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Post by ErixonStone on Apr 15, 2021 22:51:44 GMT -5
From that article (thanks for linking it btw) “ Coach Alain Vigneault was asked about playing more young players, like winger Wade Allison, among others. *He danced around the question*, saying his focus was on getting the team to rebound from a disastrous stretch.” Coach is part of the problem too. It’s his job to get results from this team by any means possible. He’s lucky the pandemic had limited nerfed attendance at home games otherwise he and the entire team would be booed all the way over the Walt Whitman Bridge. It would be deafening. Part of the reason Vigneault was fired by the Rangers in 2018 was that the organization felt he wasn't a good fit for a team that needed to develop young players. He was mad that the Rangers didn't give him the opportunity to do so after they sent out "The Letter." He felt his job was to win as many games as possible and try to win a Cup, so playing young players was counter-productive. He claimed that, if marching orders were to develop younger players (the Rangers didn't have any at the time), then he would have coached differently. Vigneault has a strong track record, reaching the Stanley Cup Finals twice (2011 with Vancouver, 2014 with the Rangers). He's a Roberto Luongo implosion and a missed goalie-interference from possibly being a two-time Cup-winning coach. So, it's not like the guy doesn't know what he's doing. Much like the 2015-16 and 2016-17 Rangers who were made up of several diminished players and lesser replacements for players they couldn't keep, there just might not be enough there to work with - and it might not be anyone's fault. |
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Post by boffo on Apr 16, 2021 14:17:28 GMT -5
Even as the series was going on I thought Vigneault did a horrible job coaching in the 2011 finals. Vancouver won the first two games with the game winning goals coming in the last minute of the third and in OT. Good to be up two games but hardly dominating and probably a bit lucky they didn't lose one or both of those games. Game 3 ended 8-1 for Boston. Still in the lead in the series, but that was embarrassing, they'd now scored just 5 goals in 3 games and the Sedin's had been invisible the whole series. All signs pointed to the coach needing to at least make some small tweaks to try and shake things up a bit while they still had the lead. Claude Julien had juggled lines a bit throughout the playoffs when the team looked flat and it obviously worked out since the team had made it that far. What did Vigneault do to try and light a fire under his team for game 4? Nothing. Kept rolling out the same 4 lines and same D pairings he had the first three games and they lost 4-0. Now a tied series, 5 goals in 4 games and the Sedin's still MIA. Surely now is the time to work some coaching magic for game 5 back in Vancouver. Nope. Same lineup with the same lines and D pairings but they did squeak out a 1-0 win, so another where they did just enough or got lucky enough to eke out a win but hardly impress while doing it. Game 6 back in Boston where they'd been outscored 12-1 but now a chance to close out the series. Once again Vigneault felt there to be no need to change a thing before or during the game and they lost 5-2. A chance to win the Cup at home in a series that on the stats sheet now looked like a total mismatch that had no right to be tied 3 games a piece. What's a coach to do? Obviously you go with the thing that worked all season but has failed miserably in the last 6 games and continue to make exactly 0 adjustments. 4-0 loss and only 8 goals scored in a 7 game series.
As a Bruins fan watching that I very much enjoyed the Luongo implosion playing out both on and off the ice I kept expecting Vigneault to do something to spark his team but he never made even a single attempt at it and I give him more credit than anyone for Vancouver losing that series. I'll always consider him an awful coach after that.
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Post by nevadaballin on Apr 16, 2021 16:08:21 GMT -5
I’ve always believed, in any team sport, that if a veteran is playing below his ability, for whatever reason, that replacing him for a few games with a younger player that is hungry to play and prove himself is a good way to light the fire in the vet again.
If it doesn’t, then it’s time to let the vet go. If the kid doesn’t perform, then you know what you have there too.
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Post by ErixonStone on May 5, 2021 16:40:01 GMT -5
Um, so, uh, yeah. Some things happened this week, huh?
Rangers went full Dolan, and I'm scared. I think this will be a turning point in the wrong direction.
I am stunned by the developments surrounding the Rangers this week. Shocked by The Statement and by the subsequent firings of Davidson and Gorton. I honestly don't know how to process it, but my bones tell me it's not going to be good.
