I was originally going to title this article R-E-L-A-X, but with Aaron Rodgers quitting on his team in the middle of a game, I don’t want to be associated with him.  I settled for this reference, which is how I feel reading Blueshirts Breakaway/Rangers Twitter/anything related to this team.  I, while maintaining that the rest of the fandom should chill out, am a bit anxious myself.  But let’s take a step back from the ledge.

1-5-0.  If this happened at any point in the season, it would be legitimate cause for concern.  The fact that it happened in the team’s first 6 games just magnifies the issues.  What’s the problem?  Well, other than the obvious John Madden or Greg Popovich quip that the other team is scoring more than the Rangers, the questions we asked before the season arise: Is Hank too old?  Did we lose too much C depth?  Is AV partnering Buch and Pavelc on his second D pairing detrimental to the team’s system?

The last question is of course hyperbole, but exemplifies how I and just about everyone else feels about AV’s lineups and deployment.  Why is Kampfer anywhere but the press box?  Actually, I’d prefer him in Hartford so that the Rangers would be accumulating cap space for a possible center rental.[1]  Every bit helps at the deadline.  Holden would make a great 7th defenseman.  DeAngelo should be making the blue line great again.  Let me pause for a second to address the complaints I’ve read in other posts on this site that AV’s usage is Jeff Gorton’s fault.  Stop it.  I fault GMJG for a few things (more on that later), but AV’s usage?  First, there isn’t a bullpen phone, so Gorton isn’t calling AV and reminding him not to “lose” Brady Skjei in the last 10 minutes of a playoff game.  As to the argument that if Gorton took all AV’s toys away, he would be forced to play optimal lineups, well sure.  Sure, if you have 20 players on the roster, 20 will dress.  Forget injuries, they don’t happen.  Neither does the flu, nor family emergencies.  Again, an exaggeration, but you know if there are 21 players on the roster, the fans will be ready to riot over the one that was scratched.  Look at last year– While I do think Clendo was a better option than Girardi last year, by reading blogs/tweets/graffiti Greg sprayed on the side of MSG, you’d think AV was mismanaging a hall of famer.  Go check out his stats in AZ this year.  He probably should have been in the lineup last year, but it’s not the reason the Rangers didn’t have to make an awkward decision about the White House.  But back to the current roster management.  It’s easy to say in a vacuum, “get rid of this player so he doesn’t play.”  But waiving or dumping Holden via trade (for the sake of getting rid of him) is just poor asset management. Holden is a better 7th defenseman than anyone in Hartford, since having Pionk (or is it Minn-Duluth?) in a press box getting the Buch treatment is counterproductive.  Kampfer… well, ok I’m not blindly defending Gorton, I don’t know what the hell the point of that contract was.  As for the forwards….

Remember when the Rangers’ forward depth was a strength?  Well, couple an expansion draft and a trade of a top line center and all of a sudden that depth, particularly down the middle, is gone.  Here is my criticism of Gorton: you didn’t pick a side.  The whole “rebuild on the fly” usually isn’t a winning recipe.  You got Shatty to come here for team-friendly term and think Hank will bounce back?  Great, keep your 1C and go for it.  Derek Stepan’s contract runs through 2021.  You know what other contracts run through that year?  Shattenkirk’s, Smith’s, Lundqvist’s.  Seems like it would have been easy to wipe the slate clean after that and give your generational goaltender at least one more shot to bring home the Cup.  Instead of trading Step and Raanta, the Rangers could have bought out Staal, and done a bit of other finagling to still land Shatty.  (Work would have had to have been done, but it was possible, especially given Pionk’s strong showing before the season, which admittedly, wasn’t known on July 1 or during a buyout window. Maybe Shatty and Smith each take a smidge less or we actually say goodbye to Holden for a lower cost 6th D… sigh, yes Clendo fits in this scenario.)  Hell, I bribe Vegas to not take Lindberg.  Take Grabner and draft picks.  It could have worked.  Easy to say in hindsight, but ask Ryan and he’ll tell you I was not looking to rebuild this offseason.  So what to do now?  Go out and get someone.  It doesn’t have to be Duchene, or Thornton (though I was hoping for that in June/July), or whatever big name is on the block, but you need another decent F.  This lineup makes me miss Stallberg, Pouliot, Boyle, Moore, hell anyone that can fit nicely into a 3rd/4th line role and be a contributor.  Remember when we didn’t have room for Nicklas Jensen?  I think he would have a nicely carved out role on this team.

Next question: Is Hank too old to win? No.  And that was talking Hank.

So where does that leave us?  Well, I’ve seen sites say that we have anywhere from an 8% chance to a 14% chance to make the playoffs after the rough start.  If anyone believes that to be true, hit me up if you want to lay those odds because I’ll take them (roughly -614 to -1150 for you).  This team isn’t sunk, the season isn’t over, they won’t go 1-81.  But they do have to start paying 60-minute games and other unsurprisingly true clichés if they want to dig themselves out of this hole.  So stay f***ing calm.  But if after 20 games they don’t bolster the F group, play the right D, and are still on this trajectory, you can step back on the ledge; I’ll be the guy running past you to jump.

[1] The NHL salary cap can be tricky and I admittedly don’t have a 100% understanding of it.  But think of the cap as a daily allowance, where the total cap number, as well as each player’s salary, is divided by the number of days in the regular season.  Whatever allowance a team doesn’t use in a given day, carries over to the next day.  This is why some teams can fit certain contracts in at the trade deadline when they couldn’t at the start of the season.

  • Guest Writer: Dan Larose
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