Sunday, December 25, 2011

Power Rankings

You know, watching 24/7 has really reinforced a surprising trait of the New York Rangers right now: despite being professional hockey players, they're a pretty attractive group of guys. Really, compare these guys to most hockey teams - even to our early 90s Cup team. Hockey players aren't supposed to look this good!

Well, courtesy of my sister, today we have a Christmas treat. She has ranked, for our reading pleasure, every Ranger on the roster or IR in terms of their overall hotness. (Except John Mitchell, for some reason, so I added him myself at number 27.) All annotations are hers, all I did was add some pictures. What better way to spend the league's Christmas break (besides staring at the Atlantic Division standings)? What, are you gonna watch goddamn basketball or something?

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

I can't believe we have to do this again

Okay, look. I'm getting sick of explaining that Sean Avery is a valuable hockey player. But it seems to be necessary again, in light of his replacement by Erik Christensen over the last two games, including Tuesday night's absolute sleeper against Avery's former team (against whom he generally plays very well). So here we are again, using math where common sense seems to have failed. If anyone has John Tortorella's email address, do me a favor and send him this stuff. I hear he's coaching the Rangers these days, and this information could probably help him out. Also, find out if he's hiring?

Last night's game in 280 characters

"If brevity be the soul of wit, play on," as the great Christopher Marlowe once wrote. And so, last night's game, summarized by two tweets last night: the former by me, the latter by Andrew Gross of The Record.

"Does anyone, including Torts, really believe this sluggish #NYR game wouldn't have gone differently with @imseanavery in for EC's ice time?"

"This game is a very argument against the NHL's new alignment."

Friday, December 9, 2011

More Realignment Talk

Welcome back to Some Schmuck Whines about Hockey, with your host, Some Schmuck. I posted some on Tuesday about how the geographic realignment isn't so bad and some on Friday about how the loss of rivalries is heartbreaking.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Realignment Part Two: The heartbreaking part

I started to talk about the new realignment here, and it ended pretty positively. That can't be right. Let's take a look at the reasons it sucks, starting with schedule.

On realignment (the part that doesn't suck)

In line with today's announcement that the NHL's Board of Governors has approved a crazy new realignment of the NHL, here begins a 2-part (probably) discussion of why I don't hate it and why I hate it.

In this piece, let's talk about the actual alignment of teams, which is the part I don't hate. Of course, the current alignment suffered some problems recently, as the Jets now find themselves on jets a little too often. As Gary Bettman said, "I had nothing against the existing format, and but for the move to Winnipeg we wouldn't be looking to change it."

Monday, December 5, 2011

That salary thing again

So, as this guy does a terrible job of explaining, there's another thing we have to consider when we look at the return of our injured: cap space. Let's do a quick recap on how injured reserve works.

If a player is placed on regular injured reserve (IR), it is just like he has been suspended. His body doesn't count against the 23-man roster size cap, but his salary still counts fully against the cap. From a cap perspective, it's no different than if he's just inactive, like Erik Christensen currently is and forever should be. Once put on IR, a player must be out for 7 days (regardless of the number of games played in that time).

For longer-term injuries, a player can be placed on long-term injured reserve (LTIR). On LTIR, a player must miss at least 24 days and at least 10 of his club's games. The only other difference between IR and LTIR is that on LTIR, there is a cap consideration. But it's not as simple as the player just not counting against the cap (is it ever simple?). Because Wolski, Rupp, and Staal are all on LTIR, let's take a look at how it works.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Who goes?

So, things have gone decently well for this club lately, yes? But there are some people waiting in the wings, slowly healing, and I'm not excited about when they do. Clearly, when Marc Staal returns, everything gets better, and he replaces the well-meaning, hard-working, totally-mediocre Jeff Woywitka, who has definitely done his time and earned his #7 spot on this club (now we just need someone to take over for Eminger at #6). But what about forwards?