I was looking at the message board today, when I saw a thread started by Loffen advertising his next great music video. I was actually surprised at the player he chose to highlight. Generally speaking, Artem Anisimov isn’t very highly thought of in Ranger fans minds. He’s a “nice” player to most fans, who does some good stuff, but doesn’t blow your mind every shift. The funny thing here is that, in my opinion, the young player on the current Rangers that I am most excited about this season, wasn’t Staal, Dubinsky, Callahan, MDZ, etc. It was Artem Anisimov.

I know he doesn’t have the sexy numbers that MDZ has (outside of his ugly +/-). He doesn’t have the physicality that Dubinsky has. He doesn’t have the all out, do anything to win you a game, spirit that Cally has. What he does have is the best hockey mind I have seen on this team since Martin Straka left. Straka was always thought of as a speedster 2-way winger, but honestly, the thing that always struck me was the way he thought the game, and that is something that Anisimov has, in spades. He’s so young, but his hockey mind is bordering on elite, at least in terms of the Rangers players. I think he is the smartest guy we have on the team, second being Staal, and third being captain cardboard. Arty reads plays so quickly and is almost always in the right position, be it defensively, offensively, etc. In fact he’s so good at reading plays, that he hardly ever tries to take chances out there, which probably hurt his offensive numbers, but probably ingratiated himself in Torts’ house of trusted players. The final minutes of a close game, Torts never seemed to be scared to put out Arty. You can use him on the PK, the PP, at even strength, with elite players, with grinders, with speedsters, with muckers, with goons, with pests, and he just does his thing. He’s so easily able to adapt to whatever role he is given it is almost unbelievable to watch. His subtle ways of chipping pucks in and go for a change rather than take an extended shift, or his ability to get the puck up and out of the zone quickly are absolutely astonishing for a kid his age.

I am probably going a bit overboard with my praise, but if there is one thing I appreciate, and dare I say covet in a player, it is hockey IQ. I myself am not the best player, I don’t have great hands, I don’t have great speed, I don’t have the hardest shot, but I do consider myself a pretty smart player, and to me, to have a player with AA’s IQ, and to couple it with SUPERB hands, and outstanding size, you have the makings of an absolute monster. Don’t be surprised if AA follows up his solid 12 goal, 16 assist performance with 25 goals and 30 assists next season. He’s only going to get better.

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I have been putting together some notes, and some stats and stuff I want to talk about with regards to the offseason game plan, but I figured first we should break down what the article is going to look like. From what I have right now, it will be fairly involved, and probably needs to be split up into a few different pieces.

First and foremost I want to address our existing free agents, and restricted free agents, as well as the NHL Draft. Then I want to address our free agent and trade targets, and finally I will put it all together into a “what if I were the GM” piece. I may combine some of these, or I may split em up depending on length and time constraints.

With regards to who I am currently cheering for in the playoffs, the team I want to win is the Sharks. They have built their team without trying to tank for a decade, thanks to shrewd trades and intelligent UFA signings, and frankly they deserve a little success after all their post season failures. I couldn’t have been happier to see fatso lose in the first round, yet again. I stand by my assertion that he is the single most overrated goalie (and possibly player) in the history of the game.

Expect the writeup to take place in a few days.

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I made this post on the boards, and I thought it was worth sharing…

Let’s recap our main problem shall we?

*a complete lack of first line talent outside of Gaborik.*

So, there are 3 ways to address this.
1)Draft them/bring them up in our system.
The problem with this is 1) we dont have any players in our system that are sure fire first liners…Kreider is the only one who even has that kind of upside, but its still way too early to tell, and hes at least 2 more years away.2)with Henrik Lundqvist and Marian Gaborik, it is highly unlikely we will be in the position to draft a player of that caliber who will have an immediate impact in the next 4-5 years.

2)Trade for a player like that.
There is a big problem here in that right now, teams are locking up those players to huge long term deals. and when they do that they arent looking to trade them unless theyve started to deteriorate, or they have character issues. Also you will have to give up prospects in return to get said players.

3)Sign them when they become available.
There are pros and cons to this. the main con being they you have to pay them their money…when a player hits free agency, their value becomes overinflated. The pro though is that you give up no assets, and you get an impact player right now.

So, we can try to fix our problems, slowly but surely, like you suggest, but in order for us to do that, we pretty much have to trade away Henrik Lundqvist and Marian Gaborik, tank, and draft first line players who will be ready by the time Drury, Redden, and Rozsival are off the books.

Or, you can sign Kovalchuk, eat Reddens salary, and become a contender right away as you infuse some of our youth around them.

The thing with signing kovalchuk is that it allows us to infuse our youth while staying competitive, AND it further removes the need to go out and get said players and overpay for them.

