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To quote an extremely popular television show on HBO: “Winter is coming.”
For the New York Rangers and their fans, winter arrives very, very soon. After the Stanley Cup Final ends within the next week or so, the remainder of June will shed light on the direction this franchise takes for many years to come. And if you believe the rumors coming from Ranger beat writers, league insiders or the mouth of head coach Alain Vigneault, winter is going to be brutal and bloody with a few shocking twists and turns.
If these rumors are true, not only is Rangers management totally out of their minds, but barring anything unforeseen, we may not see the Rangers sniff Stanley Cup contention for a long, long time.
The need for major changes within the Rangers roster has been well-documented, but it seems the Rangers brass, led by GM Jeff Gorton, are primed to make apocalyptic changes. In other words, the Rangers may be putting anyone not named Henrik Lundqvist up for a trade.
This includes captain Ryan McDonagh, top centers Derek Stepan and Derick Brassard and young studs Chris Kreider and Kevin Hayes. Now, it may turn out that the Rangers are just posturing to the rest of the league to gauge interest in these aforementioned players, and wouldn’t jettison any of these names unless they receive an overwhelming package in return. But if this is truly the Rangers’ strategy, they may not believe a retooling will fix their team, but instead, a full rebuild while integrating the next generation of Ranger stars such as Brady Skjei, Pavel Buchnevich and Nicklas Jensen.
At the same time, they may choose to retain complete liabilities like Dan Girardi and Marc Staal because of their “untradable contracts.” However, they may attempt to trade Rick Nash and his supposedly “untradable contract” in full desperation to free up cap space.
In other words, this is what you would call selective roster construction. It is a flawed and dangerous strategy for two reasons.
One, if the Rangers are attempting to get younger, why maintain the oldest and most flawed players on your roster while trading other established young players? Yes, Girardi may have a bounce-back year next season after dealing with a bad knee all last season, but as the league becomes faster and more up-tempo, Girardi is not a player who can survive in an evolving league. Same with Staal. It’s just reality.
Two, if they pick and choose which players they want to trade or keep, young or old, do the Rangers really know if they want to rebuild or retool? If, for argument’s sake, they trade Stepan and Hayes and no one else, and get NHL players of comparable and/or older age and ability, they are essentially rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. If they trade either of these players, you may as well engage in a full rebuild and trade McDonagh, Kreider and Lundqvist, and get a king’s ransom of draft picks in return, not old, washed-up veterans.
Oh, by the way, they appear to be planning to make the biggest mistake of all: Letting Keith Yandle walk in free agency, when any contending team needs a puck-moving defenseman of his caliber!
Only Gorton and his brass know what is going to happen the next few weeks, and that’s the problem. Do they truly know what they’re doing? Do they think they know what they’re doing? Are they willfully blind or mad geniuses? With the draft and free agency around the corner, we’ll find out.
Buckle up, Rangers fans. A long, painful winter is rapidly approaching.
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