OK, so here are a couple of things I wanted to talk about, but then Puck Daddy wrote about them this morning, so you should just go read that instead.
First, following up on my feelings about the Asham-Glass nonsense is Ryan Lambert's piece on opening draw fights. Lambert rightly blames the away team's coach for starting the mess, rightly calls out Torts for placing exactly the wrong blame, and rightly claims that these kinds of fights never actually affect the game. He also says a bunch of other right things (and then one wrong thing about automatic penalties). So go read that.
Second, this jingoistic bullshit about Nail Yakupov's goal celebration is handled perfectly by Greg Wyshynski here. Yakupov scored a crazy-exciting goal last night and celebrated it in a crazy-exciting way. But, he's Russian, not Canadian, so everyone said shit like "act like you've scored before" and "why wasn't he celebrating nearer to his teammates" and other thinly-veiled "I don't like when Europeans are good at hockey" shit. Wyshynski says everything correct about this issue, the summary of which is "it's probably actually pretty good for the NHL if hockey is portrayed as a fun thing," so go read that, too.
So what does that leave for me to talk about? Well, there's always how the Rangers look terrible, yeah? Let's do that. This team has played one good period out of 12 now, and I don't have the time and you don't have the patience for me to talk about all the things I'm angry about. So let's cherry-pick a couple.
One thing I'm angry about: Salary math. I know I've ranted about this before, but Michael Del Zotto is making too much money. Even in a team-wide dogshit performance like last night, he managed to make more than a couple of noticeable gaffes that led to Lundqvist bailing him out. And while eating up 30 perfectly good seconds of a 5-on-3 by futzing around with the puck is something I would normally praise in a defenseman, I'm not so hot on it when he's doing it as the point man on his own team's 5-on-3.
Here's the bottom line, people. I don't mean to pick just on him, as the whole team is sucking right now, but it's a numbers game. Michael Del Zotto is eating up $2.55 million to suck. Arron Asham is eating $1 million to do the same. Matt Gilroy is wearing a suit and tie in a box upstairs. Brandon Prust is making $2.5 million in Montréal, Ruslan Fedotenko is making $1.75 million in Philadelphia, John Mitchell is making $1.1 million in Colorado, and Ranger fans are wondering where all our depth went.
Look, giving up Dubinsky and Anisimov definitely hurt this team's core. But we did it to get back real value, in Rick Nash. Prust, Fedotenko, and Mitchell all left for better contracts than we were willing to offer, so we could spend that money elsewhere. And while I'm not suggesting we should have spent $5.35 million to wrap up all three of those guys, we absolutely could have let Del Zotto walk, not signed Arron Asham, and put Gilroy in Del Zotto's spot. Gilroy would perform almost as well as DZ, if not better, and the $3.55 million saved could have kept us, at least, Brandon Prust and John Mitchell.
Or does anyone think this team wouldn't be obviously and immediately better if we swapped Del Zotto and Asham for Gilroy, Prust, and Mitchell?
Another thing I'm angry about: The coach is perpetually angry about the wrong things. We already covered yesterday how Arron Asham did something meaningless and then Torts got mad that everyone else thought it was meaningless. But then, in last night's post-game presser, the man of few words offered these choice ones: "Our top line simply didn't play well."
So, let me summarize this shit in a run-on sentence, coach. Hold on tight, it's kinda dense. One night after your top 5 forwards averaged 21:28 (which you said was because you weren't yet comfortable rolling 4 lines) and won the game all by themselves, combining for 6 points and a +7 rating on the Rangers' 4 goals and for 19 of the Rangers' 33 shots, you gave those same 5 guys an even higher average of 21:39 (more ice time than half your defensemen got), and the team looked exhausted and was beaten physically and in every footrace, and despite all that, those 5 guys still netted a point on the Rangers' only goal and were responsible for 10 of their 19 shots, and you think the problem is that your top guys didn't play well enough?
