By syr11
Glen Sather has repeatedly stated, to the media at least, all the right things. Saying that he is going with the younger guys to fill the holes that may be open on the roster.
However his actions seem to contradict what he tells the public, as evidenced by signing Boogaard and trading for Eminger.
The issue that arises when wanting to give our youth a chance, is in the goal scoring department. The NYR are primarily made up of role players, 3rd and 4th line guys who have been playing top minutes (Christensen, Avery, Dubi, Cally).
As much as it hurts to admit, some of our favorite guys to cheer for would in fact be in the bottom 6 forward positions on other teams.
Lundqvist lost many games by one goal or less, meaning that if the NYR had better scorers, "The King" would in fact rule the land between the pipes. His numbers have been solid enough to keep the NYR in the playoff chase, and could have won a extra 5-8 games (enough to have put us in the playoffs), but with little scoring, he can only do so much.
So the question remains, what can the organization do to make this team younger AND increase scoring?
Well, unfortunately a lot of the young guys such as Kris Versteeg have already been picked up, and having Redden's cap hit a whopping $6.5 million per year, there's little wiggle room.
This is why Sather says he wants to "grow from within", he knows he made a huge blunder signing Redden and Roszival who have hurt our chances of picking up a legitimate young scoring threat.
Enter Ilya Kovalchuck, a youngish type player who is only out-goaled by Alex Ovechkin.
If Sather simply admitted he made a blunder and demoted Redden, we would have approx. $7.5 million left to spend (after presumably signing Marc Staal at $4 mill. per).
That's a lot of green, and I'm sure Sather can find two scoring forwards with that amount to spend, or just one if we go after Ilya, but that's for another post.
Until next time, puckheads.
6 comments:
EC and Avery I agree with, they are third line players and in a pinch can handle 2nd line duties. To suggest that Callahan and Dubinsky are 3rd line players that have a history of scoring 20+goals can handle the PP and PK duties as well as late minutes in a game, is basically saying while they show they are stat wise in the top third of the league they aren't 2nd line players? I just think that you stretched too far in that area.
Very good blog posting and an accurate assessment. Consider the Boogaard signing as an admission of a screw up, that being ever letting C.Orr go in the first place. Shelley would have been a great character guy, but his age did not warrant a 3 year deal. Bottom line is that after that Gabby-Carcillo incident, we need a tough guy and Boogaard was the only one available (unless we wanted Laracque or McGrattan). Voros was, unfortunately, a spare part and Sather grabbed Eminger as an insurance policy in case he couldn't re-sign Girardi, a deal that made sense. Keep in mind, Sather also gave up a propect in Hillier in that deal, who scored goals (and PP goals) in juniors ...
My vote is to sign Svatos immediately, who can be a top 6 forward, and is a sniper.
Rick stole my thunder, but yes, Dubinsky and Callahan are at least 2nd line players. The redden contract is such a shame especially when you consider all of the young talent they have on D.Good Post.
neither cally or dubi is a 1st liner. so at least 2nd line is not really accurate as that puts into play the possibility they are better than 2nd liners. someone says they have a history of 20 goal seasons. i think at least in dubinskys case it was 1 season at exactly 20 so hardly a history.
these guys are 3rd liners on good teams. 2nd liners maybe if the team is poor as we were certainly last yr.
The NYR have 1 first line player (Gaby). Callahan is a genuine 2nd liner - not for his scoring but for the intangibles that would so well complement more talented skaters. Dubi is 3rd line and I doubt he makes it through the season. He will be traded. Just too early to tell how AA will fare.
More to the point - and the bane of my NYR existence, is drafting. Sometimes when I'm really bored I consider the following, then 5 minutes later I'm so angry that I'm not bored anymore. It's a terrific mental exercise:
2001: We drafted: Dan Blackburn (10) instead of Ales Hemsky (13)
2002: We drafted: Lee Falardeau (33) instead of Jarret Stoll (36)
2003: We drafted : Hugh Jessimen (12) instead of Zach Parise (17) or Ryan Getzlaf (19)
2004: We drafted Al Montoya (6) instead of Mike Green (29)
You get the idea. We shouldn’t be talking about getting younger, we should be talking about building a winner around guys just into their prime. But I digress…
snuser i posted this in andrews comments in last week or so. the link i'm putting us here is yr by yr draft for us
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/teams/dr00007089.html
ok my best shot at a lineup of homegrown draft picks we could have used last yr - i included mdz since he played and also savard since he was still viable nhler
henrik - montoya/labarberra
staal mdz
zidlicky tyutin
mottau potter
sanguinetti sauer
savard dubinsky cally
anisimov malhotra pyatt
dom moore korpikoski prucha
lundmark dawes byers
not that terrible on d but down right awful at forward. WOW
again this was to field a team last yr so college guys and grachev were not really an option
only other forwards you might have added were closer to 40 in weight or the other kovy
think they could have competed for anything besides 1st pick overall
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