OK, let's get down to brass tacks. This team got worse this summer. But, weirdly, it didn't make too many bad decisions to get there. You know what might be fun? If we analyzed all those decisions, even though they're all in the past and we couldn't even have done anything about them in the first place anyway.
June 20, the Rangers bought out the remainder of Brad Richards's contract. This is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about: it was a good decision, and it made the team worse. Richards had 6 years left on his contract, which paid him $6.67 million per year, and this was the final chance the Rangers had to use a compliance buyout in the wake of the new CBA. Understand: this buyout was not a referendum on Richards, who, despite eventually losing an edge deep into the playoffs was exactly what the Rangers needed him to be for most of the season.
Richards finished the season with a 5-on-5 CF% of 54.1%. He and Hagelin, his most frequent left wing, brought each other up comparably (Hagelin away from Richards was a 54.3%; Richie away from Hags was a 53.7%; together, they were a 54.5%), while he brought Callahan, his most frequent right wing, up significantly (Cally away from Richards was a 47.8%; Richards away from Callahan was 55.1%; together, they were a 52.9%).
There was virtually no way Richards could have played well enough to justify continuing to commit almost $7 million a year to him through age 40. He turned around and signed a 1 year, $2 million deal with Chicago, a deal I would have been very happy for the Rangers to sign, if it were legal to buy a guy out and then immediately re-sign him.
June 27, we traded Derek Dorsett, making $1,633,333 in the final year of his contract, to Vancouver for Anaheim's 3rd-round pick in this year's draft (with which we selected a center named Keegan Iverson). Dorsett was a reasonably effective 4th-liner at times this season, but this was a smart move. We don't need to be spending around a million and a half for a guy to essentially take up space on the 4th line - we have plenty of NHL-minimum kids we can bring up to fill that role instead. Take notes: that sentiment is going to come up again in the next post.
July 1, free agency opened, and the Rangers had 6 players with contracts expiring in unrestricted free agency: Brian Boyle, Dan Carcillo, Raphael Diaz, Dominic Moore, Benoit Pouliot, and Anton Stralman. Even with the buyout of Richards, major money tied up (and for the large part deserved) by Girardi, McDonagh, Nash, St. Louis, and Lundqvist; a few key restricted free agents (whom we'll get into in a bit); and only a year left on the contracts of Staal, Stepan, and Hagelin meant that we weren't going to be able to afford to re-sign all those dudes. This means that, like with Richards, the right decision (letting some of these guys walk) was going to make the team worse.
We re-signed Moore to a completely reasonable 2 years at $1.5m per, which is a great contract for his value. That's a fourth-liner you absolutely do want to spend a million and a half per year on. Moore maintained a CF% of 48.5% despite an offensive zone start percentage of 25.1%, ahead of only Brian Boyle (OZS 23.4%, CF 47.1%) on the squad. As far as bang for the buck goes, Moore was a great choice at this price.
Letting a free agent walk is always a gamble, because you never really know what you could have signed him to. That is, until some other team does a few hours later. For example, letting Boyle walk seemed like the right choice: he had a great playoffs and was reportedly looking for increased 3rd-line minutes. He, like Brandon Prust before him, seemed destined to be the fan favorite and meaningful contributor off to earn more than he was worth somewhere dumber with their money than we are. Then he signed a 3-year, $2 million/year deal with Tampa Bay.
That's a contract I could go either way on. It doesn't immediately sounds like overpayment. From a glance at their With-Or-Without-You stats (Boyle had a 5-on-5 CF% of 46.6% without Dominic Moore; D.Mo had a 50.0% without Boyler; and they had a 47.6% together), we can guess that, in terms of raw possession, Moore was more valuable to the team than Boyle. But Boyle's also a lot bigger than Moore, and we know that Boyle did face marginally tougher zone starts, so it's reasonable to say they're about equitable. Look: there's no telling whether or not Boyle would have accepted an identical contract from New York to the one he did from Tampa. Maybe he was just looking for a team where he'd fit on the third line. But by not offering it, the Rangers seemed to be making a statement I can kinda get behind: paying that kind of money, for 3 years, to just another 4th liner, simply wasn't in the budget. Again, take notes. This is going to come up again in the next post.
