT sign guys like Callahan and Girardi? Because Franchises like Detroit get it. Youdont give away commodities like Callahan and Girardi that likely can't be replaced with picks and lesser players. Not signing these guys and trading them isn't what a winning organization would do. They cited Girardi and McD as one of the best pairs in the league and the truth is that no one here will really appreciate Girardi until the Rangers **** the bed and trade a 29 year old R D that they can't remotely replace. The can't even find a 3rd pairing R D for Pete's sake.
haohmaru
boomshakalaka
AlternateSideParking
Registered User
- Dec 11, 2005
- 21,596
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Scotty Bowman always talked about the 7-player profile. Does your team have a 7-player profile to be considered elite?
The seven players?
2 X elite centers
1 X PMD
1 X all star goalie
1 X defensive specialist
1 X Power forward
1 X Big hitter
The 1992 Pens personified this blueprint. Mario and Francis at center, Stevens and Tocchet at power forward, Murphy moving the puck, Tippett defensively, Barrasso in goal and Ulf destroying everything in sight.
The 1997 Rangers fit that profile too and nearly pulled it off.
This team needs a heavy hitter and a No. 2 center with size. I think Stepan will develop into an elite center, and Richards was an elite center before he signed here.
Buy out Richards, trade Girardi and trade whatever it takes for a bonafide young NHL star center.
Break the bank. There is nothing on the horizon even close to a Toews or Krejci or Malkin or Thornton.
Go out and buy a young one.
The seven players?
2 X elite centers
1 X PMD
1 X all star goalie
1 X defensive specialist
1 X Power forward
1 X Big hitter
The 1992 Pens personified this blueprint. Mario and Francis at center, Stevens and Tocchet at power forward, Murphy moving the puck, Tippett defensively, Barrasso in goal and Ulf destroying everything in sight.
The 1997 Rangers fit that profile too and nearly pulled it off.
This team needs a heavy hitter and a No. 2 center with size. I think Stepan will develop into an elite center, and Richards was an elite center before he signed here.
Buy out Richards, trade Girardi and trade whatever it takes for a bonafide young NHL star center.
Break the bank. There is nothing on the horizon even close to a Toews or Krejci or Malkin or Thornton.
Go out and buy a young one.
Yes. The Rangers have made many similar bad moves in their history. Trading Park and Ratelle was a bad move too.
AlternateSideParking
Registered User
- Dec 11, 2005
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You have to spend money to make money. The Penguins amassed the best group of young forwards in the game in the 1980s but nothing was working. The team stunk even with a prime Lemieux. They missed the playoffs six of seven years back when 16 of 21 qualified.
They finally cut the cord. They traded Craig Simpson for Paul Coffey, and traded Recchi and Cullen in the middle of 100 point seasons for Tocchet and Francis. They traded Rob Brown for Scott Young, and added veterans like Joe Mullen and Larry Murphy for nothing.
Time to cut the cord. Forget prospects and draft picks. Trade veteran established players for young established players.
The cap isn't an excuse. There are plenty of examples of stupid GMs who take on salary in lopsided trades. The creative GMs like Chiarelli and Bowman and Shero and Lombardi made a living out of exploiting GMs like Sather.
What made the Kings a powerhouse? Two blockbuster trades for Richards and Carter. The Blues traded away Johnson and Eller and Stempniak for Shattenkirk, Stewart, Halak and Steen.
Time for Sather to let his younger executives run the show. Trading for picks will just repeat the cycle. He traded Korpikoski for Lisin when he could have packaged him for a scoring winger.
The Rangers have a solid core to build on, including Nash.
Trade Callahan and Girardi then buy out Richards. Trade Del Zotto and trade Stralman.
Get creative. Time is ticking and the franchise is still stuck in gridlock.
You just signed Lundqvist with no plan for the rest of his career. It will be the same crap.
Hopefully Lundqvist said the condition for signing was a promise from Sather to get him support.
