Well, you can’t say I didn’t take my time putting this together. I sat back and read all the other blogs and their post season thoughts, I listened to all the podcasts (all 2 that I know of anyway) and what their thoughts are, and after leaving ample time to pass for everything to sink in, and just because I needed a bit of a break, I figure it is finally time to look at the season without the fresh sting of a playoff loss in my veins. I will be breaking this up into 3 parts. Part 1 will be player evaluations for the first 11 players (by jersey number), Part 2 will be the remaining players, Part 3 will be a writeup on different parts of the season that come to mind as good, bad, thoughts on coaches, Sather, etc.

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It really annoys me reading some of the posts on the message boards about Zherdev. Let’s let him walk, let’s not even qualify him, let’s trade him for a bag of pucks.

I do have a pretty decent idea of where this line of thinking is coming from. Fans of the Rangers have tunnel vision, it’s always what about the here and now. Never thinking about the broader picture, the long term, the large sample size. If you stink in the past 10 games, then you must have always stunk, and you will continue to stink for the rest of your career. If you are on a hot streak for 10 games then you are destined to be a hall of fame player that will shatter every statistical record that has ever been conceived.

What I am saying here folks is, take a step back, look at Zherdevs entire body of work, and then think about what you are saying when you are talking about letting him walk.

Has anyone actually looked at the statistics when it comes to Zherdev?

Hes got the highest rating on the team, statistically he plays almost as many minutes against the oppositions top players as Gomez and Drury. When it comes to quality line mates Scott Gomez has the 2nd highest rating (ie he plays with the better players), Zherdev has the 9th highest. Gomez and Zherdev are 1-2 in their CORSI score. In goals/60 minutes played Zherdev has the 2nd highest rating behind Cally. In Assists/60, where you would think Gomez would destroy the competition, they are neck and neck, Gomez 1, Zherdev 2. In Points/60 Zherdev is 1st on the team. In goals against/60 Z has numbers comparable to our 7 million dollar center who supposedly learned awesome defensive hockey in the Devils system.

Statistically Zherdev is our best player by and large. And this is despite playing with far inferior linemates compared to the rest of the top players on our team (how many games did this guy play with Voros for Christs sake?!).

If you think getting rid of Zherdev is going to help this team, you are sadly mistaken. Zherdev had a rough post season, but a players career is not about what he did in his first post season, or what he did for you in his last few games. Its a body of work. If you look at short segments of a players career, then even the all time greats can look quite bad.

People wouldn’t take Marian Hossa for free after his playoff series against us…at least that was the prevailing thoughts amongst some people, now, however, how many people would kill to have him on our team?

Getting rid of Zherdev will be one of the most costly mistakes this franchise has made in their recent history, along with signing guys like Gomez, Drury and Redden. You dont let players like this walk, you keep players like this and mold them into better players. You take the bad with the good, and you keep your eye on the big picture.

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Larry Brooks has postulated that the Rangers should look into trading Scott Gomez for the underperforming Dustin Penner. Well, this is the way I look at it…

Gomez: 16 goals, 7.357 million dollar cap hit.
Cost per goal: $459,812.50

Penner: 17 goals, 4.25 million dollar cap hit.
Cost per goal: $250,000

Gomez: 58 Points, 7.357 million dollar cap hit
Cost per point: $126,844.83

Penner: 37 points, 4.25 million dollar cap hit
Cost per point: $114,864.86

Penner > Gomez

Both are epic underachievers, but if you look at it in a simple cost-benefit analysis, Dustin Penner would be more valuable to this team at his cap hit than Scott Gomez is. Also adding Penner and subtracting Gomez would mean you have enough cash to offer oft-injured superstar Marian Gaborik, who I have a big time man crush on, a legit superstar offer. Gaborik has his warts, but when healthy he’s every bit as good as Kovalchuk, Ovechkin, Malkin, etc. He is in that same stratosphere…he just isn’t healthy…ever. It’s a monster risk to sign the guy to a huge contract, but with no superstars in the pipeline, I think it’s a risk you take. But, I digress, the Gaborik conversation will come, as will a season recap, player evals, et-al. I just happen to be in the middle of my own playoff race in my hockey leagues, which are taking up a lot of my times.

