First off, if you have anything pressing to do, or have to even slightly go to the bathroom, go do all that stuff before starting to read this post. Its going to be long. Dare I say, gi-normous. This is my armchair GM moment of the offseason (well, at least the first one) and I intend to flex some mental muscles and give a long post on why I want to do certain things, and my rationale behind it.
First and foremost, it is important we take stock of the situation the Rangers find themselves in right now. A ton of holes, some salary cap issues, and a whole lot of unanswered questions. I figure step 1 is to paint a nice clear picture of what we have, what we need, and what cash we have to work with. This is basically the math section, if you want to skip all of it, just scroll down to the next horizontal line…
Salary Bonuses applied to next years cap:$780,631
Jagr buyout applied to next years cap: $760,000
Total dead cap space next year: $1,540,631
Still under contract:
Forwards:
Scott Gomez: 7.357
Chris Drury: 7.050
Petr Prucha:1.6
Brandon Dubinsky: .633
Blair Betts: .615
Colton Orr: .537
Ryan Hollweg: .512
Ryan Callahan: .575
Total forwards currently under contract: (8) $18.879Mil
Defense:
Fedor Tyutin: 2.844
Marc Staal: .827
Daniel Girardi: 1.6
Christian Backman: 2.3
Thomas Pock: .667
Total defense currently under contract: (5) $8.238Mil. Not counting Thomas Pock:(4) $7.671Mil
Goaltending:
Henrik Lundqvist: 6.875
Total Goaltending currently under contract: (1) $6.875Mil.
Total Cap space spent including Thomas Pock: 35.532631Mil
Total Cap space spent not including Thomas Pock: 34.865631
UFA who need to be replaced:
Brendan Shanahan
Jaromir Jagr
Martin Straka
Sean Avery
Paul Mara
Marek Malik
Michal Rozsival
Jason Strudwick
Stephen Valliquette
Darius Kasparaitis
Andrew Hutchinson
RFA who need to be signed:
Nigel Dawes
Fredrick Sjostrom
Greg Moore
Pierre Parenteau
Ivan Baranka
Tentative Roster with Holes:
????????? - Dubinsky - ?????????
????????? - Gomez - ?????????
Prucha - Drury - Callahan
?????????- Betts - ?????????
Orr
Hollweg
Staal - ?????????
Tyutin - Girardi
Backman - ?????????
Pock
Lundqvist
?????????
Estimated Cap for next season: 56.1Mil
Estimated cap space remaining (including Thomas Pock): 20.56 Mil
Players who need to be signed or replaced of consequence:
Jagr
Shanahan
Straka
Avery
Dawes
Sjostrom
Mara
Malik
Rozsival
Valliquette
Total players needing to be addressed: 10
Ok, so now that we know exactly what we have to work with, we have to decide on what we should do with this club. First and foremost I have decided to waive or trade Christian Backman, as well as Ryan Hollweg from the team listed above. I am electing not to replace Hollweg, and to go with a 22 man roster rather than a 23 man roster. This adds 2.812 million dollars more to work with, bringing the total cash we have to 23.372 to fill out our roster.
Ok, now we have to make our decision, how do we want to go with this team? Do we want to keep playing the “deferment” game we started last season, and pile more money onto next years cap? Do we try to bring back most of the players from last year in order to try to give it one last go with these guys before they ride off into the sunset? Well, I have been back and forth on this for a while now. The Jaromir Jagr question has bugged me a lot these past few days. Do we bring him back, or do we let him walk? There are pros and cons to each side of the argument. On the one hand, bringing back your best player is never a bad move. On the other hand, he is going to cost us a whole lot of bling, not to mention his puck possession style of hockey does not work for the rest of our core players, namely Gomez and Drury, who seem to be far more suited to an offense based off the rush. I don’t like the idea of once again going into a regular season with no clearly defined offensive approach, as Renney loves to simply let the players do whatever they want in their own zone, with no structure associated with what they do.
With all that said, I think we need to make 2 different contingency plans. Plan 1 will be if Jaromir Jagr is willing to come back for $5 million dollars, 3 of which is deferred to next years cap. Plan 2 will be if Jaromir Jagr is unwilling to come back for that amount. Since I plan on making them pretty similar lineups, I will post plan one, with details, then I will just post plan 2’s lines, without any explanation, since you can pretty much figure out what I am doing.
Now, we have Jagr on the first line right wing, we need a left winger for him. Before anyone says Marty Straka, let me just say. NO. Sorry, NO. If Jagr refuses to come back without Straka, then its time to cut the cord with both of them. I love what Straka does on the ice. He is tenacious, fast, responsible, etc. But what he is not, is worth the money he gets paid. We have a handful of players, especially Lauri Korpikoski and Freddy Sjostrom, who can play exactly the same way Straka does, at less than 1/3rd of the cap hit. My first line left winger is the guy who should have been the first line left winger in the playoffs. Sean Avery. He absolutely 100% MUST be back. My price for him is 3.5Million dollars. Leaving 8.5 Million dollars off the table for next year, but a first line finished. Total dollars still left to spend: 14.872+3Mil deferred=17.872 Mil
For the second line we have a problem. Scotty Gomez needs a winger who can score. He needs a guy who can take those passes he makes off the rush and puts them in the net. The first choice on the left side is obviously Nigel Dawes, the RFA. He made 496k last year, I think a bump to 1Mil even is a fair raise for the kid. On the right side, I say we go in a different direction and bring in some outside help. My pick? Kristian Huselius. Although he plays the left wing, I can see him sliding in just fine on Gomezs right side, while finally providing Gomez 2 guys who can keep up with him speed wise, and can shoot the puck and play his game. Estimated cap hit, 3Million dollars. The second line is now taken care of. 17.872 - 4Mil = 13.872 left
The 3rd line is a pretty easy line to fill. I’d keep it exactly how I have it listed there, Prucha Drury and Callahan. 3 guys who are tenacious, 3 guys who can skate well, and 3 guys who play a similar North American get pucks to the net, and shoot shoot shoot type of game. I know the general consensus among Ranger fans is that Prucha is done. I beg to differ. Give him regular time, and I think you will be surprised with what he can do. The 3rd line is taken care of, with no additional cap hit.