Sather has done nothing creative since McDonagh. The guy doesn't know the meaning of selling high. Dawes, Roszival, Jagr, Nylander, Straka, Zherdev, Prust....these guys all had worth at some point at Sather let them go with nothing in return.
They finally cut the cord. They traded Craig Simpson for Paul Coffey, and traded Recchi and Cullen in the middle of 100 point seasons for Tocchet and Francis. They traded Rob Brown for Scott Young, and added veterans like Joe Mullen and Larry Murphy for nothing.
Time to cut the cord. Forget prospects and draft picks. Trade veteran established players for young established players.
The cap isn't an excuse. There are plenty of examples of stupid GMs who take on salary in lopsided trades. The creative GMs like Chiarelli and Bowman and Shero and Lombardi made a living out of exploiting GMs like Sather.
What made the Kings a powerhouse? Two blockbuster trades for Richards and Carter. The Blues traded away Johnson and Eller and Stempniak for Shattenkirk, Stewart, Halak and Steen.
Time for Sather to let his younger executives run the show. Trading for picks will just repeat the cycle. He traded Korpikoski for Lisin when he could have packaged him for a scoring winger.
The Rangers have a solid core to build on, including Nash.
Trade Callahan and Girardi then buy out Richards. Trade Del Zotto and trade Stralman.
Get creative. Time is ticking and the franchise is still stuck in gridlock.
You just signed Lundqvist with no plan for the rest of his career. It will be the same crap.
Hopefully Lundqvist said the condition for signing was a promise from Sather to get him support.
Sather has done nothing creative since McDonagh. The guy doesn't know the meaning of selling high. Dawes, Roszival, Jagr, Nylander, Straka, Zherdev, Prust....these guys all had worth at some point at Sather let them go with nothing in return.
Unfortunately, it's a sad truth that a good number of Rangers fans are content on just seeing the team win a few games as to satisfy their need for entertainment instead of winning the Cup. Diehard fans will suffer like usual.
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You know, or it is the complete opposite.
Many argue that we in NY never rebuild and never are willing to sacrifize now for the future. I mean, if you have been around from 94' till now, its hard to argue that that isn't exactly what we have been doing since 03'.
One thing nobody can argue is that we in NY ever have been patient. Its always, try something else. I am not saying that we don't have to make some tough decisions, and that anyone shall be resigned at all costs and what not. But I don't think its a default option to dump Cally and G and buyout Richards.
Its real easy to think, will the team we have now win the cup? No? Then dump them and tear the team apart.
Then in 2 years, will McD, Kreider and Stepan win us a cup? No? Then dump them and tear the team apart.
Then in another 2 years, will X, Y and Z win us a cup? No? Then ...
You know, if you look at a team like Boston, they were very avg for a long time. If you put yourself in a Boston fans cloth, right before winning the cup almost, they have no future. Chara is pressured. They have no fire-power. Little depth. They are just very very mediocre. Then all of a sudden, out of no-where, Milan Lucic takes "another" step, they loose Savard but in comes Krejci from no-where, Marchand comes in from no-where. A bunch of D's who has very little rep. are developed by them. Wideman. Seidenberg. So forth. They get a new coach who takes that team in the right direction with a really creative passing game from their D's that enables their PF's to fire away, and they win a Cup. Picked up Horton who was a looser in FLA real cheap. They robbed Toronto in that Kessel trade.
I am in principle not against a true rebuild, but the timing for that is not now. You can't do it half-assed. That seems to be the worst option.
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This isn't even remotely close to the same thing and you know it. First of all, they traded Park when he was just entering his prime and was the second best defenseman in the NHL. Girardi is not just entering his prime and he sure as hell is not within striking distance of Brad Park.
