New York Rangers Season is Over; a Letter to Fans

i disagree on trading lundqvist but trading gaborik is interesting. i still wouldnt want to do it but i understand the rationale. would u trade gaborik for draft picks or players? does anyone know the state of this years draft? is it deep? If so the bruins have a chance to really build for the future, shame its not our team.

I would also hope that the Rangers seriously contemplate trading Gaborik and Lundqvist, more so the former than the latter, but both could fetch a very exciting return. Fans will not like it, but can you imagine what could be had for players of that caliber?

You should not be allowed to post again.

Many people on our team need to go … but gaborik and henrik need to stay …

I disagree with getting Gaby or the King.

traded gabby defiantly makes more sense than traded hank, however shopping both around to see what they would fetch is intriguing. Hank on a team like the blackhawks would be scary, very similar to a team like the caps, probably give him about a dozen more wins and solidify a vezina for himself (as well as a cup).

As a fan i would like to see them win and get into the playoffs, however just getting that eighth spot and playing the caps in the first round is not something i could deal with (and i’m pretty confident the rangers couldn’t either).

getting a top 10 pick is something i could deal with after a disappointing year. look at the pens caps hawks from previous years, they were terrible, got the picks, built around them, and now (in the pens case) are cup winners and solid contenders.

if the rangers manage to go under .500 in the remaining games they will most likely solidify a top 10 pick. in this case i think they should do everything in their power to trade up and land a guy like tyler seguin. although its been projected taylor hall as the number one guy, seguin isn’t far behind. unlike hall, seguin is a solid playmaker who can score as well. he reminds me of niklas backstom of the caps the way he sees the ice. A pure goal scorer sometimes is easy to come by when you have a player like backstrom (seguin) feeding them the puck.

and if all else fails there’s always cam fowler, a solid defenseman who at the beginning of the year was battling that number one spot in the draft.

look i understand the rangers are in trouble, but if they trade a franchise goaltender, they’d live to regret it. Good goaltending takes you very far in the playoffs and henrik has proved with his olympic play and post-season play that he has the tools to take a team to the top. But he needs help. The rangers last year had no defense and no offense, same with the team this year. You can’t expect any goaltender including roy or brodeur to carry a team without any help. Look i guarantee you if the R&R sisters are gone (i know almost impossible) and you replace them with volchenkov and another young prospect in 2 years this defense will be exponentially better. As for the offense, im kinda at a loss with this…maybe with the money saved with the R&R sisters you can get a kovalchuk but then again i dunno if he’d work in new york. But the rangers main move this offseason has to be dumping those 2 terrible contracts (redden to the minors and maybe trade rosival to anyone who will take him). This is all much easier said than done but hopefully something gets accomplished this offseason.

The season has been over for months, much like Keith Richards has been dead for decades. The upper management should have known and shopped players like Gilroy, Girardi, Prospal. I would of been angry is they shipped Dubi or Cally just to rid themselves of Redden though. You don’t fix a mistake with another mistake.

I think Lundqvist should be kept as it has been said before, elite goalies do not grow on trees. And he will probably opt to leave after his contract expires anyway. Can’t blame him for wanting to win. Hasek did the same and Buffalo was a much better team the the current Rangers.

Trading Gaborik is interesting. I do not think you would get a guy like Toews in return (Chicago doesn’t need offense) but he line of thinking is correct. I would seriously consider a good young scorer and a good young and big defender, even one without much offensive upside if he can clear the crease and actually take the body.

Plus i still see Gaborik as a potential injury nightmare and I would inquire now before his body falls apart. He is 27 and how long did Foppa last before his body fell to pieces…30?

Otherwise, keep Dubi, Cally, Staal (still undecided about AA, I am anti-European players and their soft game) and shop anyone else who can give a decent return.

Good piece and I respect you posting your opinion knowing the backlash it would incite.

Let’s go draft pick!

Sather had an oppurtunity to make certainmoves at the deadline to improve this team for the future and did not take advantage. He had a chance to unload some expiring contracts for VALUABLE draft picks and did nothing! He could have gotten rid of Prospal, Jokenin, and Girardi and decided to kep them cuz th Rangers were in they’re usual spot of hovering around the final playoff seed and figured lets go for it. Now I do realize he could have traded away more young talent and did not……(thank god for that!!) But that doesnt change the fact that we could have acquired more young talent to which build off of. Sather has proved time and time again that he doesnt have the pulse of this team and doesnt realize what they can and cannot do. Bottom line is he should have been fired a very long time ago for the moves he has made and now he should be fired for the moves he hasnt……………..

i find it funny that player like callahan and dubi are deemed “untouchable” but players like gaborik and henrik are not…im not saying everyone feels this way…but gabby and henrik are all-stars who you build around while right now dubi and cally are 2nd line players (at best)…i understand you get a greater return for the “all-stars” but you take a huge risk trading them away for unknown entities like draft picks and young prospects

I for one hope the rangers don’t go for a major overhaul…They’ve done that way too many times and it hasn’t gotten them anywhere…they need to develop some chemistry…they’re fairly young, let them develop. These are the moves i make this summer:

1) obviously get rid of redden and rosival (if sather cares about this team at all he will dump redden in the minors)

2) resign staal and trade the rights of girardi for something substantial (a pick maybe) or just let him go

3) sign volchenkov (depends on getting rid of the bad contracts and if he wants to come here)

4) bring up a defensive prospect and sign a 7th veteran dman

5) sign prospal (for hopefully the same price for one year only) and christenson…Let sex panther go unless he takes a massive pay cut (3mill max…again depending on R&R gone)

I personally just wanna see the rangers develop a personality or identity. This is what i thought torts would bring, a fiery hardworking team. Some nights they play that way but other nights (most nights) they just don’t show up. I hope torts gets one more year to make his imprint on this team.

why would you trade a commodity that every team is dying for. There are VERY few elite goaltenders that come and go in the nhl and we have one. Renney had the right idea, build from the net out, with players AND play style. Renney knew how to exploit his best players and we never missed the playoffs.

