Yeah the team has stunk the last few weeks and the fans are doom and gloom because those cup expectations entering the season are just hopes at this point. But I want to offer some perspective.

For the younger folks, if you would've told me any time during the Dark Ages (97-04) that we'd be in a playoff spot after nearly a third of the season complete, I would've been estatic. We had nothing to cheer about - the players we acquired via trade or free agency we're aging or didn't thrive in the environment and what made it worse was there was little to no young talent to look forward to watching. Marc Savard? Traded him away. Jan Hlavac? I'm convinced he would've been a 40 goal scorer for us haha. Imagine this, Hlavac sucked after we traded him in 2001. Typically ex-Rangers become better and haunt us after leaving lol.

I ask the older folks to list what were the fun things during this time. It was few and far between so this gives perspective on the current situation for you and the younger people. I'll start:

1. Theo Fleury's first 50ish games of 2000/01 where he looked like an MVP candidate.

2. The FLY line for 60-odd games in 2001/2002. I'm convinced Mike York would've been a point per game player for us lol. Like Hlavac he wasn't as good after we traded him - imagine that?!?! And there was actually hope throughout the season they'd make the playoffs.

3. Pavel Bure!!! Who says goal scorers go to die in New York?? He was made for the bright lights of New York after getting acquired at the 2002 deadline with 12 goals in 12 games. Unfortunately, his knee died the following season but 31 goals in 51 games across two seasons was fun to watch.

Just wanted to point that out. To be fair, they’re 4 games ahead, but we’re also only 2 points ahead of the blue jackets who are 1 game behind! On top of that just 2 points ahead of the islanders who are 8th in the metro. Fuck

In times of turmoil, always remember, Rangers have Wilham. When the Rangers are playing bad, keep looking at the positives that we do have!!!

I started watching this team again about 3 years ago. Partly because I moved out of state as a kid in the 90s’-early 2000s’. I know it’s not easy, but man… the noise online can really get overwhelming. Every news article it really brings me down. Every post makes me feel like I’m as much of a looser when they’re loosing. Which sucks cause I’ve got a lot of crap going on in my life and the thing I enjoy is making me feel crappier.

https://bsky.app/profile/ny-knicks.bsky.social Is the social media personnel too depressed to make an account?

Maybe I'm just dumb, but I'm looking at our roster and trying to think to myself why we keep saying this year is cup or bust.

I kind view this in two ways

The Bad

• We have two incredible players in their 30s, kind of irreplaceable .
  • Igor (turns 30 on Dec 30th, what are the odds we pull 3 vezina winning goalies in a row).
  • Panarin are like top tier
• Complain about Kakko (although he's been good this year with Cuylle) but he's an absolute steal at $2.4M.
• Cuylle himself is going to cost us a pretty penny with his current box stats alone.
• Laf is great and gonna be getting those big bucks next year
• Jones is gonna get paid after this season (either by us or someone else)
• Miller is a giant toss up between great some games and not worth his $3.8M other times
• With Mika, Krieder, Trocheck, (Smith?), Trouba, etc. all getting older and declining, we'd need to replace a big part of the roster with prime-play caliber players (either internally or externally).
• I have little faith in our organization's ability to develop players to their fullest potential. ("potential" debates aside)

The Good

• Fox is our best defenseman and only 26
• Laf is aging like wine and only getting better, Kakko too, though to a lesser degree
• We have some fairly solid young players, Cuylle, Berard, Edstrom, Perreault, Otthman (training camp aside), Jones, Mancini. While it's hard to say just how NHL good some of these players are yet, it feels safe to say that our coffers aren't empty-empty for the next few years.
• We have magical goalie development that churns out way above average netminders (for our own use or trades)
• Salary cap seems like it might actually go up instead of stagnating like it was for a while
• We're Fucking New York City and we attract Panarin-Level talent by being Fucking New York City

All of this is to say that, yeah we're a dogshit team right now. I mean literally right now. As of 12/3/2024, we are less than the sum of our parts by a significant margin. I guess if you consider our top line players being who they are, sure this is probably a cup or bust year. But I really wonder if this year is cup or bust?