Secondly, it was a completely different era then for a number of reasons. The biggest one being that free agency was not what it is today and there was no such thing as a salary cap. If there was no cap then I don't think many people here would give a **** what exactly was paid to either of these guys. Eight million per season to Dan Girardi? Sure, why not. All that affects is Jim Dolan's bank account. We can't function like that anymore. We can't just bring in the best players possible by throwing money at them. It's a new world.
AlternateSideParking
Registered User
- Dec 11, 2005
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The Rangers arent Detroit and never have been. Both teams became powerhouses around the same time (early 90s) but one drafted well and the other did not.
Of course Detroit would advocate the Rangers keeping Callahan and Girardi. They're in the East now and want the Rangers to remain mediocre.
Of course Detroit would advocate the Rangers keeping Callahan and Girardi. They're in the East now and want the Rangers to remain mediocre.
The Rangers signing both Girardi and Callahan for $12M combined(ballpark number)gives the Rangers $33M in 5 players. Lundqvist,Nash,McDonagh are $21M. $38M to fill out the remaining 16 or 17 spots plus leave enough room to operate the team during the season. This same team scored 2 goals this week at home. They have scored 75 goals in 49 games at even strength. 5th worst in the NHL.
Ail
Based and Rangerspilled.
Except that in two years Stepan and Kreider will be entering their prime while Girardi and Callahan are about to leave theirs in two years. I must have missed the part where Callahan and Girardi only got here two years ago and all of us "impatient" fans have given up on them in a short period of time.
This argument is ridiculous Ola. The only people who would advocate trading Kreider and Stepan two years from now because the TEAM didn't win a cup would be morons.
Girardi and Callahan gave this team their best, and that core came close. The window is closed. Time for something new. It won't happen though. You'll get your wish, I'm almost sure of that.
Ail
Based and Rangerspilled.
Also this team isn't Boston. Stop trying to use them as an example. The Rangers aren't magically turning in to a contender.
haohmaru
boomshakalaka
Let's look at some of the top teams, currently, in the NHL:
Anaheim has roughly $30M dedicated to 5 players.
Pittsburgh has $32.5M dedicated to 5 players.
San Jose $30.1M dedicated to 5 players.
Boston $30.1M dedicated to 5 players.
And this is RIGHT NOW, with a cap that's $10M+ lower than it's going to be next season.
You PAY your core. That's how you contend.
Selectively pulling an ES goal stat out of your ass doesn't mean much. In today's NHL, special teams plays a huge role in most games and most playoff games. Lundqvist has found his form, we have 4 pretty solid lines, and we're coming around defensively. Is this team, right now, a deadline seller? I don't think so. Are we a top contender like Anaheim and St. Louis? No. Are we right in the mix in a pretty weak Eastern Conference? Hell yes.
I don't trade those two guys. Especially Girardi. Fantasizing about draft picks that might or might not turn into something instead of having a top pairing minutes-eater like Girardi and a solid captain that plays top 6, kills PK, plays on the PP, and is a team leader is just that. Fantasizing. If these guys were 34 or 35 years old, I probably do it. They aren't. They are in they're prime and, presumably, both want to remain Rangers.
And therein lies the problem; a faction of New York sports fans will not tolerate a rebuild. I am not saying that you are wrong, as you have every right to vote with your hard earned dollars, but you clearly prefer a semi-competitive product with low risk as opposed to the potential of a championship product with much inherent risk. You are not alone in this thought, as many New York fans simply refuse to tolerate the idea of going through pain in order to resurect stronger. This has been a constant within the context of the New York professional sports landscape:
- Rangers: Perenial playoff outcasts that always threw big money at flawed names in order to stay relevant, now have transformed into overachievers of sorts with no real liklihood of greatness
- Knicks: Perenial playoff outcasts that always threw big money at flawed names in order to stay relevant, now have transformed into achievers of sorts with no real liklihood of greatness
- Yankees: Built nearly 15 years of continuous success around schrewd development and bold reconstruction of the farm system and young stable of players. Began to abandon this blueprint as the core aged and never really developed a plan to replace its aging homegrown stars (sound familiar?). Problems exacerbated when fans became accustomed to perpetual contention, prompting the Yankees to offer bloated contracts to UFAs which ultimately became a noose around the organization's neck.