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Post by boffo on May 5, 2021 18:30:25 GMT -5
Um, so, uh, yeah. Some things happened this week, huh? Rangers went full Dolan, and I'm scared. I think this will be a turning point in the wrong direction. I am stunned by the developments surrounding the Rangers this week. Shocked by The Statement and by the subsequent firings of Davidson and Gorton. I honestly don't know how to process it, but my bones tell me it's not going to be good. I was just reading about it and came straight here to get your thoughts. I don't follow the Rangers that closely so this seems super strange to me. A team that was very open about a rebuild, has gone through the majority of the process, and expectedly miss the playoffs this season in a division they had little chance in but look on the cusp of being a good team again probably a year ahead of schedule, but they're not succeeding in the manner our fans deserve and it gets blamed on the front office instead of the traditional scapegoat, the coach? It seems obvious there's stuff that we don't know that may or may not ever come out, but I highly doubt it would help this even come close to making sense. It seems to imply that you should expect roster turnover this summer because it's hard to blame management for unsatisfactory success with the team they built and then keep the roster mostly status quo. |
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Post by boffo on May 5, 2021 18:35:27 GMT -5
So the Sabres are still terrible... Didn't want to say anything at the time since the Bruins and Sabres had a bunch of games coming up, so now I can say yes they are without fear of them making me look stupid. Maybe, instead of attempting to fill the team with as many Rasmus's as possible they should have picked a name like Connor instead. |
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Post by 15eicheltower9 on May 5, 2021 19:31:07 GMT -5
So the Sabres are still terrible... Didn't want to say anything at the time since the Bruins and Sabres had a bunch of games coming up, so now I can say yes they are without fear of them making me look stupid. Maybe, instead of attempting to fill the team with as many Rasmus's as possible they should have picked a name like Connor instead. It's not even the picks they made. It's the ones they didn't. They were in the perfect position to rebuild a team. Plenty of assets, plenty of revenue, plenty of high picks, almost a completely blank slate. The ball was in their court, but complete ineptitude led to horrible hirings from top down. The first gm they trusted with the rebuild threw money and picks away at goalies and 3rd line centers. They hired coaches that didn't fit the system the players were best at playing, then kept finding players that didn't fit the new coaches' system. It's been steamrolling into disaster. And that's just inside the arena. If I thought anyone cared I could go on about this for hours. |
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Post by boffo on May 6, 2021 20:18:29 GMT -5
Seems safe to say that the Rangers are drained after the events of this week. Watching them play the Bruins right now and you can tell they’re more emotionally drained than physically drained at the moment and are just going through the motions.
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Post by ErixonStone on May 7, 2021 1:09:09 GMT -5
Geez, what a week in Rangerland.
The Lead-Up
This all really starts last Thursday. The Rangers were coming off a stretch where they had swept 4 games from the Devils and two from the Sabres, split two with the Flyers and looked dreadful in an embarrassing loss to the Islanders. That 7-2 stretch brought them to within 5 points of the Islanders with two games against their hated rivals up next. Two regulation wins, and the Rangers are a point back with 4 to play, although the Isles have a game in hand. They've got a chance to put some pressure on the Isles and, although it's still a long shot, an outside chance of reaching the playoffs.
The Rangers were outclassed in both games, failing to score a single goal and losing both games, 4-0 and 3-0. These were the 3rd and 4th times the Rangers were blanked by the Islanders this season, and, in the last three games against them, the Rangers were outscored 13-1.
Then Monday happened. With the Rangers up 3-2, the Tom Wilson incident happened. We all saw it, but just to recap the main events:
- a goalmouth scramble at the Washington goal.
- Pavel Buchnevich swats away at Vitek Vanicek's pads trying to dislodge the puck
- Nic Dowd knocks Buchnevich down to the ice. Buchnevich falls, face down, onto Tom Wilson's stick
- so far, this is all pretty normal. Scrums like this happen all the time.
- Tom Wilson tries to dislodge his stick from under Buchnevich, unsuccessfully
- Wilson punches Buchnevich twice in the back of the head
- Ryan Strome tackles Wilson and is tackled by Dowd
- Wilson gets up to his knees and punches Strome, who is still pinned underneath Dowd
- Panarin (kind of hilariously, actually) tries to pull Wilson off Strome
- Wilson and Panarin wrestle a little bit, and Wilson knocks Panarin's helmet off
- Wilson slams Panarin to the ice and punches him - this is an unwritten hockey-fight no-no. When one player wrestles the other to the ground, the fight is over.
