No Core

My father is fond of saying that (one of) the big problem(s) with the Rangers is that they lack a core and an identity. I am fond of saying that he's right. I was playing with my new favorite website today, and their database of every Ranger ever, and I decided to do some research. Our turnover is astounding, and while we all kinda know this, I thought it might benefit us if I added some numbers to the feeling we have.

For the purposes of this discussion, for a player to count as "still on the Rangers," he needs to have not traded away to any other franchise in there (Sean Avery) and he needs to have played more than 1 game for us that season.

The '07-'08 season was really only 2 seasons ago, right? Well, from that team 2 seasons ago, we have retained only 8 total players. Including both our goalies. We have only retained 6 skaters since only 2 seasons ago. And please notice that my definition of "retained" includes Dubinsky and Callahan, who we haven't actually signed contracts with.

We only have 6 players left from '06-'07. Again, this includes the 2 goalies, and again, this includes the 2 non-contracts of Dubinsky and Callahan.

Finally, going back one more season, to only 4 years ago - we have exactly two players left from that season: Henrik Lundqvist and Michal Rozsival. Two players retained over four seasons! 6 to 8 players retained over only 2 seasons! Who does that?

Anyway, just thought you'd find that interesting. This is what we mean when we say we have no core of players. There is no team culture because there is no commonality. There's no time to build one. No one identifies as "a Ranger" 'cause no one stays here. We can no more call ourselves the team of Darius Kasparaitis than the team of Donald Brashear, and that's a problem.