Letting Carcillo walk fit trivially into this thinking. He was actually pretty solid for us in the minutes he got last season, and I'm not saying good riddance like I have to every previous Sather "tough guy" experiment (Brashear, Asham, etc.), but he's totally replaceable. He's now on a professional tryout with the Penguins. LOL, as the kids say. Speaking of professional tryouts, Diaz is now on one with Calgary. I liked Diaz a lot in his few appearances as a Ranger, and I would have liked to see him back, but he was certainly nothing special on a team headed by Girardi, McDonagh, Staal, and Klein, with Conor Allen waiting in the wings, that would go on to re-sign John Moore and sign two more NHL defensemen this offseason, so I understand letting him go find a team where he'll get actual minutes.
That leaves Stralman and Pouliot, whose stories are actually pretty similar. Both players had inconsistent seasons, especially early on, when they were both really frustrating to watch (Pouliot for wasting his big body on stupid penalties, Stralman for being so slow that he was caught out of position more often than not). Nonetheless, they both really found their strides by the spring, aided by consistent partners (in Zuccarello and Brassard, and Staal, respectively), and both were recognized for very impressive playoff runs, leading to the expectation of big contracts in free agency.
Moreover, both had 2013-'14 possession numbers that run somewhat counter to my intuition having, as the anti-intellectual crowd likes to remind me to do so often, actually watched the games. Until looking at them, I assumed that Pouliot's numbers were brought up significantly by Zuccarello and Brassard. In fact, it turns out that all 3 of those guys had better numbers as a unit than by themselves, by about the same margins, suggesting that they all improved each other by about the same amount. Even more counterintuitive were Stralman's numbers compared to Staal's. Apart from Stralman, Staal posted a 2013-'14 CF% of 48.6%, while Staal apart from Stralman saw a 56.1%. Together, they were a 56.2%. While a lot of these other numbers are close enough to be explained away, that big a jump in Staal's possession when playing with Stralman, while Stralman's stayed almost identical with or without Staal, suggests that Stralman was pretty significantly making Staal look better, where my intuition would have said the exact opposite to about the same degree.
All of which adds up to me sitting on pretty much the same fence, when they each went on to sign 5-year deals at over $4m (Pouliot at $4m/yr with Edmonton; Stralman at $4.5m/yr with Tampa Bay). Locking up a guy like Stralman for his prime years (ages 28-33) really could turn out to be a great move at that price, and the Rangers will certainly be worse without him than with him. But, I'd definitely have some trepidation about that hefty a deal for a guy whose numbers just don't pass my smell test, accurate as they probably are. Certainly, in Pouliot's case, I wouldn't want to commit that much money for 5 years to a 3rd-liner who may only have been as good as he was because of his linemates. Yet again, take notes, because that idea, too, is going to come back in the next post.
Other than not sending a qualifying offer to Justin Falk (now with the Wild for 1 year at $700,000; the logic for letting him walk goes much like it did with Diaz), that's the full list of the Rangers' losses this off-season. All told, Carcillo and Diaz notwithstanding, we gave up Brad Richards, Derek Dorsett, Brian Boyle, Justin Falk, Benoit Pouliot, and Anton Stralman, and we (arguably) saved $19.5 million by doing it.
It's hard to immediately argue with that: though the loss of those 6 players hurts the Rangers, I wouldn't spend almost $20 million to get them back. $19.5 million is Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Sharp, and a million bucks to spare. $19.5 million is Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, and over a million left over. It's only $57,143 short of Drew Doughty, Shea Weber, and Ryan McDonagh put together. It is, if you left them Brandon Dubinsky and Nathan Horton, enough to afford every other Blue Jackets forward combined. The Rangers got worse through these losses, but it's hard to blame them.
So, what went so horribly, horribly wrong? CLIFFHANGER! (Spoiler alert: we spent too much money on shitty new contracts.)
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