ROSEY’S RANTS

There’s a Sucker Born Every Minute !

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:14:57 -0400

For all of you who said Slats could never find someone to take Gomez’s contract off his hands,you all forgot the old adage that there is a sucker born every minute, and Bob Gainey’s minute was today. Glen Sather managed to trade Scott Gomez and his 7.35 Million cap hit , for a younger more economical Smithtown Long Island native and winger Chris Higgins who until last years injury plagued season had scored 20 or more goals in each of his first 3 seasons Higgins is a restricted free agent who earned 1.7 Million last year and even with a raise will be a very cap friendly addition. He brings size and and some grit to the team , as well as some NY flavor as his Dad is a New York City firefighter and one of his younger brothers is a New York City police officer. If all that wasn’t good enough Slats managed to somehow convince Gainey to throw in 3 defenseman one who happens to be 20 year old Ryan McDonagh, 20, was Montreal's first-round pick in 2007 and recorded 16 points in 36 games as a 6-foot-1, 212-pound sophomore at the University of Wisconsin in 2008-2009. He fits nicely into the future of young defenseman along with Bobby Sanguinetti, Michael Del Zotto , Matt Gilroy, Marc Staal and Dan Girardi, the Rangers will have a fairly economical backline and have now opened up some cap room for tomorrows Free Agent Frenzy to try and pick up a scorer. This also allows Slats some room to make a trade for Heatly and taking on some of the contract. I’m sure Glen is burning up the phone lines to see what suckers will be born in the next 2 minutes that will take Redden and Drury off his hands as well.

Larry It’s Colton Orr Not Bobby Come On !!!

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 18:07:33 -0400

As a Ranger Fan , I love the beat guys who cover the Blueshirts, Steve Zipay of Newsday, Michael Obernauer of The Ny Daily News and Larry Brooks of the NY Post, I respect each of them for the job they do, and Steve and Larry have been kind enough to appear as guests on my show Sportstalkny. All that being said todays article by Larry Brooks was full of contradictions and in my opinion couldn’t have been more off the mark. The article which was entitled Blueshirt Blunder was a knock at the Rangers trading their 3rd Round Pick in next years draft to Los Angeles for 4th line center Brian Boyle. The major complaint that Brooks had with the trade is that it cost them a shot at signing Boston Right Winger Phil Kessel to an offer sheet. He goes on to state that the Rangers will face Philadelphia’s Chris Pronger 6 times this year, but they won’t have unwanted free agent Colton Orr to keep him honest. The Rangers won’t have either Sjostrom or unwanted free agent Blair Betts, the tandem that led the team to the leagues best penalty killing record. While I loved Freddy Sjostrom and Blair Betts , the bottom line is Henrick Lundqvist led the Rangers to the best penalty killing record. Secondly until Blair Betts and Sjostrom sign somewhere else all of this could be posturing for negotiations. If they do leave via free agency you cannot knock Slats until you see who he replaces them with. After all Jed Ortmeyer and Dominic Moore were very good penalty killers but both were offensively challenged. Betts was a little upgrade but also struggled to score. Sjostrom had the best offensive skills of the bunch, but we are taking about a player who had a career high 7 goals last season, combine that with the fact that on a checking line he was -11 , and I think a replacement can be found either at Hartford or via free agency or a trade, some possible replacements would be Landon Wilson, or even bringing back Jed Ortmeyer. As far as Colton Orr goes , look I love Colton Orr,. Orr has been by far the best enforcer in the NHL and because of that he will command a huge increase in salary. It is not Colton’s fault that Slats gave ridiculous contracts to Drury, Redden and Rosizval, but unfortunately that is the reality The bottom line is in the New NHL you need to do a lot more then win a fight. If Colton could score an occasional goal , yes then you try and resign him, but he can’t and he won’t no matter where he goes. So in one breath Larry can not bemoan the Rangers cap situation and then in the same article think that the Rangers could afford to sign Orr for what he will get somewhere on the open market, which no matter what, it will be an amount that will not be cap friendly. My initial thought process was that there are lots of guys in the AHL who can fight and not score that you can sign for league minimum and can be a deterrent against Pronger and other bigger more physical players. However after speaking to my good friend and fellow players point blogger Chris Kostopoulos, when pressed with a name, I couldn’t come up with a cheap replacement. But I did explain that desperate times call for desperate measures. The Rangers are cap strapped and need to cut costs where they can,and once again until Orr signs elsewhere and his replacement crashes and burns I can’t slam the move. Let’s not forget that Slats claimed Colton Orr of the waiver wire in November of 2005, when many other teams passed over him. Hopefully Slats can find a cheaper alternative. I think Brooks is conflicted on Orr as most Ranger fans are,here is a guy who stands up for his teammates night after night. He has done all that is asked of him and more,sometimes an organization needs to overpay for that, but the other bad contracts prohibit that. Where the article totally contradicts itself is if Larry Brooks is so worried about Pronger and the Rangers being manhandled by the massive tough defenseman why on earth would he be against obtaining a 6-7 monster in Boyle who by the way was a first round draft pick , 26th overall and has some offensive skill, and site that as the reason why they can’t obtain a 192 pound wing ? And by the way nothing precludes the Rangers from getting Kessel in a trade of making another trade to restock the 3rd rounder, so all in all this was a very confusing article to me, any other Ranger fans feel that way ?