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News reports, and rumors are floating around that Markus Naslund may be retiring. If this happens, it does help the team, but it does not improve the team. Naslund leaving lets us keep our own players in Callahan, Zherdev, Dubinsky, and possibly Betts. Their raises are offset by Naslund leaving, but then again, someone has to take Naslunds roster spot when he’s gone, so that will add a little bit to the cap hit as well.

You have to figure this is move #1 in what should be a massive restructuring of this club. I figure we may see as many as 8 new players next season, half of which may come from our own minor league system.

But the key to this offseason is not getting rid of Naslund, as far as I was concerned getting rid of him was almost a foregone conclusion. No, the key to this offseason are unloading the HUGE contracts, not the middle of the range contracts. We need to get rid of Drury, Gomez and Redden, or as many of them as we can.

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I had that feeling, after the 3rd period in game 6 that the Rangers were going to finally show us the team we thought we had. And show us they did. They were all over the puck tonight, winning almost every board battle, controlling the puck in the offensive zone for minutes on end, clogging the neutral zone with a ferocious backcheck and forecheck, and playing superb D limiting the offensive chances against. However, in a game where I felt the Caps played well, but the Rangers played great, talent won out. The Caps have talent oozing out of every pore. They have an elite defenseman, 3 elite forwards, and perhaps an elite goalie who finally came up big against the Rangers when they actually generated quality chances against.

In almost every facet, they are better, and really that is what this all comes down to. The better team won. The more talented team won. Our team, which had a negative goal differential really had no business winning. Our team, which had the most putrid offense of any playoff team, really had no business winning. Our team, which was significantly outplayed in the first 6 games, shouldn’t have even gotten to this point. But they were here, and they gave us their best, and for that, I am thankful.

What I am not thankful for though, is that it took a do or die game for the Rangers to finally wake the fu** up and play this kind of John Tortorella hockey. THIS is what I expected, us controlling the puck, us not giving up large portions of the ice, and us generating chances. And I think there is a pretty big reason why we have not seen this kind of game till now….a complete and utter lack of leadership from this team.

Tom Renney was not right about a lot of things, and I really did not think he was a good coach at all, but he had his pulse on this team, and when he left, he took a shot at the leadership of this team, and in this series we saw why. Scott Gomez, terrible. Markus Naslund, terrible. Chris Drury, terrible. When your C and 2 A’s are probably the 3 worst players in the series, you will never win. You can’t win, it just defies all logic. Which is why we didn’t win folks, our best players weren’t our best players. Our best players, outside of Henrik, were consistently Dubinsky, Callahan, and Korpedo. You can’t have 3 kids who may form a nice line there, be your best players. These arent your big time players, these aren’t your big money players. They should play like this, AND have the leadership group be even better.

This team needs to beheaded. We have a tremendous base to work with in Dubinsky, Callahan, Staal, Korpedo, Girardi, and Lundqvist, we also have some superb talent that should be either NHL ready or almost NHL ready in Anisimov, Del Zotto, Sauer, Sanguinetti, and Grachev. This is the time to rebuild on the fly, you have a strong base, you have some talented kids, you have a coach that can win you a championship, and you have an elite goalie. Get rid of that dead weight, supplement it with legitimate offensive talent, and turn this ship around. It can be done, it should be done, and if Glen Sather really has an ounce of sense in his body, he will do it. Last season was not the time to get rid of Jagr, but he’s gone, and the only way to fix this team, is to dump the 7 million dollar 3rd liners we have, and fix this team in a 1-2 season turnaround, I think it can be done, and I will spell it out, in detail probably a week or two from now.

Have a great offseason everyone, I hope you enjoyed reading the blog, and remember, unlike the newspaper guys, and unlike most other blogs, this site remains very active during the offseason, I do player evals, long dissertation like writeups, and everything else Ranger related that I can even remotely think of. In some ways, the offseason is even more exciting that the regular season.

Just an idea of what is to come, I will have an offseason game plan in about a week or two, and then a draft preview a few weeks after that. Then we talk about free agents, and such. The season doesn’t end with this loss, in fact, it is just beginning.