- Wilson continues to wrestle Panarin and, at one point, looks like he is trying to execute a WWE pile-driver.
- I think this is the point where Panarin sustains a lower-body injury which will cause him to miss the last 3 games of the season.
- More scrums happen and everything starts to settle down
In terms of hockey scrums, this is on the rougher side, and except for the punches that Wilson is throwing - reminder that most of these punches were thrown at unsuspecting players, not players already engaged - kind of the normal thing that results in coincidental minors and 10-minute misconducts. The referees on the ice recognize that Wilson was the aggressor and properly assess him an extra penalty and a misconduct, handing the Rangers a power play.
The scrum/fight and the ensuing successful penalty kill rallied the Capitals. They went on to score the tying goal before the end of the period, and then scored 3 goals in the 3rd to win the game 6-3. In the 3rd period, the Rangers looked absolutely awful. Their response was pathetic. This is now three games in a row where the Rangers were just physically beaten by their divisional opponents.
The Statement
On Tuesday, the NHL announced that the Department of Player Safety declined to suspend Tom Wilson, instead opting for the maximum fine allowed by the CBA - $5,000. This is the same amount that the NFL fined Steelers players JuJu Smith-Schuster and James Connor for violating the NFL's uniform policy by wearing their socks too low.
In response, the New York Rangers posted the following statement to their Twitter account:
This statement is way out of character for the Rangers organization. It just doesn't seem like something that would come from John Davidson or Jeff Gorton. The Rangers categorized Wilson's behavior as a "horrifying act of violence" which places it on par with other notorious incidents such as the McSorely-stick-swinging incident and the Bertuzzi sucker-punch of Steve Moore. The Rangers called the lack of a suspension, "a dereliction of duty" and called for the firing of George Parros. (Epilogue: The Rangers have been fined $250,000 for this).
The Firing
Wednesday morning, we get the word from Elliotte Friedman that both Jeff Gorton and John Davidson have been fired. Soon afterward, we get the word that Associate GM Chris Drury - yes, THAT Chris Drury - had been promoted to President and General Manager. This is not an interim position. Drury has been a highly sought-after management talent, but he had always declined.
My Analysis
Based on what I have read, it appears that James Dolan, owner of the Knicks and Rangers, had grown impatient with Jeff Gorton and the timeline of the rebuild, and that he wanted to make a change. But there is more to this than just that - both Davidson and Gorton tried to distance themselves from the Rangers' public statement. Their disagreement, almost certainly, accelerated the firing of Gorton. There is less information about the reasons Davidson was let go, but it appears most likely that Davidson was a strong supporter of Gorton, and potentially, had refused to fire him.
Personally, I thought Jeff Gorton had done a very good job in directing the Rangers since his promotion to GM in 2015. He recognized early on that the last generation of the Rangers teams had outlived its expiration date and was able to peddle off almost all pending UFA for generally solid returns. He didn't wait for the cupboard to go bare before starting a reboot the same way that Ken Holland had done in Detroit. Instead, he dealt useful players for draft picks and very young prospects. Here are some highlights of the Gorton era:
2016 - Swapped Derick Brassard for Mika Zibanejad
2017 - Swapped Derek Stepan and Antti Raanta for 7th overall pick and Tony DeAngelo
2017 - Signed Alexandar Georgiev as an undrafted free agent
2017 - Drafted Lias Andersson and Filip Chytil in the 1st round
2018 - Swapped Rick Nash for Ryan Lindgren, Ryan Spooner, 1st round pick
2018 - Swapped Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller for Libor Hajek, Brett Howden, Vlad Namestnikov, 1st round pick, 3rd round pick
2018 - Drafted Vitali Kravtsov, K'Andre Miller, Nils Lundqvist, Joey Keane
2018 - Swapped Ryan Spooner for Ryan Strome
2019 - Swapped Kevin Hayes for Brendan Lemieux, 1st round pick
2019 - Swapped two 2nd round picks for Adam Fox
2019 - Drafted Kaapo Kakko, Zac Jones
2019 - Signed Artemiy Panarin
2019 - Swapped Neal Pionk and 1st round pick for Jacob Trouba. Signed Trouba to 7-year extension ($8M AAV)
2020 - Swapped Joey Keane for Julien Gauthier
2020 - Swapped Brady Skjei for a 1st round pick
2020 - Re-sign Chris Kreider to a 6-year extension ($6.5M AAV)
2020 - Draft Alexis Lafreniere, Braden Schneider
2020 - Signed Kevin Rooney, Colin Blackwell
There are, obviously, some hits and some misses, and that's going to happen. Sometimes, you make a mistake, and sometimes, something that looks great on paper just doesn't work out as well as it should. But, overall, the approach is solid - load up on assets - and the Rangers are consistently regarded as one of the teams with the brightest future. Yes, there are some moves that are probably going to hamstring them a bit in the future, but that happens to most teams. Good teams figure out how to get out of those bad deals.