Does Citi Field Have a Triage Unit ?

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:49:13 -0400

No one in their wildest dreams could have seen this coming. With Carlos Beltran and Gary Sheffield now hurting this current team makes El Duque and Moises Alou look like Cal Ripken Jr. Add Beltran and Shef to the already injuried Reyes, Delgado, Maine, Perez , Putz and Wagner and you have to wonder how this team is even competing. If you are a Met fan and you are looking for a silver lining you already know by now that there is none . Here are some interesting facts, through the month of June 2008 Carlos Delgado had 14 Home runs in 80 games, in those same 80 games he had 45 rbis, the Trio of Murphy, Tatis and Delgado to date while playing 1b may not have the Home runs but they are close in Rbis. We all remember what an awful first half Delgado had, and somehow he rebounded to put up huge numbers. It would be asking an awful lot of Carlos to comeback and put up numbers anywhere close to the second half numbers he did last year coming back from hip surgery. At shortstop Alex Cora has played in 5 more games then Jose Reyes he has a higher batting average then Reyes did when Jose when down, he has a higher On base percentage then Reyes did and has only 5 less stolen bases then Jose did, as well as making 3 less errors, so will Jose be a huge upgrade when he comes back ? How bad is Beltrans knee, will Maine and Perez make it back and be effective. The Mets who have choked the last 2 years while healthy, somehow have managed to stick around while playing awful baseball. How this team is only 2 games out is beyond me. I think that the law of averages will catch up and Met fans will not have to worry about a September fade, as they will be out of the race by early August. This isn’t a case of dead man walking it’s more a case of dead man limping.

Next Year Starts Now ! (Part 2) The Offense

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:07:13 -0400

Ok so with the D already rebuilt See part one, it's time to turn our attention to the big problem with the New York Rangers. We tried to gain some cap space with the bold move of sending Wade Redden to Hartford or trading him, but even keeping Wade on the big club we need to make some changes up front , even with our cap issues. Again we need to get creative, the very first move is to trade Chris Drury. Yes Drury played hurt in the playoffs, something a captain has to do, but it has been 2 years now and Drury has not exhibited what it takes to be a captain in the big apple, this is not Buffalo . So you need to search the NHL for another player who needs a change of scenary. There have been rumblings out west for 2 years now that the Sharks have been shopping Patrick Marleau, would the Sharks take Drury and a prospect ? Marleau brings size and can score, in the last 4 seasons he scored 30 or more 3 times, he led the Pacific conference in goals and was 4th in the west with 38 last year, he rarely takes bad penalties. The first question of course can he handle NY ? I guess the answer to that is with another question, has Drury shown he can handle NY ?, To me the answer is NO, so cut bait and change it up. The problem with this is as unhappy with Marleau, as the Sharks may be ,its doubtful they would trade a 3 years younger, 800,000 less salary ,more productive player, one other player on the Sharks roster that might be intriguing and would be a salary wash and still give the Rangers needed size up front would be Joe Thorton, I would welcome either in a trade for Drury. So thus far even with keeping Redden on the Roster we still have not really increased the net Payroll. Looking at our rfa's : Callahan, Dubinsky,Korpikoski,Sjostrom and Zherdev, I would do my best to resign all off them. I was very high on Zherdev and over the second half of the season I saw that his game is extremely flawed, I also know that he has tremendous raw talent. Can Zherdev thrive under John Torterella or will he be an expensive scratch night in and night out ? A huge question.that is complicated when you look at the Rangers UFA's and see. Nik Antropov on that list, if you ask the same questions of Zherdev about Antropov and then add the fact that, you can't teach size and this guy seems to have a personality suited to New York. Antropov could be a guy who thrives under Torts.So if you need to pick one to fit into your salary structure as much as I like Zherdev, you know anyone who wants to buy my Jersey from last year , because I'd go with Antropov.Other UFA's include Blair Betts,and Colton Orr. I resign Betts if possible. Due to the fact that Torts is a 3 line coach I let Orr walk soley because he is such a good enforcer could get more money then he is actually worth. I go the economical route on this and find a good AHL enforcer like a Gratton or Sugden to plug into the line up. Looking at the Free Agent wingers, it is obvious that we wlll not be big players as the Best players will not fit into our cap, but if last season you could have traded Markus Nasland for Maxim Afinogenov would you have done that ? I think we will have the cap room to sign someone like him as he is coming off 2 down years, A first line of Antropov, Gomez Afinogenov,
followed by a second line of Thorton(or Marleau) Avery Callahan and a Third line of Dubinsky Korpikoski and Antismov ,Betts, Sjostrom, and a AHL enforcer would not really be awful, it still will be a challenge to score goals but the line up is younger and while still flawed will be able to compete night in and night out. Remember all of this has to be done to fit into the cap, which truly is the challenge.Again any and all comments welcome.

