Ranger Analysis: Where is Dubinsky?
All is quiet on the home front, and to be honest I can't figure out why. It has been exactly 121 days since the New York Rangers 2008-2009 season ended with a 2-1 loss to the Washington Capitals. In those 121 days the Rangers have traded Scott Gomez and acquired Chris Higgins and Ryan McDonagh. The Rangers said goodbye to Nik Antropov and Nik Zherdev. The Rangers drafted Ray Bourque's son along with Chris Kreider and Ethan Werek. They have signed Marian Gaborik, Ales Kotalik, Donald Brashear and Vinnie Prospal. Sather even re-upped Ryan Callahan with a 2 year 4.6 million dollar deal which--at the time--seemed to be all but paving the way for Dubinsky to be re-signed as well.
But now it is August 28th and the Rangers message boards and beat writers are saying nothing about Dubinsky, mainly because nothing is happening. Regardless of the fact that he is not re-signed there have been no reports of either side being unhappy. There hasn't even been any official (no, bleacherreport doesn't count) leaks about Dubinsky being dangled as trade bait.
In fact the only Dubinsky news we got from the media was from a Larry Brooks article on August 16th citing that Dubinsky and the Rangers weren't agreeing on contract terms so Dubinsky would sign a 1 year 700K contract. That has yet to happen ... it's been two weeks.
A month ago Jim and I talked about this on our radio show and we told you all that if Dubinsky was not signed in 4 weeks then we would hit the panic button. At the time it was a joke. But now no one is laughing.
Earlier this year Glen Sather promised that "the youth will serve" after he raised ticket prices. Soon after this promise he re-signed Callahan to a two year deal and the Rangers traded out Gomez to bring in the younger and cheaper goal scorer in Higgins. The Rangers may have handed out three contracts to guys who were over 30 (Brashear, Prospal and Kotalik) but they also left spots open for their younger guys to come up. For the most part, the Rangers have a young and "home grown" team; even without Dubinsky.
Honestly there are bigger problems other than not re-signing a fan favorite. Currently Dubinsky is the Rangers first line center; and to be honest he has the best shot at suceeding. Sorry to all of you Drury fans but he just isn't fast enough and he wont cut it. It's about time we took the training wheels off of Dubinsky, let him carry a big time sniper on his wing, let's see how he preforms them.
I think all Rangers fans are excited to see how Dubinsky will preform this year. And I also think that Ranger fans are expecting big things from him as a player and as a leader. But he needs to be re-signed before he does anything, and unfortunately Ranger fans will not be able to breath easy until that happens.