(if it helps I was born in 1996, I've known nothing but failure)

#The good:

• The Trocheck signing. I know he’s not having a good year this year, but he was excellent his first 2 years, carried us in the playoffs last year, and locking him up long term at $5.6 million was a savvy move considering the other 2C options that offseason were Copp & Strome, and the cap rising means similar caliber players got far more money in subsequent offseasons. Hopefully this lackluster start is a symptom of the team as a whole sucking this year rather than Trocheck himself sharply declining

• Trading Nils Lundkvist for a 1st round pick. Lundkvist has been fine, but as a UFA this offseason he only signed a $1.2 million contract. Drury got really good value on Nils here

• Drafting Gabe Perreault. I know it seems weird to give Drury credit for this before he’s played a game, but Perreault is putting up points at an insane rate and looks like he has star potential and can be a steal of the 2023 draft

• Some solid depth signings. Signing Jimmy Vesey to a cheap contract, Erik Gustafsson to a 1 year deal as a solid LD3, and Jonathan Quick when everyone thought he was cooked.

• Some good extensions. The Igor extension 4 years ago, the Fox extension, the Chytil extension, and the Laf extension. Idk how much credit you wanna give him for that but still.

• Putting Cuylle on the opening night roster last year. At the time it was no guarantee he made the team, and having him on the team to start the year and letting him develop on the 3rd line next to more experienced players is exactly how you should develop a player like Cuylle, and it’s paying dividends this year. Also kinda applies to Edstrom this year.

• Every single season (prior to this one), the Rangers have entered the playoffs with a loaded roster that I thought was capable of winning the cup. Again, I know a lot of it was here before Drury was hired, but 3 straight 107+ point seasons is still impressive, and the 2023 playoff roster was so comically good on paper with Kane and Tarasenko it’s absurd they choked a 2-0 series lead the way they did.

• The Goodrow Waivers Deal. He did kinda create the Goodrow mess, but he cleaned it up nicely without giving up a draft pick

• Mancini looks like a solid draft pick

#The bad:

• The entire 2021 offseason. Honestly, I think if you completely ignore this offseason Drury is a decent GM. But this offseason was SO BAD that I totally get it if you hate Drury solely because of it. The way he handled this offseason very possibly cost this team a Stanley Cup, and it was entirely self-inflicted. The Goodrow contract was terrible and everyone knew it at the time. The fact that they got out of it after only 3 years doesn’t change the fact that they were paying $3.6 million for 3 years for a barely playable 4th liner. The Nemeth signing was horrible. I actually liked it at the time, but 3 years $2.5 million AAV for what ended up being an utterly terrible player who you had to pay serious assets to dump the next offseason is a horrible use of cap space and assets. The Ryan Reaves acquisition was understandable considering Dolan probably made him do it to protect Panarin, but it’s still an overpay for an unplayable slow awful player who only hits people. Gerard Gallant literally did not gameplan for opponents and Drury hired him. And finally, the Buchnevich trade AKA Drury’s worst move AKA the defining move of Drury’s tenure AKA the single worst Rangers move since the McDonagh trade. Pavel Buchnevich, who is a top 6 forward and lifted up Kreider and Zibanejad to have good 5v5 numbers, gone for a 2nd round pick and 4th liner Sammy Blais. In St Louis, Buchnevich is nearly a PPG player and the Blues extended him at $8 million AAV. The reasoning for trading him was asinine. They “didn’t have the cap space”, yet gave $9 million to Goodrow, Nemeth, Reaves, and Blais that year and entered the season with $8 million of cap space unused. Buchnevich was also arbitration eligible which means they absolutely COULD HAVE kept him if only for 1 year on an arbitration deal, and then re-assessed what to do the next offseason. There was no need to trade him for that absolutely pitiful return. I think they moved him to clear up space to trade for Eichel, but doing that trade when you don’t have an Eichel deal 100% done is completely reckless asset management. It is an abomination of a trade that the Rangers have spent YEARS trying to make up for. Think about all the assets the Rangers traded for Vatrano, Tarasenko, Kane, Copp, Roslovic, and now Reilly Smith. All guys who were added because the Rangers needed to replace Buchnevich, and while some of them were solid, none of them have been as good as Buchnevich was. On top of that, nobody from the Rangers’ 2021 draft has a single NHL point. This is one of the worst offseasons in NHL history and a lot of the Rangers’ biggest issues in Drury’s tenure can be traced back to it.