Next Year Starts Now ! (part 1)

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:22:22 -0400

Ok so here we sit exactly 15 years and one day from the last NY Rangers Stanley Cup, while not nearly approaching the infamous 53 year drought we are at 15 and we haven’t made it back to the finals since. So next year starts now. I mean after all the first payment on my tickets are due next week already so it must start now !
To me the best way to be successful is to look at the teams that succeed. So lets look no further then the Pittsburgh Penguins. Granted the Pens struggled for many years after their cups and had some very high draft picks . Do the Rangers have any scoring that comes close to Sid and Malkin, no but most other teams in the NHL don’t either, so let’s start with that premise. What the Rangers have which most other teams do not have is an all world Goaltender. Henrik Lundqvist as long as he is healthy allows the Rangers to compete night in and night out. So let’s look at the Pens as a model. Keep in mind that with the Cap , remaking the Rangers will take imagination and guts, but let’s give it a go anyway. Lets start from Hank on out with the D. The core of the Pens D are all young, Letang, Orpick,Scuderi are all 30 or younger all 3 are good size, add Hal Gill as your big banger, not that Letang and Orpick don’t hit but Gill keeps players honest in the crease, and then put Veteran Sergei Goncahr on the point on the power play and while not a star studded D a very serviceable group. How do the Rangers stack up with that grouping. Giardi and Staal are 2 very good youung Defenseman, throw in Sanguinetti, Del Zotto and Gilroy to compete for one more spot for a young defenseman and you have as competent trio as Letang,Orpick and Scuderi. Now here is the hard part, where is your Gonchar and Gill. Don’t get me wrong I am in no way saying Hal Gill is a game changer, I have seen enough of him to know better, he gives the puck away an awful lot but he is mean, something this Ranger back line truly needs, I will live with a few giveaways , as long as someone keeps the players honest in front of Hank. So who is that Defenseman ? Who can fill that role ? Who is a younger , cap friendly Hal Gill ? My answer to that is Denis Gauthier. Gauthier at 6-3 225 would be an upgrade in size on the back line and Gauth is known around the league for his big open-ice hits, he is just the physical type defensive player the Rangers have lacked since Beuk retired. Now for a defensemen with a shot from the point. I have seen this guy play a lot when he played for the New York Islanders, I know Islander fans grew tired of his decision making , as he would pinch at the wrong time , but the guy has a cannon from the point and Marc-Andre Bergeron in my opinion will be the NHL’s Raul Ibanez, as he will put up some nice numbers. Now here comes the creative part, by not resigning Mara or Morris , both of whom by the way, I like ,the additions of Gauthier and Bergeron should be a wash salary wise. The Rangers need to try and trade Michal Rozsival and Wade Redden, the latter will most likely be impossible but if need be he would have to be sent down to Hartford to free up money for help up front. So thats part one of my plan, look for part two soon. Let me know your thoughts.