Do I live in a different reality than the coach does? This isn't just having a wrong opinion, this is downright lunacy. It is maniacal to think this. If you draw this conclusion from these facts, you are going to fail your SATs. Even if you weren't the guy who is directly responsible for everyone's ice time, this shit would stupefy a Vulcan. How are you going to correct this team's course if you think things this batty?
Too much anger, not enough time. Tomorrow night, Leafs. Two days later, Flyers again. Two days after that, Pens again. All 3 are at home. Our first four games may not really tell a story yet, but these 7 together sure will. So, let's see how those go.
Showing posts with label Michael Del Zotto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Michael Del Zotto. Show all posts
Friday, January 25, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Michael Del Zotto is making too much money
I don't actually care *that* much, because Matt Gilroy probably isn't making enough, which kinda balances out? We signed DZ to a 2-year deal at $2.55 million per. For that price, 2 years is exactly the right length - it's up the year this team gets completely dismantled anyway (because everyone else's contract is also up), so it'll be a very good time to reassess. If Del Zotto has another two seasons like last year, he'll be much more exposed for it, and he'll be up for a pay cut or pink slip. But the money is higher than I'd have liked.
I wrote last week that I'd want to pay him around $2 million, and I stand behind that. For reference points, I'd look at Anton Stralman, making $1.7 million, and Dan Girardi, making $3.325. I think Del Zotto is closer to a Stralman than he is to a Girardi, as he's often an on-ice liability, despite his point totals. But as you know, I don't rate defensemen on their ability to score goals.
Anyway, overpaying him by $550,000 a year is not bothering me a lot today because we also signed Matt Gilroy to a one-year, $650,000 deal. And if I'd heard that deal was a million instead, I wouldn't have blinked. Gilroy's got a very good offensive upside, if not quite Del Zotto's, and he backs it up by being a little bigger, and a little bit older and more responsible. Right now, I'd put Gilroy on the ice for a given shift before I put Del Zotto out there. So, to delude myself into happiness, I will simplify and say that we signed Del Zotto and Gilroy this week, for a total of $3.2 million. I can get behind that.
Those of you who have been paying attention will recall that that leaves us with $2,141,666 or cap space, with everyone signed. That's not a ton of wiggle room, but it's a bit. And remember that we've got an additional $1.25 million of salary we can use to replace Sauer and $1.25 million of bonus overage we could borrow from next season. So, cap-wise, things are not so bad this season at all.
Is it Saturday yet?
I wrote last week that I'd want to pay him around $2 million, and I stand behind that. For reference points, I'd look at Anton Stralman, making $1.7 million, and Dan Girardi, making $3.325. I think Del Zotto is closer to a Stralman than he is to a Girardi, as he's often an on-ice liability, despite his point totals. But as you know, I don't rate defensemen on their ability to score goals.
Anyway, overpaying him by $550,000 a year is not bothering me a lot today because we also signed Matt Gilroy to a one-year, $650,000 deal. And if I'd heard that deal was a million instead, I wouldn't have blinked. Gilroy's got a very good offensive upside, if not quite Del Zotto's, and he backs it up by being a little bigger, and a little bit older and more responsible. Right now, I'd put Gilroy on the ice for a given shift before I put Del Zotto out there. So, to delude myself into happiness, I will simplify and say that we signed Del Zotto and Gilroy this week, for a total of $3.2 million. I can get behind that.
Those of you who have been paying attention will recall that that leaves us with $2,141,666 or cap space, with everyone signed. That's not a ton of wiggle room, but it's a bit. And remember that we've got an additional $1.25 million of salary we can use to replace Sauer and $1.25 million of bonus overage we could borrow from next season. So, cap-wise, things are not so bad this season at all.
Is it Saturday yet?
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Salary Cap '12-'13
OK, so let's crunch some numbers on this season, for the Rangers. I've been wanting to do this for about 4 months, so indulge me. You might even learn something.
First of all, to make the math easy, I'm going to refer to every number as if this were a full season. All cap hits, and the cap, are pro-rated to the shortened length of this season, but multiplying every number here by the same percentage won't change the math any, and it will make things more complicated. So fuck that.