As far as this current iteration of the team, it's clear that it lacks the tenacity and grit needed to succeed, but they're closer than they were last year and last year was closer than the year before. They are on the right path. I also think the players with tenacity are actually on the roster, but they aren't developed yet. I think, in two or three years, the Rangers will have three or four tenacious, talented top-six forwards to go along with the finesse players they have now. I think Lafreniere and Kakko will develop into those kinds of players, and I think Julien Gauthier will eventually be a solid contributor. With Lindgren and Trouba on the back end, I think they have enough to compete with other "heavy" teams like the Islanders and Capitals.
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Post by nevadaballin on May 7, 2021 17:01:16 GMT -5
In the game following the fight, I felt the Rangers should have gang tackled Wilson, tossed him over the boards into their bench and literally beat the sht out of him.
The 3 square offs at the puck drop, although expected, didn’t have much punch behind them (pun intended). Everyone knew that was going to happen so it landed on the “nice but ineffective” column as far as being a meaningful retaliation.
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Post by ErixonStone on May 7, 2021 17:34:08 GMT -5
In the game following the fight, I felt the Rangers should have gang tackled Wilson, tossed him over the boards into their bench and literally beat the sht out of him. The 3 square offs at the puck drop, although expected, didn’t have much punch behind them (pun intended). Everyone knew that was going to happen so it landed on the “nice but ineffective” column as far as being a meaningful retaliation. Brendan Smith is the most pugilistic member of the Rangers roster at this point. No one is going to mistake Brendan Smith for Tie Domi. Seriously, the four players the Rangers had at the start of this season who are more inclined to drop the gloves are either hurt (Chris Kreider, Jacob Trouba, Ryan Lindgren), or not even on the team any more (Brendan Lemieux). Far cry from this one where defenseman Stu Bickel "played center for a shift," lol. |
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Post by boffo on May 7, 2021 19:26:56 GMT -5
In fairness no one is going to mistake anyone for Tie Domi as he is a very unique looking individual.
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Post by nevadaballin on May 8, 2021 13:46:16 GMT -5
In the game following the fight, I felt the Rangers should have gang tackled Wilson, tossed him over the boards into their bench and literally beat the sht out of him. The 3 square offs at the puck drop, although expected, didn’t have much punch behind them (pun intended). Everyone knew that was going to happen so it landed on the “nice but ineffective” column as far as being a meaningful retaliation. Brendan Smith is the most pugilistic member of the Rangers roster at this point. No one is going to mistake Brendan Smith for Tie Domi. Seriously, the four players the Rangers had at the start of this season who are more inclined to drop the gloves are either hurt (Chris Kreider, Jacob Trouba, Ryan Lindgren), or not even on the team any more (Brendan Lemieux). Far cry from this one where defenseman Stu Bickel "played center for a shift," lol. Yea the Rangers aren’t physically set to take on the Caps which is why I said it would have been better if they tossed him into the bench lol. Everyone knew why Bickel was taking that face off too  You also reminded me of when a Flyer’s fans jumped the penalty box to fight Domi bc he squirted water at another fan. Ah, the good ol days lol. |
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Post by ErixonStone on May 8, 2021 15:49:51 GMT -5
Of course, there's this which culminates with Mike Milbury hitting a fan with the fan's own shoe. The gold standard of player/fan violence:
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Post by nevadaballin on May 8, 2021 17:17:27 GMT -5
Of course, there's this which culminates with Mike Milbury hitting a fan with the fan's own shoe. The gold standard of player/fan violence: Lolol |
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