Im going to ask for opinions on this. I don't know if it happens, but it wouldn't surprise me. I've heard this type of thing done in other industries and other sports.
First off, Callahan's been injured this year and coming in and out of the line-up so, when the PP is clicking while he's injured, it makes it difficult for him to get back on it. And secondly, the richards-callahan-hagelin line is the 2nd line. Not the brass-zucc-puo line.
But what if Sather has mandated to AV to peel back some of Callahan's responsibilities in order to drive his price down. Up until this year, Callahan has been everything for this team. And personally I believe if he signs a new deal, it won't be long before you see him getting the minutes, the starts, that he has over his career. Like come next year, if he's signed, and he's the most effective RW at the time and his line is going, dude is play minutes and crunch time situations like he always has.
I don't know if Sather would do this or AV would adhere to it. But I know this, Glen Sather approaches every single situation in his life like its a card hand he wants to win. It seems he constantly approaches everything like this.
Example, if he some day determines his best 'play' is to step down, he'll step down. But if someone else suggests it first, he wouldn't do it, even if he was planning on it before. Like he wants to be master of everything every time.
His free agent signings reek of it, his trades do. Like Richards, Redden, Gomez, these are guys the Rangers were linked to for years before they came here. Sather zeroes in top players who he thinks wants out of their situations and he works the situation. When the guys is eventually heading to free agency, he gets his guy like that, and gets to say to the other gms, see told you Id end up nabbing him, when it was Nash, and it had to be a trade, you knew it was eventually going down, you just hoped certain players weren't involved.
Same thing with his negotiations with current rangers, he plays it so hard and so cutthroat that it almost creates a situation where the player is feeling like he has to leave, otherwise Sather will have worked the situation exactly how he wanted to… Now some people will say that is brilliant. I think it shows he's perhaps unknowingly an egomaniac. I want my work environment and the people I work with and spend my days with to be like family. All my dealings, I try to do like that. I love feeling connected with the people around me and them knowing they're dealing with someone who loves them and will go to bat with them. Thats why certain environments in certain sports and other industries have this feel of something special, something different.
And I truly believed that's what the Rangers were growing with 2007-2012 Ranngers. Obviously we saw it was simply a marketing strategy to get to the next marketing strategy. But as I've said before on different sites, so long as the core of my guys (staal, callahan girardi, hank, McD Stepan) are here, that culture can survive in the locker room, despite the organizational disattachment from it.
People say the Rangers have no identity. Again Fantasy Hockey fans. The Rangers identity was being the hardest-working team in the league. A team that everyone in the league knew, that when you played them, you were in for a battle, where you were gonna have to give it all, and be prepared to take some pain to have a chance of competing with them, Thats why you saw games in 2011-12 where teams simply packed it in. Now this team isn't nearly as punishing or physical. BUT that does not mean they can't be the hardest-working team in the league in many of the same ways, and also in different ways. But that was and is the identity for this team when they are at their best. And playing that way, this team even as constitutioned has a chance in the playoffs with the goaltending and defense they have.