Bring on the 2009-2010 New York Rangers.

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After the first 2 periods of todays disaster, I was fully prepared to rip the shit out of this team for about 12 paragraphs. I was furious, there might have been burst blood vessels in my brain. And then, I saw a glimmer of hope, a ray of sunshine, something that actually made me do a double take at what I was watching. In that 3rd period…the Rangers actually played like I wanted them to play. They skated hard, they played in the offensive zone, they weren’t complete and utterly inept at making a pass. In short they were the complete opposite if what they were in those first 2 periods.

So let’s talk about those first 2 periods now that I eased into this a little with the “good news” on the night. Why were we so bad? Well, there are several reasons. The first, and most glaringly obvious, was that their heads weren’t in the game. Oh, their bodies were, I definitely think they tried, but their mental mistakes mounted time and time and time again. We had the puck, we turned it over, we had a pass, we decided not to make it, we had a chance to come back and give an outlet option, we decided to skate somewhere else. Just all over the place their brains were making wrong decisions. You can point to the double giveaways by Morris and Zherdev on the back breaking goal the Caps scored, or the penalty kill where Drury and Rozsival both failed to clear the puck. Now, if that were all that was wrong, maybe we could have survived, after all, we did manage to score a goal..or 3. But their were many other problems. First among them was Henrik Lundqvist again being pedestrian between the pipes, and a pedestrian Lundqvist will never help this group of losers get all that far. And next among the problems were the one on one board battles. We just couldn’t win many, if any of those all important battles. When you win those battles you keep the puck in their zone, or you get it out of your own, those are tide changing battles, you string together 2 or 3 board wins in a row and you have yourself a sustained offensive zone shift.

Well, that 3rd period the Rangers actually seemed to put it all together, they played a physical game (something sorely lacking in the first 2), they won those board battles, they played intelligently, they, in short, reversed all the trends that cost them this game. And you know what happened? The offensive chances against were kept to a bare minimum, and they managed to score a few goals. Heh, who woulda thunk it.

So there you have it, that 3rd period really saved me from what was surely to be a sleepless night. Now, I have at least the slimmest of hopes to get me through these next few days…and that will have to be good enough. Hopefully you have a little hope now as well.

Tuesday is do or die day, this is where we separate the men from the boys.

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When it comes to hockey I live by a pretty simple mantra, and if you’ve been a visitor of this site for any length of time I am sure you know it by now. It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. This series the New York Rangers have been utterly and completely dominated by the Washington Capitals. They should not be playing anything other than golf right now, but a superhuman effort by their goaltender gives them 2 more shots to end this series with a victory. The problem is for 5 straight games now, the Rangers have played like garbage. Granted, much of that is because of the sheer tidal wave of talent that the Caps throw at you, but a lot of it also has to do with smarts, and a complete and utter inability to sustain any sort of offensive zone attack.

This is compounded by the fact that Henrik Lundqvist was average today….an average Lundqvist is a massacre waiting to happen, and a massacre is what we got.

I’m not going to sit here and type up anything new here since this is a carbon copy of all 5 games this series. The Rangers were outplayed in every facet of the game by the opposition, and for the second time this series were unable to score a goal. I don’t care who is in net, if you can’t score, you can’t win. End of story. The difference, as mentioned before, was the average goaltending we got….and make no mistake about it, even if Henrik was “excellent” we still lose this game. Even if Henrik was God-like…we still lose this game. Because a team that can’t put any….ANY offensive zone pressure whatsoever, will not win games. It defies all logic that this team is still in it…and frankly, the law of probability may still win out, with the team that actually won the play, advancing, and the team that has been so ridiculously outplayed, going home to contemplate a disastrous summer with no cap space, terrible contracts, and holes all over the place….but that rainy day is still on the horizon, and the Rangers have a chance to pull out one of the most undeserved (sans Lundqvist) victories in Stanley Cup history with a win at the Garden on Sunday.