So, this season's cap is $70.2 million, which if I'm not mistaken is exactly what last season's cap was. It's hard to remember, as last season feels like it was about a decade ago. As you'd expect, the Rangers already have most of their roster locked down under contract. Where's that money going?
Returning Forwards (8 for $24,716,667): Gaborik (7.5); Richards (6.666667); Callahan (4.275); Boyle (1.7); Rupp (1.5); Kreider (1.325); Stepan (0.875); Hagelin (0.875)
New Forwards (5 for $11,650,000): Rick Nash (7.8); Taylor Pyatt (1.55); Arron Asham (fuck that guy) (1); Jeff Halpern (0.7); Micheal Haley (0.6)
Returning Defensemen (6 for $11,800,000): Staal (3.975); Girardi (3.325); Stralman (1.7); McDonagh (1.3); Eminger (0.75); Bickel (0.75)
Returning Goalies (2 for $8,175,000): Lundqvist (6.875); Biron (1.3)
That's a total of $56,341,667 on actual roster players, leaving $13,858,333 under the cap. Plenty of room. But there's some more to deal with.
First, as you already know, we have to pay off the final year of Chris Drury's buyout, for $1,666,667. Then, there's the new rule - the Redden Rule - that prevents salary burial in the AHL. The rule is that any one-way NHL contracts, even if the player is playing in the AHL and not on your NHL roster, still count against the cap. How much they count is still not publicly known, but it appears to be everything over the first $900,000 of the cap hit. That's the figure CapGeek uses, anyway. And it's a figure I believe. Redden's full NHL cap hit would be $6.5 million, so he'll be costing the Rangers $5.6 million under the cap this year, to play in Connecticut.
And then, there's the whole Michael Sauer thing. You should stop, in case you still are, asking whether or not Sauer will come back to the Rangers this season, and start asking if he's going to be healthy enough for a normal life - things are apparently really bad. With that said, we're here to talk about the cap, and Sauer is still under contract to the Rangers this season, for a hit of $1.25 million.
Drury, Redden, and Sauer add up to $8,516,667 for non-roster players, taking the Rangers' space down to $5,341,666. And then there are new contracts forthcoming. You'll note that the above player lists did not include noted favorite defenseman of this blog, Michael Del Zotto. He's still in contract talks with the Rangers (talks in which he has no leverage, as a restricted free agent not eligible for arbitration), and he reportedly wants a multi-year deal at over $3 million a year.
For reference, the New York Rangers pay Dan Girardi $3.325 million per year.
On what fucking planet is Michael Del Zotto worth what Dan Girardi is worth?
My paragraphs are becoming one sentence long to show how shocked I am by this idea.
Is it working?
Michael Del Zotto, your qualifying offer based on last season's salary should be $918,750 - maybe less, depending on a signing bonus. Least season, you were the least responsible defender on the team more nights than anyone else on the squad except Stu Bickel, who makes $750,000 to play 8 minutes a game and be 6'4". Where the shit-balls do you get off asking for Dan Girardi money, you deluded sociopath?
At any rate, $5,341,666 should be enough space to re-sign Del Zotto and sign camp invitee, once and future Ranger Matt Gilroy to a reasonable contract (~2 for DZ, ~1.5 for Gilroy?). But it doesn't leave the team very much wiggle room to make moves down the line.
But: There is a little more room than I presented here. First of all, Sauer will of course be on Long-Term Injured Reserve. This allows the Rangers to call up "replacement players" whose salaries add up to no more than Sauer's salary this season (which is also his cap hit, $1.25 million). So, for example, they could call Arron Asham a replacement for Sauer (which, frankly, would be textbook "adding insult to injury") because Asham's million-dollar salary is less than Sauer's, which means that, while Sauer still counts against the cap, Asham wouldn't. That would save the Rangers a million dollars under the cap.
Finally, there's the performance bonus cushion. Some of the above cap hits include performance bonuses - money that is only paid out if that player accomplishes some thing this season (number of games played, number of points, that kind of thing). Any potential bonuses count against the cap, until the accomplishments are no longer achievable. However, teams are permitted to go over the cap by those bonuses in the meanwhile (up to 7.5% of the total cap), and then if they end up getting paid out, that amount is docked from next year's cap. So, it's a last resort, as it's borrowing against the future, but it is technically some wiggle room.