• The Zibanejad extension. The Trouba extension isn’t Drury’s fault, that was Gorton. Zibanejad is fully on Drury. 8 years, $8.5 million, full NMC, buyout-proof. All for a player who we are all now hoping can be a decent 3C and is somehow failing at that. It was understandable why Drury did it, but lots of people were calling this an overpay even at the time and it has gone worse than anyone could have possibly imagined

• Extending Lindgren this past offseason. Lindgren was a solid player for us in the past, but he was terrible last season, and Drury gave him $4.5 million instead of trading him and using that money on a better player. It’s only 1 year thankfully but it’s still an overpay for a player who is rapidly declining.

• Some bad depth signings. Not a huge deal considering they’re league minimum contracts, but Wheeler, Bonino, Pitlick, and Tinordi were all bad. This is something most teams have to some extent but still.

• Trouba should not have been on the roster to start this season. I don’t blame Drury for being unable to find a trade partner for Trouba; he didn’t sign the contract and Trouba used his NTC list to make it difficult; I DO blame Drury for not buying out Trouba when he was VERY VERY BAD last year and it was clear there weren’t any takers. Now our team knows that the GM tried to get rid of the captain which definitely is a little awkward. Again, I blame Drury for not buying out Trouba, not for not being able to trade him.

• His drafts haven’t shown results yet but I wouldn’t really expect them to yet besides 2021 which I already mentioned above.

I DON’T put the recent trade leaks as a negative because it was entirely justified and the players were playing like shit long before those rumors started.

Hey everyone! Just curious did anyone else have any issues with the app last night? For whatever reason I was logged out on my phone and TV and when I went to connect with TV provider it just gave me the pinwheel of death all night. I’m still having the same issue.

I mean the game sucked anyway so I don’t miss much but going forward I’d like to watch us crash and burn. Thanks!

I've just been thinking about how, since our strong start into October, we've been a sub .500 team. This is an inexcusable pace from a team that just came off of winning a President's Cup and has aspirations of winning the Stanley Cup.

We were unlikely to win it all anyway, 31 of 32 teams don't win the cup. I'm not trying to be a doomer and say this season is over and throw it away, but we need to recognize that even at our best chances 2023-24, 2021-22, 2016-17 we didn't have the grit or play to win and no mid-season trade is going to solve our problems. Obviously, a LOT of things need to change, but we know they will this off-season. Trouba's gone. Lindy's gone. We'll see about Miller and Shesty, Shesty has a high price tag and Miller's might be too relative to his results. They could be decent mid-season trades to get draft picks, since, again, we're unlikely to get the cup. We should look for sensible trades when their most likely to occur, the off-season, as opposed to trading away prospects and draft picks for little in return. We're stuck with Mika, and if we're willing to treat him as the third stringer he's receded into, we can still get use out of him given the situation. However, trading away Mr. Ranger, our hometown, homegrown icon, who has continued to do right by this team would be a huge besmirch-ment on this franchise's legacy and turn off a lot of fans who are already disgruntled with the team and front office.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hockey/s/4HPeECnSQp

Absolutely imbecilic thing to say from SV!

Last night during the postgame presser, Lavi made a comment about the third period that bothered me. He spoke about how the Devils changed their game on that period, defending their big lead, and that’s why it was hard for the team to come back.

