Opinion: Disgruntled

Even if Gaborik does play only 1/4 the games that Gomez plays, which is a pretty ridiculous exaggeration, he’ll still probably outscore him in those games.

You’ll really have to get over the loss of Sjostrom, Betts, and Orr. They’re 4th liners. Sjostrom is all speed and desire, his skills are terrible. I’ll take a rookie with a smaller contract over him. Betts was awesome, but you dont know how he’ll be after that serious injury. Maybe he hasnt signed because he cant pass a team’s physical? And Orr, for all his might, would spend more time in the box than on the ice under Torts.

Kotalik is a great signing. Zherdev is a lazy bum and we dont need players like that on this team.

I’ll agree I’m mad about losing Betts and Sjostrom, because they were two of the best defensive forwards in the league. The played against the Crosby line, the Malkin line, and NJ’s first line and had some good success, as well as being two of the best PK forwards in the league, and they weren;t expensive players, so I would have kept them around.

As for Brashear, I hate him too. We all do.

 I also liked Gomez, but he doesn’t have the skills to be a #1 forward in his own right. Its sad to say, but he had to go, so we could get a legitimate top forward to help us score. Higgins and a couple of prospects isn’t a bad deal from where I sit, because even though Higgins is a protypical second line player, tne Rangers had no real 2nd line last year. We had a 1st-ish line, two above average third lines, and one of the best 4th lines you’ll ever see, so to me, Higgins fills our needs.

Other than over paying Kotalik, this free agency period is not nearly as disastrous as I thought it would be, though I’m not thrilled with every move.

In all honesty, I’m not betting my life savings on NYR winning the President’s trophy this year, but I wouldn’t have thought I would at the end of last season anyway. This team can still make the playoffs, and once there, they just need to get hot for a month, and we could take the cup. You never know.

Alot of rangers fans are upset simply because it was Brashear. Orr wanted a long term deal and obviously Sather and/or Tortorella didn’t want to commit to him. If they replaced Orr with some other goon, it’d be pretty much a blah move, so no need to really get worked up over that. Sure he killed Betts, but Betts is gone too so it’s not like they’re being united on a line.

He hasn’t really thrown money around like a kid in a candy store. Yes, he signed Gaborik for a bunch of money but the guy is as lethal as anyone in the league when healthy. It’s high risk/reward certainly, but he’s a potential superstar, something the team sorely lacked w/o Jagr.

I don’t remember Gomez doing that much PK. I thought it was Betts/Sjostrom/Dubinsky/Callahan. Nevertheless, they have addressed, to some extent, the loss of Betts and Sjostrom. Higgins is a decent player on the PK, he is averaging about 2.5 SHG per season for his career. It certainly won’t be 1st/2nd in the league again, but a top 10 PK isn’t out of the question, assuming Sather doesn’t fuck up the Dubie/Callahan signings.

Zherdev wasn’t great down the stretch (19pts in 34 games) and abysmal in the playoffs (0pts in 7 games), and never seemed to work hard enough to succeed in Tort’s system. Nonetheless, if Zherdev would’ve signed for $3.25, they probably don’t make the Kotalik move. But Nik thinks he’s worth more, and the organization clearly disagreed. In total, you lose a little bit of even strength production, but gain on the PP (which was certainly needed) and do save a little cap room in the process, it’s not a bad signing.

They’re not an elite team as constructed. Few teams ever are. But there are still moves to be made, and some depth in the organization to help facilitate something mid-season if there are glaring weaknesses. It hasn’t been a perfect offseason, but I’m certainly happier seeing Sather at least trying to remake the roster rather than sitting on a team that was never going to be good enough to get out of the East.