- Mets: A perpetually underachieving franchise until a significant rebuild was implemented around Mike Piazza. After nearly a decade of relevance, financial troubles forced the Mets to implement austerity measures...unfortunately, rather than use this opportunity to save $$ in efforts to implement it down the line to bolster a true rebuild, the Mets continue to throw good money after bad in order to field a semi-competitive product that is no where near contention.
- Islanders: A team that bears little economic economic resemblance to other NYC professional franchises, but also has demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice long-term assets and a full rebuild in order to bolster short-term performance (Peca, Yashin, Kvasha, Smythe ?, Vanek?)
- Nets: A joke of a franchise until fully rebuilt around Jason Kidd. Once again fell into mediocrity until being moved into Brooklyn with the edict of instant contention, a move that once again has resulted in a NYC franchise becoming locked into mediocrity (or worse) for the foreseeable future at the expense of any and all valuable young assets
Now football is a different animal than the other sports with nearly 30% of the roster being turned over on any given year but I will still point out the Giants. Perhaps the most successfull NYC franchise over the past decade, the Giants too were mired in relative mediocrity until the team fully rebuilt under Tom Coughlin, trading a king's ransom for Eli Manning. Many fans were furious that the Mara's and Tisch's would allow the Giants to enter what was obviously a one or two year period of pain when they could have selected Robert Gallery, Sean Taylor, or even stayed put and selected Roethlisberger or Rivers. Hell, this was a team that lost in the Superbowl just two years prior but they were going to rebuild? Hindsight now looks favorably on the Mara's and they are almost unquestionably the most well-respected owners of any NY professional sports organization. No one really likes to admit that at the time they were against a rebuild and the Mara's were not well well revered.
Ail
Based and Rangerspilled.
Difference: all of those teams have the money tied in players who are worth it. Nash isn't worth his pay. Callahan and Girardi won't be. Hank is great but overpaid a bit, worth it. McD is worth it. Richards will be bought out.
Also when they are 34 or 35 they aren't going to be worth ****. Of course you would trade them then. Unfortunately once the Rangers over pay them no one will want them for anything of significant value. That's why you trade them now. Maximize value and try something new. They are the old core. This obsession with overpaying them because they were the core of a team run completely different under Torts is absurd. You pay them because they fit going forward and will be worth their next contract.
Here's the problem. Look at the top five guys for those teams and look at the top five we'd presumably be paying. The problem isn't in the money itself. It's that the 5 players Chicago is paying 30M is a much better investment than the 30M we're paying.
eco's bones
Registered User
Good post. The thing is you can never be sure. A complete rebuild could turn you into the Florida ****ing Panthers. 15 years of just hopeless ****. The Rangers need to rebuild the farm--no doubt about that but there are other ways to do that than draft picks or trading for other teams kids. There are a number of free agent kids every year--like Girardi, like Zuccarello, like Cam Talbot, like Conor Allen--no one drafted them. Get your scouting staff to work.
In the meantime--people pissed about the team trying to sign Girardi/Callahan--they're still good players. They are assets to the current team and the team is playing better. Henrik is regaining his form--Nash is more dangerous--we're playing with more or less with set lines that seem to work together. Even DZ minus the **** up against TB has been playing a lot better. It's funny looking back at history. Brian Leetch--HOF'er much better player than Jeff Beukeboom but Beukeboom helped Leetch become what he became. He was an anchor--not caught up the ice when Brian was making plays and taking chances in the offensive end. McDonagh does some of the same stuff that Brian did for us--not as much and not as well but the team needs that and no Girardi to count on to back him up and he'll be doing less of it or getting burned more often. Girardi is a minute eater and an extremely dependable player--only 4 games out of the lineup due to injury in 8 years and not a guy who takes a lot of penalties and more than experienced and capable of shutting down the best players in the league. If the Rangers can do a reasonable deal that's the way they should go. In the meantime hold on to their draft picks and get their scouting staff out in the bushes digging up the next free agent Talbot's, Girardi's, Zuccarello's and Allen's.