Kovalchuk is in the prime of his career,, is 10 times better than any prospect we have even if they turn out to hit their ceiling, is a dependable 40/40 guy, and will cost nothing but money.

SIGN HIM…even if it means you have to walk away from Dubi or Cally.

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I’m not ashamed to admit I wanted this guy way back in 2008

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I will do a complete season wrap in a few days, but let’s first just talk about this game. I know everyone is upset that we lost in the shootout, but come on, let’s get real people. The better team won. Honestly, the Flyers outplayed us to badly, I’m quite frankly amazed Henrik was able to get it to the shootout. This wasn’t a case of 2 teams playing even hockey and 1 team winning in a skills competition. This was the case of 1 man on 1 team keeping his team in it, while the rest of them fell flat on their faces. It’s a sucky way to lose….sure, but getting into the playoffs on the back of a 1 man show is not the way you want to get in. Besides, everyone with even the slightest bit of realism knows the Rangers would be incredibly lucky to win 1 game against the Caps. If they managed to win a single game, I would have called it a successful series, that’s how bad of a mismatch it is.

Getting back to the game at hand, essentially the Rangers were led, once again, by their 4th line. Chris Pronger effectively shut down Marian Gaborik (which is why having a secondary option, a-la Kovalchuk is so huge) and that led the Rangers to have to lean on the trio of Prust-Anisimov-Shelley. Seriously, if I told you going into the season that the Rangers would have a line with Prospal, Jokinen, and Drury, and they were not even remotely counted on to score goals anymore, you would have said this season is lost. You can no, I repeat, can not win with key guys like Jokinen and Drury being absolutely horrible. You just can’t do it…not without another guy to carry the load.

It’s a shame the season had to end, but their are plusses to this. First and foremost, the Rangers get a higher draft pick. If they would have made it, they would be picking at best at 15th. Now the pick anywhere from 6th through 11th depending on how the lottery goes. That is not an insignificant development as the Rangers would have a legit shot of picking up a first line player with that high of a pick, particularly with one of the best scouting directors in Gordie Clark. Second, the Rangers now have the onus on them to get rid of these horrendous contracts. Redden, Brashear, Jokinen, and theoretically Drury can all be moved (Drury would have to accept a trade). If Sather can pull of some of his magic, then the Rangers will be in prime position to fix their flaws. And finally, there is a chance that because of the loss of revenue, Sather could be fired. I won’t hold my breath, but man oh man it would be great if it happened.

Ok, that’s all for now, I will be doing an in depth analysis of each and every player probably in the next week or so.

Enjoy the summer, and Go Yankees!

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I’ll have to be brief, 5am here and I just got finished watching the game. Rangers played one of their best games of the season. It wasn’t always pretty. It wasn’t dominating. What it was, was spirited. The effort, the heart…the passion was there from the drop of the puck, for the entire 60 minutes. The Rangers wanted this one. They wanted this one badly. They wanted this one more than the Flyers did. And they got the win.

I loved the way they answered the Flyers physicality as best they could. They don’t have the sheer size and weight and ferocity that the Flyers do, but they gave as much as they took. They defended their skill guys like when Girardi dropped the mitts right away when Hartnell took a run at Anisimov, and the team was led by a 4th line that doesn’t play like many 4th lines in the NHL do.

The trio of Prust, Anisimov, and Shelley has been an absolute joy to watch since they were put together. It’s not often you can put a 2nd line center with 2 4th line players, and get them to play like a 2nd line. But that’s exactly what has happened. In some strange frankenstein way, the Rangers 4th line has melded offense, defense, hitting, passing, forechecking, backchecking, shot blocking, cycling, and fighting in a manner I really can’t recall any Ranger line ever doing in the post lockout NHL. These guys are just so good at doing…well, everything. It’s so strange because outside of Anisimov, there really isn’t much in the way of raw talent between Shelley and Prust…and yet they somehow make it work. It’s strange to see, albeit definitely fun.

Gaborik and Captain Cardboard also had great games, Gaborik has really been flying the past 5 or 6 games, and he’s been looking to drive the puck around guys more than pulling up for a pass to the the late man. That is a very good thing. That is what Gabby was doing during his torrid start to the season, and if he can keep it up…who knows…though I still am not getting my hopes up….I’m superstitious that way.

I will try to expand on this tomorrow, I just have the most hectic schedule these days that it’s tough for me to find the time to write these up. Hopefully tomorrow morning I’ll add something else.