The 4th line right now reads Betts with no wingers. I say we finish with a trio of guys who can skate, play a nice cycle game, and all 3 are capable of putting in goals with no stone hands among them. Instead of going with a brute force line, or an energy line, I want a line that can help us win some games by either playing a strict shut down style, or by scoring. Putting Sjostrom with Betts and Korpikoski let’s you do just that. The 3 can all play all 3 zones fairly well, with Korpikoski gaining the experience to help him improve his game much like Dubinsky did last year when he started on the 4th line. I figure Sjostrom gets a raise from 775k to 1.25 mil, and Korpedos hit is 1 mil. 4th line is taken care of. Total cap hit, 2.25 additional. 13.872-2.25=11.622 Mil left.
Lets take care of the backup goalie situation since that is easy as hell to do as well. Bring back Vally, give him a modest raise from 617k to 775k. 11.622-.775=10.847 Mil
This leaves us with 3 regular defenseman we need to fill. I am going to assume Paul Mara enjoyed his tenure here enough to come back at a slight discount in salary because lets face it, he is not a 3 million dollar defenseman anymore. He gets 2 million, and if he won’t take it, we can sign any of a dozen unrestricted free agent defenseman who play an above average game. We bring in yet another kid to play on the 3rd pairing with Mara. I wanted to say it would be Baranka, but he signed with Russia, and may, or may not, even bother trying to make this team. It will be either him, or Potter. Let’s assume the bigger cap hit gets applied, which is roughly .525Mil leaving us with 1 defenseman to fill and 8.322 million dollars to spend. Now here is where one can easily say we should have spent the cash on Marian Hossa. And I can understand that. Spend on a guy who is easily worth that kind of money, and build a franchise for the long term. But we will come across the same problem that has plagued this team since the lockout. No puck moving defenseman. Nobody on the team from the back line that can genuinely scare the crap out of the opposition with their offensive skill. Nobody to lead the charge from the back line on the futile power play. Not to mention a blueline that desperately needs a little bit of high end depth to work with. I say we go for it and sign Wade Redden. Why not Campbell? Because I feel he will get at least 7 million bucks on the open market, and I do NOT want to have another 7 million dollar contract on my hands. I think Wade Redden is just the guy we need, and although we have heard a lot of crap about him since Chara left, I still feel he is an elite defenseman who is just in a funk and needs a change of scenery. Wade made 6.5Mil last year coming off of a statistically low year for him. I think he can be had for 5.5-6.5 mil, and although that is a lot of money, I like my chances with him. Give him no more than a 5 year deal (taking him till he is 35 years old), and call it a day.
Final Roster:
Dawes - Gomez - Huselius
Prucha - Drury - Callahan
Sjostrom - Betts - Korpikoski
Orr (For teams with legit heavyweights)
Staal - Redden
Tyutin - Girardi
Mara - Baranka/Potter
Pock
Lundqvist
Valliquette
Now, if we can’t bring back Jagr, I think we go in a different direction. Bring in Ryan Malone for 4.5Mil, and bring in Brooks Orpik for 4 Million (Yes, the cap works, and there is no money being rolled over).
The lineup would be the same, except Orpik in for Redden, and Malone in for Jagr.
Whew, is there anyone still with me? Probably not, but in case you are, thanks for reading this. I plan on leaving this post up for at least a week, which will likely give you just enough time to read it from start to finish.
So there are a few things that we need to talk about in this game. Let’s start with the first, less obvious thing. Why on earth was Ryan Hollweg in the lineup? I mean, seriously, can anyone give me one good reason? Not having healthy bodies isn’t a good reason, because there are 10 kids from Hartford who can play at any moment. Ryan Hollweg disgraced the jersey by selfishly costing his team a game. Only Tom Renney could put him right back into the lineup like that (which by the way I predicted correctly over on the ECSF message boards). Personally, I dress Hutchinson and have him be a 7th defenseman, and run your PP. Then double shift a center (Dubi and Gomez) with the 4th line during one of their few shifts. Let’s not be fooled by the 2 for 7 the Rangers had on the Power Play. Dubinskys goal was a softie. It wasn’t a “garbage goal”, it wasn’t a flukey goal, it was a soft goal that most goalies just don’t give up. The other goal was an empty netter, so that doesn’t count at all. Other than that the Rangers were entirely ineffective at generating much in the way of chances. Hell, they didn’t even spend much time set up, period. They had trouble entering the zone, and continued with their slow, methodical passing game. I was not happy with the PP whatsoever, and some fresh blood, particularly from a PP specialist, could help awaken this club.