Hank is certainly not getting any sharper, in fact it appears he may be getting worse the last two seasons as time has gone by. Look at Ryan miller keep his team in every game and then some. We could probably get 2 1st rounders and a damn good player for the King. And Gabby’s value just went up because he survived a full season (knock on wood) and performed up to susperstar fashion. Another 2 first rounders and ?? I absolutely love gabby but he’s still a very risky hit or miss asset. If he gets hurt bad we are screwed my friends. We could get a lot of stuff in return for those two and we’d be foolish to not consider our options. I’m not sure but I think that cambell goalie will still be available to us in the draft. He looked pretty good to me. I have no clue if my trade values are right but with 6 first rounders in two drafts we could look like the penguins pretty quickly.

I am with you on this one Greg…

Dont get me wrong, I love Lundquist..my favorite Ranger of all time next to Leetch. And Gabby is a pure scorer, something we have never had. I think the opinion on this depends on your answer to this question : How far off is this team from being a contender…1 yr, 2yrs, 3yrs+ ? My answer to it is 3yrs+.

As you all know, our real problem is the Drury, Redden and Rosival contracts. Its’s obvious we cant dump those players on anyone. If Drury was not tradeable after vancouver, he will never be tradeable. We have appx 60% of our salary in our top 5 paid players – and 3 of them have 0 trade value and are not worth anywhere near their salaries. They wont be waived or bought out as some have suggested…Dolan wont just throw 4 million a year in the trash. We are stuck with them for the duration of their contracts whether we like it or not. That being said, we will never contend if we can only pay the rest of the team the other 40%. As long as that is the case, we cannot contend and will be no better than a first round playoff exit at best.

So Gabby and Lundy are are in their prime (28) and are tradebale. Both expire in 2014 which is a long way off, so that gives us 4 years to contend. Trading them now will do two things. 1. Shed Salary. Unfortuantely because we cant move the others, they have to go. 2. Bring in propects to take the reigns when all the bad contracts expire. I think each can fetch a first rounder, plus two high end prospects or great young players (like Toews).

Plus, Gaborik’s Injury history scares me. We all knew he would get hurt in Vancouver, it was bound to happen. And Hank cannot sustain being in a shooting gallery night in and night out. He is eventually going to wear down.

The front office needs to be gutted, from Sather down to the coaches as well. I dont think any coach will get a fair chance with the current roster, but Torts isnt the guy for a rebuilding process. Actually, Renney is the perfect coach for that. And they need a young GM, more in tune with the Salary Cap …Sather is old school and thinks you can still go out and sign a role player for 8 million or a goon like Brashear for 2 million.

I dont think ANY of this will happen, because ultimately the garden sells out every game, and this means Sather is doing his job.

Why trade two guys who are proven talent to POSSIBLY get players who aren’t established at all? You rid yourself of capable guys in their prime on a gamble. Unfortunately, crosby and ovechkins only come so often, so banking a trade on the dream that the rangers, of all teams, would get a stand out youngster is ridiculous. We’ve all seen the draft history and it isn’t magical. You’re willing to trade those two guys just so our management can screw up the next two or three young guys and then most likely trade them away because they’re duds? insane

The entire organization needs to find an identity. What are the NY Rangers? Players on the Devils, the Red Wings, the Sabres know what type of organization they are in from day one. Either as a FA or a draftee, the organization is drilled into them. Even when coaching changes are made, the team philosophy remains the same, rather than changing every couple of years (we were close to building something in the Reney era). Thats what we need to find is an identity and put management in place to fit that.

have you lost your mind? Trading Henry or Gabby, the only two exciting players on this team, is madness. You have those tools to build around….now do it NYR. Your not going to replace those two with better players so it is. They pretty much give you everything they have every game…..you just need to surround them with the right players. Cally is one, Arti is another. Getting rid of them is not the way to succeed…..it would send us back into the stone age for like 6 or 7 yrs

This team needs to…year after year our GM’s make mistake after mistake…and we are constantly patching the team together with overpaid veterans…that needs to stop. The only way to do it would be to clean house and start from square one with youth and a new front office.

Yes, we have tools to build around NOW… a sniper and a stud in net… but we dont have the $$$ resources to give them the tools they need to compete…not with the anchor around our neck of those 3 bad contracts which obviuosly arent going away. I dont think this team will be any better for the next 3+ years. By that time their primes will have passed and they will be average players. Unfortunately, its poor management and bad timing.

So why not get some 19 year old guys in place on the farm that will be able to make an impact in 2-3 yrs from now when the trash has been removed? Really, does any one who watches this team think they are anywhere near being a contender in 2011? 2012? 2013?

In 2014, do we think Lundquist will still be playing world class hockey, or will he be an average or above average goalie? I cant see the future, but can only look to the past,,,most goalies break down around that age. You get the occasional brodeur or hasek, but they are rare.

If Redden man’s up and does what Naslund did…retire in the off season, that may change things for the franchise. But really is he going to give up the 25 million he is still owed? Thats a wing and a prayer…

Lundquist has been spectacular for a couple of years now, and where has that gotten us? Some early round exits and probably no playoffs this year. Not his fault, he cant do it alone and there is no help on the horizon.