By Elissa aka sarcasmpucktail
On April 11, 2010, every Ranger fan felt their heart drop as Brian Boucher stopped the puck off the stick of Olli Jokinen…well of course the stinging feeling started after we stopped wondering why in the world Torts put Jokinen there to begin with.
From the moment the Flyers took the ice to celebrate stealing the 2010 Stanley Cup dream away from the Ranger players and fans, Glen Sather concocted a plan. He would seek revenge on the Flyers: they stole our dream, so we will steal their reputation.
The Broad Street Bullies are known for being tough and being physical, but not for putting pucks in the net. As we watched our enemies from Philadelphia perform miracle after miracle and almost forcing a game 7 against the eventual champion Blackhawks, the Rangers personnel were assisting Sather with completing his plan for revenge. Broad Street, Broadway…not a big difference there.
With new assistant to the GM, Marian Gaborik, needing some assistance producing numbers on the scoreboard, everyone expected this off season to be one where we picked up some skillful forwards (especially since Gabby himself has some say in the decisions).
First came the draft…now most GMs would pick the highly ranked and skilled two-way defenseman Cam Fowler, not Sather, he had revenge on the mind and chose the prospect probably voted in the 2010 class as “Most Likely to Drop the Gloves” (because we don’t already have the 2007 Most Hated Player as voted by the NHLPA) to enhance our future blueline to a truly aggressive force. Dylan McIlrath plays a game similar to Broad Street’s 2009 acquisition Chris Pronger, without the offensive skill which Pronger has used to win Stanley Cups.
Next, we went after Gabby’s old friend, the 2007 Most Intimidating Player as voted by the NHLPA…a guy who hasn’t scored a goal in 4 years, but he can beat the crap out of the other team. Remind you of anyone – how about the guy who knocked over his own teammate in this year’s Stanley Cup finals.
Glen is putting together the team that he wants, the team that’s going to scare and piss off every other team…the team of his dreams.
At this point, we don’t have back one of our top two-way defenseman who more than likely has a great future ahead of him, we still have a waste of cap space taking up our line-up, and we have a bunch of kids with little to no NHL experience.
So watch out NHL, coming to you for the 2010-2011 hockey season is a team seeking revenge. A team ready to knock you to the ground, throw you into the boards, and watch Hank attempt to win the game.
At least Frolov was a step in the scoring direction…but hey Glen, Arron Asham is on the market, what better way to get revenge than to steal one of their low scoring intimidating forwards?
16 comments:
2010-2011 season.
Kevin, can you please proof read these entries before they come in. Its getting a little embarrassing.
Thanks
Not to mention that the flyers also scored the 3rd most goals in the east last year. Just saying
Enuff about da profreeding!
Like Kevin said, this isn't English class. Geez, Lets worry about content over style. Bye the way, its proofread, not proof read. Oh well. Nobody's perfect.
Anyway, great post, I liked the McIlrath draft from the get go.
I'd rather have cam fowler, but anyway.
doesn't anyone have an opinion about the situation in Chicago? letting go of Niemi after arbitration awarded him $2.75M, a price they evidently weren't willing to pay given available cap space is somewhere btwn $7-10 million to fill out half their roster after the core players.
It seems relevant considering the rangers cap woes. kind of befuddling that buying out Huet is not at the top of their lists of things to do, which would in turn alleviate cap room to sign Niemi. even if they weren't committed to buying out Huet (which still seems ridiculous) couldn't they have also structured a 4-yr/$12M deal that paid Niemi $1.5 in 2010, $2 in 2011, $4.0, $4.5 or something.
just a really interesting story about the NHL cap
http://www.hockeybuzz.com/cap-central/team.php?team=VAN
Vancouver seems like model team of the Cap era. they have to be considered top 3, if not The favorites, to win the West this year. Look at how evenly distributed the money is from top to bottom. On D, they basically have 6 number 1 pairing D-men, with perhaps no true #1 d-man (Hamhuis,Salo, Edler, Ballard, Bieksa, Ehrhoff are all solid defensively and more than capable offensively) and they're O is also well-balanced. Raymond, Samuelsson, and Burrows are true bargains...as a Ranger fan, this leaves me pretty envious
...notice how they have 6 bonafide top 6 forwards, none of which are making more than they're worth.
Charlie, not sure it's embarrassing but I do appreciate the headsup.
The whole "grass is always greener" state of mind gets tired doesn't it?
Cam Fowler fell for a reason, and even if he turns into a star, Del Zotto is the current PP quarterback of the future for the Rangers.
Dylan McIlrath (hometown boy) was allegedly going to go 11th to Dallas if the Rangers didn't take him. He was bar none the toughest SOB in the draft, maybe the last few drafts, and I can't wait to watch him crush the likes of Tavares and Kovalchuk in a few years.
Plus, if you look at his junior numbers last year, he really improved his game as the season progressed.
The Big Mac Truck is going to be deadly!
I just wanted to make sure people were reading this as a satire on the off season...I wanted a more creative submission than the usual analysis of the players, the competition, or the future.
William-
The blackhawks are in debt right now. Can't buy out contracts with no money, can you?
I for one like the McIlrath signing. Would rather take the tough and tumble approach instead of the skilled and soft approach every now and then. You need both and this was the kid to take in the tough and tumble area.
Boogaard was also the right choice when it comes to protection. If you are going to spend the money you may as well get the best and no doubt protecting Henrik and Gabby is worth the 1.6+M being spent.
I'm not really sure what the Blackhawks corporate balance sheet looks like. I'm assuming they've done pretty well financially over the past five years while pushing the cap limit. there has never been much discussion of the franchise being in debt.
william - its the avg salary of the contract that hits the cap not how much in a given yr. and buying out huet costs chi money they can not afford on the cap. they fully intend to send him to ahl or let him go to khl both have no cap hits whatsoever. summer cap is 10% above in season cap and there is no way huet fits. but sending guys down to minors can't be done until training camp
@ charlie Farrell
dude.. this is a blog..it is supposed to be fun..if the proof reading is an issue for you , go read the New York Times, as we all know they don't make any grammatical errors. get over it already! give Kevin a break! Kevin does a superb job and to be honest, people who continuously complain about nonesense like a few spelling errors ought to find something more productive to do with themselves. In the very least you should be praising him for giving others a chance to give their own opinions, soimething that is both enjoyable and interesting. Now, was that a grammatically accurate way of telling you to get a life? By the way not sure if it was just coincidence or a new feature but my word verification was RANGER!!! hahaha seriously!!
Thanks Andrew.
Don't mention it! by the way guess it was a coincidence, as my verification word this time was poppr.....is that even a word?? Maybe we should have Charlie Farrell look it up, and if not find the correct spelling..oohhhh snapp!!! sorry Charlie had to do it!
@ William
If it were the Rangers who had won the cup and suddenly became serious victims of the cap, you could bet your bottom dollar that Scott Burnside would make sure every Ranger hater had an opinion. for some reason the Hawks can be stupid and noone says anything.
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