Or you could end up like the Blachawks and win multiple cups. Drafting high isn't a perfect strategy. But it does have a pretty good track record. You know what doesn't have a good track record? Giving raises to players and keeping more or less the same roster that has been mediocre and attempting to build your prospect pool through undrafted free agents. Can you provide examples of teams who have won with that blueprint? Guys like Allen and Zuccarello and Talbot are nice, but they're not exactly what we're missing to get to the next level. You know what we do need? A top flight offensive defenseman. One or two 30+ goal wingers. Maybe a first line center. Good luck finding that in the bargain bin. Martin St. Louis is a once in a decade fluke.
Please find me the posts in this thread that claim we should get rid of Girardi and Callahan because they're not good players. It's asset management. Welcome to the salary cap world, where you have a limited amount of space to work with.
The team has looked very good for the last couple weeks. Woopie. You can find a couple weeks where most teams have looked good. If that's going to be our sample size, then just cancel the season and give the Ducks the Stanley Cup already.
You know what the Rangers also didn't have to deal with in 1994? A salary cap. If Neil Smith entered the summer of 1993 and the salary cap only allowed for him to keep 4-5 of Messier, Graves, Leetch, Zubov, Kovalev, Beukeboom, Richter, Gartner, and Nemchinov then something tells me the roster looks a bit different. And maybe Beukeboom or another two good players are a cap casualty.
Big if.
I'll again ask how finding these kinds of players is easy and, furthermore, how adding a Cam Talbot and Dan Girardi to our prospect pool makes us anywhere close to the top teams in the NHL.
Ail
Based and Rangerspilled.
Those other teams have guys who put points on the board. Look at the Ducks,Hawks and Pitt. One chance and its in the net. The Rangers could potentially have $33M invested in 5 players and one guy is a legit offensive threat. The goalie,2 D,1 offensive player and a two way player. The team doesn't score enough goals. Its the same team with the same problems. Only difference is they will all make much more money. The Rangers aren't even the Blues which have quality depth at forward and D. Where are the Rangers getting the players necessary to become a top team? In my view,the cap increase is great for a team like Chicago which can keep Toews and Kane plus put a great group around them. Your view is paying players because the cap is going up and everyone wants a piece of the pie. Its the same team.
Its a good question. More of those players...more mediocrity. Stay the course?
JaeTM
Registered User
Neither will be moved at the deadline, let's be real here. They're tied for 2nd in the Metro division and playing much better with Hank finding his stride. Teams in the playoff hunt don't just decide to be sellers out of nowhere. I'm confident that both will be re-signed.
I honestly think that this team is a true #1 center away from being a serious contender. I don't believe Stepan is it, at least not yet. Someone that can carry the puck and dictate the play. The only person I see on this team that resembles anything like that is Zuccarello and unfortunately his size holds him back from being a star IMO.
All the elite teams are elite at home. If the Rangers didn't crap the bed at home during their home stretch in December, this team is looking as one of the best teams in the league. I think if we had a center that was in the ~40 point area, we'd be set.
I honestly think that this team is a true #1 center away from being a serious contender. I don't believe Stepan is it, at least not yet. Someone that can carry the puck and dictate the play. The only person I see on this team that resembles anything like that is Zuccarello and unfortunately his size holds him back from being a star IMO.
All the elite teams are elite at home. If the Rangers didn't crap the bed at home during their home stretch in December, this team is looking as one of the best teams in the league. I think if we had a center that was in the ~40 point area, we'd be set.
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