The numbers above include, in performance bonuses, $637,500 for Kreider, $425,000 for McDonagh, and $187,500 for Hagelin, for a total of $1.25 million that the Rangers could theoretically borrow against next season (or, if things go badly for those players, not pay out at all).
This all means that, to sign Del Zotto and possibly Gilroy, and for future wiggle room, the Rangers have $5,341,666 free, plus about $2.5 million by which they can go over (1.25 for Sauer's replacement, 1.25 for performance bonuses). And now you know.
First of all, to make the math easy, I'm going to refer to every number as if this were a full season. All cap hits, and the cap, are pro-rated to the shortened length of this season, but multiplying every number here by the same percentage won't change the math any, and it will make things more complicated. So fuck that.
So, this season's cap is $70.2 million, which if I'm not mistaken is exactly what last season's cap was. It's hard to remember, as last season feels like it was about a decade ago. As you'd expect, the Rangers already have most of their roster locked down under contract. Where's that money going?
Returning Forwards (8 for $24,716,667): Gaborik (7.5); Richards (6.666667); Callahan (4.275); Boyle (1.7); Rupp (1.5); Kreider (1.325); Stepan (0.875); Hagelin (0.875)
New Forwards (5 for $11,650,000): Rick Nash (7.8); Taylor Pyatt (1.55); Arron Asham (fuck that guy) (1); Jeff Halpern (0.7); Micheal Haley (0.6)
Returning Defensemen (6 for $11,800,000): Staal (3.975); Girardi (3.325); Stralman (1.7); McDonagh (1.3); Eminger (0.75); Bickel (0.75)
Returning Goalies (2 for $8,175,000): Lundqvist (6.875); Biron (1.3)
That's a total of $56,341,667 on actual roster players, leaving $13,858,333 under the cap. Plenty of room. But there's some more to deal with.
First, as you already know, we have to pay off the final year of Chris Drury's buyout, for $1,666,667. Then, there's the new rule - the Redden Rule - that prevents salary burial in the AHL. The rule is that any one-way NHL contracts, even if the player is playing in the AHL and not on your NHL roster, still count against the cap. How much they count is still not publicly known, but it appears to be everything over the first $900,000 of the cap hit. That's the figure CapGeek uses, anyway. And it's a figure I believe. Redden's full NHL cap hit would be $6.5 million, so he'll be costing the Rangers $5.6 million under the cap this year, to play in Connecticut.
And then, there's the whole Michael Sauer thing. You should stop, in case you still are, asking whether or not Sauer will come back to the Rangers this season, and start asking if he's going to be healthy enough for a normal life - things are apparently really bad. With that said, we're here to talk about the cap, and Sauer is still under contract to the Rangers this season, for a hit of $1.25 million.
Drury, Redden, and Sauer add up to $8,516,667 for non-roster players, taking the Rangers' space down to $5,341,666. And then there are new contracts forthcoming. You'll note that the above player lists did not include noted favorite defenseman of this blog, Michael Del Zotto. He's still in contract talks with the Rangers (talks in which he has no leverage, as a restricted free agent not eligible for arbitration), and he reportedly wants a multi-year deal at over $3 million a year.
For reference, the New York Rangers pay Dan Girardi $3.325 million per year.
On what fucking planet is Michael Del Zotto worth what Dan Girardi is worth?
My paragraphs are becoming one sentence long to show how shocked I am by this idea.
Is it working?
Michael Del Zotto, your qualifying offer based on last season's salary should be $918,750 - maybe less, depending on a signing bonus. Least season, you were the least responsible defender on the team more nights than anyone else on the squad except Stu Bickel, who makes $750,000 to play 8 minutes a game and be 6'4". Where the shit-balls do you get off asking for Dan Girardi money, you deluded sociopath?