He made just about the same comment after the loss to the Canes last week.

It feels as if he’s making excuses for why the team was unable to get anything going during those third periods to get back in the game.

Isn’t that on the coaches to make mid game adjustments to cope with how opponents change their games in the third?

This team used to come back effectively in third periods and now they struggle to do so. We hear excuses about how the opponents play.

So the Rangers aren’t ready in the first and need to get better, and it’s hard to come back in the third.

Poor effort, poor execution, and excuses is what we get.

Some big change needs to happen soon to get this group moving in the right direction.

I love this team. I’ve been a NYR fan all my life. I was able to watch 94. This is going to be a hard pill to swallow for most, but management has and will always be the problem with the NYR. Horrible contracts, getting players who are past their prime ( our speciality) , not making the right move or any moves in the off season, basically doing the same things over and over. But…all that matters to Dolan is making money and the Rangers do that.

was at the game. usually a massive critic of this team, this core, coaching decisions, etc. I actually felt this was the first time in at least two weeks or 7+ games where we generated substantial offense. Was it enough? Absolutely not. Do we have shit to fix? Tons of it. But (and speaking for only myself), I felt this was a better played game by us than Saturday when we beat the Canadians, at least offensively, and better than the past 5-10 games where we haven't generated any offensive zone time. Defensively, we're atrocious (but at least our atrocious defending is consistent). If Igor has an Igor-caliber game and Markstrom doesn't play as well, this game tilts the other way and folks on this sub are saying "we're back."

Feels like we need to do some addition by subtraction. Trade or waiver Lindgren & Trouba. See what you can get back, if anything. Bring in a puck-moving defensemen and a defensive defensemen. Run with Miller-Fox, Schneider-X (puck-moving defensemen), Jones-X (defensive defensemen). Probably have to keep our forward lines intact for cap reasons (no one is taking Mika, and I actually thought he looked more on and alive today than most games this season). But for the love of god, Lavi, keep these forward lines as they are – Bread-chytil-laf, cuylle-troch-kakko (this line looked legit good), kreids-mika-smith, edstrom-carrick-brodz/vesey.

Idk. I get the gloom – our cup window might actually be over. But I feel kinda insane given yall thought this game was rock bottom, when I feel we've played 100x worse for the past 10 games and this felt like the first honest step in the right direction. Trocheck actually agrees with me??? https://x.com/Peter_Baugh/status/1863780333105123478

Sorry buddy, but your value dropped. A lot. You should have taken the offered deal.

But I’m actually kind of loving the chaos and drama of this current losing streak.

If we pull off a trade and save our season, cool great good, whatever. We shouldn’t have needed a trade in the first place to contend but hey I’ll take it.

If we don’t and we spiral out of contention, yeah on one hand that does suck. We were supposed to take one more crack at the cup. But on the other hand the memes will be (are already) glorious and we get to (hopefully) watch the kids play more. If we end up winning the lottery for third time in six years, it’s just gravy. Hey, maybe we’ll have an active trade deadline for once!

Look it was clear coming in that this was the last year of this core. Whether they had a cup run in them or not, many of our older veterans have to be moved so we can pay the young guys - you know, the players on the roster who actually help us win games. The writing has been on the wall since that Game 6 loss in Sunrise. I would’ve loved one more “last dance” cup run, but alas, this collapse only speeds up the inevitable. And with Perrault making the jump to the NHL within the next two summers (again hopefully), it might not be bad time to try and rework some things.

Whatever happens, I’m just gonna enjoy the ride. Even when they sick ass, I still love this team. And frankly, as an NY Giants fan, this is nothing.

LGR!

2024020393

NHL.com Boxscore

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Serious question

Source

Any tips for people to get the NHL network game tonight? I don't have cable and live out of market. Does Gotham sports app have NHL network games? Bummed, I didn't think tonight's game was on NHL net

A lot of NHL net games coming up...