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Generally the way I watch games is to record it, then start it up about 45 minutes after the game starts, so I can fast forward through the commercials and intermission. Well, I recorded the wrong channel today, game was on Versus and blacked out on MSG+ for me, so I only got to watch the final period and about 5 minutes in the second. So I really don’t have much to say on this game since I missed the, apparent, Rangers dominating during the first period. What I will say is that the Rangers now control their own destiny. If they win both the games against the Flyers, with 1 being in regulation, they are in. What more can you ask for? You control your own destiny with a home and home against an arch rival? Bring it on.

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While mathematically still alive, the Rangers were dealt a crushing blow with tonights loss. Coupled with the Flyers win the Rangers sit 4 points behind the Flyers with 3 games remaining (the Flyers only have 2 left). The Rangers absolutely must win tomorrow or else they are mathematically eliminated from catching the Flyers and thus they no longer can control their own fate. To make matters worse, even if the Rangers beat the Leafs tomorrow they will also need to give up no more than 1 point to the Flyers in the final 2 games. Doable? Of course. But, these are the Rangers we are talking about, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

While watching this game, all I could think to myself is, sheesh, if the Rangers do not sign Ilya Kovalchuk next year, we are going to see the same shitshow again. I mean, seriously, here is the way to beat the Rangers. Step 1, shut down Gaborik, Step 2, score 2 or more goals against Lundqvist. Enjoy win. And if Henrik Lundqvist is not 100% on his game, you really only need to shut down Gaborik to coast to a win. Why? Because it all comes down to this simple fundamental law of hockey. Your highest paid players HAVE to be the best players on your team. One could argue that 3 of the top 5 paid Rangers on the team are among their worst players…Jokinen, Drury, and Redden. Your high paid players need to be options out there. It’s like building a house, you need your strong base to count on when things are stormy outside. If you build your house out of a stack of cards the house will blow over. That is what the Rangers have done. Redden, Drury, Jokinen, these guys are not foundation players. Luckily Jokinen is all but gone after this season, but what about those other 2? They are seemingly here for many many years to come.

This is why it is imperative for the Rangers to bring in Ilya Kovalchuk. I know people always talk about trying to get a #1 center, and we can worry about that at a later time, but here we have the chance to get a true blue elite #1 forward. Like Gaborik Kovalchuk is inarguably one of the 5 most offensively talented players in the NHL today. We have the chance to sign him through his prime years, and we absolutely must do it. If we have Kovalchuk, Gaborik, and Lundqvist all under contract for the next 4 years, we have 4 years where we can be legit contenders. We would have the sturdy base, and we would also have the prospects to fill in around them to balance out the team. Teams who are focusing solely on Gaborik will be torched when Kovalchuk is out there against their 2nd pairing defenseman. Teams that manage to put 2 past Henrik will no longer coast to a 2-1 victory as having that elite sniper would make us a far more dangerous offensive club.

The wins in the past 5 or 6 games were a result of our schedule, as I have tried to beat over the sunshiners heads over on the HFBoards. Yes, the schedule is what it is, but you need to look past wins and losses. For the most part, the Rangers play is pretty much the same, except we had played against teams where the goaltending was borderline awful. Tonight we played a much better team, and were run out the building. Again, because we have only 2 options out there. Both weren’t on top of their games, and we felt the ass kicking all the way here in Atlanta.

The Rangers must at all costs bring in Kovalchuk, they must, at all costs get rid of Wade Redden. We probably should consider buying out Drury as well, though simply waiting for his contract to expire might be the smarter thing to do. Either way you slice it, this is a monumental offseason ahead of us, with the results likely to set the tone of the next 4 years. If the Rangers do not sign Kovalchuk, this team you see now, will basically be what you see year in and year out. A 9th place team.

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I’ve been kind of a pessimistic prick the past few weeks, I’m sure you have all realized that, and there is a reason for it. The Rangers are winning, and I am a superstitious person. Unfortunately I really don’t have much to bitch about the Rangers today. The played a pretty damn good game from start to finish, and did what you want on the road. They took what the team gave them. Since I can’t really praise the Rangers too much for fear of hockey God backlash, I am instead going to keep quiet. Keep on rolling boys. I’m still a doubter…you hear me? Prove me wrong!

By the way, when the team gets healthy heres how I would run it:

First line, 20 minutes a night: Dubi – Christensen – Gaborik
Second line, 16 minutes a night: Prospal – Jokinen – Parenteau
Third line (a) 12 minutes a night: Avery – Drury – Callahan
Third line (b), 12 minutes a night: Shelley – Anisimov – Prust

Just my personal opinion, but this team seems to play its best when it is run as a 4 line team rather than a 3 line team. And both those 3rd lines bring a ton to the table. Run those lines out with roughly those minutes, and I’ll take my chances against any team in the East sans the Caps.

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