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It’s incredibly humbling to really think about this series in a logical manner. Don’t look at who’s winning, don’t really pay attention to the games, just look at the statistics involved. Which team is getting more shots on goal? The Capitals by a wide margin. Which team is limiting the oppositions quality chances? The Capitals, by a wide margin. Which team’s penalty kill has given up the fewer goals? The Capitals once again. Which team’s power play has been effective? The Capitals, again. Which team has had control of the puck in the offensive zone? The Capitals, but at least a 3:1 margin. Which team had the home ice advantage going into the series? The Capitals. Which team was better at home? The Capitals. Which team was the only team in the East to have a negative goal differential coming into the playoffs? The Rangers.

You like at the stats, you examine the game and not look at the result, and all you can think to yourself is….this series should be over. Not only should it be over, but the Capitals should have won every game by at least 3 or 4 goals. This series shouldn’t even be close. I mean, I am sitting here at 2 am and am completely flabbergasted that the Rangers are leading in this series. They have played 1 solid period of John Tortorella hockey THE ENTIRE SERIES…that was tonight during the first period. They have been anywhere from mediocre to terrible the rest of the time. They are making such poor decisions with the puck in the offensive zone it is ridiculous. And while they are definitely trying very hard in the defensive zone, they are conceding all of the ice leading up the defensive zone, a-la Tom Renney, which is leaving them playing defensive hockey the entire friggin night.

But, you have watched the games (probably). You have seen what I have seen. You know what is coming, so I will keep it brief. The only reason this isn’t a sweep right now is because of Henrik Lundqvist. Really, a goalie playing exceptional goal, would have this series at 1-3 heading into Washington. A goalie playing like a “brick wall” would have it 2-2. I am simply unable to come up with an adequate comparison to Lundqvist for having this series at 3-1. What do you think? Godlike? Inhuman? Holy f***ing s**it like? I mean…I don’t even know what to say. Henrik made 2 saves in particular that just made me shake my head while I was watching it, because I can’t believe anyone could stop those plays. The first was the glove save that he made on Semin that has been playing on all the sports shows out there. The second though, was a lot subtler that I don’t think I have seen any replays of. It came off of a point shot from Green…Green took the blast through a sea of players, the puck came in, somehow, and wasn’t deflected, Henrik was looking to his left, and then picked up the puck…I’m thinking, 3-4 feet in front of him, labeled bottom corner, and he kicked out his leg with speed I haven’t ever seen before, and kicked it away like it was nothing. That play just had my jaw on the floor, I mean, if you play hockey, you know those kind of saves are probably the hardest, shots you don’t have any idea are coming till the last second. That takes concentration and athleticism that I can’t even fathom to stop.

What makes me laugh even more is that some fans actually had the audacity to question Henrik, and whether he was a big game goalie, or calling him overrated. It just annoys me to all hell the stupidity of some fans when they say things like that. Folks…this isn’t a burden we have been saddled with. This is nothing short of a legendary player in the making on our team through the prime years of his career. When people tell me they think Henrik Lundqvist is one of the top 5 goalies in the league, and act like it’s a compliment, all I can do is stare at them in disbelief that they think there are 4 other goalies in this league who even come close to this level of skill. I can see the argument for Luongo, but really, no other goalie, to me, comes close, not even uncle whiner over in joizee.

I predicted the Rangers would make it to the Eastern Conference Finals pretty publicly all over the place, but really I felt it was because of our team, not because Henrik would play like this. I expected Henrik to be amazing…but there is amazing, and then there is what we all witnessed tonight.

Sheesh.

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This is going to be super short. My DVR decided not to record the 2nd half of this game, for some reason I got the first period and a half, and then the last minute and a half, and nothing in between. That unfortunately does not give me enough of a sample size to make real observations, but to me, it looked like the Rangers were out of control, were very poor in recognizing the trailer, and didnt clog the lanes like they did in games 1 and 2. It seemed like the other team wanted it more, which should never happen.

Sorry, can’t say much else without actually watching the game.

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I won’t be able to watch tonight’s game till about 1:00 am, which means, depending on if the game goes to OT or not, it might be quite late before I will be finished. If the game goes on pretty late, I will do a post game wrap sometime tomorrow afternoon. If its a strict 60 minute one, I should be able to do it, depending on how exhausted I am.

Let’s Go Rangers!!!

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