At any rate, $5,341,666 should be enough space to re-sign Del Zotto and sign camp invitee, once and future Ranger Matt Gilroy to a reasonable contract (~2 for DZ, ~1.5 for Gilroy?). But it doesn't leave the team very much wiggle room to make moves down the line.
But: There is a little more room than I presented here. First of all, Sauer will of course be on Long-Term Injured Reserve. This allows the Rangers to call up "replacement players" whose salaries add up to no more than Sauer's salary this season (which is also his cap hit, $1.25 million). So, for example, they could call Arron Asham a replacement for Sauer (which, frankly, would be textbook "adding insult to injury") because Asham's million-dollar salary is less than Sauer's, which means that, while Sauer still counts against the cap, Asham wouldn't. That would save the Rangers a million dollars under the cap.
Finally, there's the performance bonus cushion. Some of the above cap hits include performance bonuses - money that is only paid out if that player accomplishes some thing this season (number of games played, number of points, that kind of thing). Any potential bonuses count against the cap, until the accomplishments are no longer achievable. However, teams are permitted to go over the cap by those bonuses in the meanwhile (up to 7.5% of the total cap), and then if they end up getting paid out, that amount is docked from next year's cap. So, it's a last resort, as it's borrowing against the future, but it is technically some wiggle room.
The numbers above include, in performance bonuses, $637,500 for Kreider, $425,000 for McDonagh, and $187,500 for Hagelin, for a total of $1.25 million that the Rangers could theoretically borrow against next season (or, if things go badly for those players, not pay out at all).
This all means that, to sign Del Zotto and possibly Gilroy, and for future wiggle room, the Rangers have $5,341,666 free, plus about $2.5 million by which they can go over (1.25 for Sauer's replacement, 1.25 for performance bonuses). And now you know.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Midterms?
I know, I know: weeks between posts. There was a Christmas/New Years break, during which I was not home a lot, and I'm still at this new job. I hope I can continue writing this, but it's possible I won't be able to. I'm sorry, 4 people.
Anyway, let's talk about the New York Hockey Rangers. The good news is that, in three consecutive awful games - almost certainly the worst 3-game string we've put together this season - we came away with three points. We beat the Devils playing shitty hockey, because the Devils are just awful. Then, we stole a point in Tampa playing shitty hockey by relying on the two big-talent names on the team: Lundqvist made a bunch of great saves, and Gaborik scored with 30 seconds left to push it into OT (in which we lost on the first shot). Finally, we got the 0 points we deserved by playing shitty hockey in Florida, where a bunch of old, retired Ranger fans apparently live.
My father said something to me the other day. I will tell you what it was, because it will act as a nice lead-in to my point. That is a Writers' Trick, using a personal touch as an introduction to a grander idea. Here is what he said: "Come on, do we really believe that this is all due to missing Callahan?" And, I mean, of course not. Callahan's great, but he can't be the skill difference between the team that beat the Caps and Pens by an aggregate 11-1 and the team that lost to the Lightning and Panthers by an aggregate 5-1. So I start to wonder: what's the actual problem here?
Yes, the Rangers were playing a little over their heads. But more than that, they were winning games through sheer force of will. Just shooting pucks all the time, crunching bodies constantly, and winning the possession game on every shift - there was even a game or two in there wherein we won more faceoffs than we lost (!) - helped us beat hockey teams that are really more skilled than we are. So where does that stuff come from, and where, more importantly, did it go?
At the risk of being kicked out of the VORPies, I'm ready to call it "chemistry." More in hockey than in discrete-event-driven baseball or in set-play-at-a-time football, knowing what your teammate is thinking is important. You don't have time to call plays, so you have to either look around and make decisions based on what you see or put the puck where you know it's going to belong. I've yelled and screamed about it a lot, but Tortorella refuses to use consistent line combinations, ever. Other than a few guidelines (double-shift Gaborik somewhere, make sure Avery doesn't break 10 minutes of ice time for some reason), there's really no consistency from one period to the next. He just puts out some guys and tells them to skate together.
With two exceptions, of course. For most of the season, he has consistently kept Boyle and Prust together (with some additional wing, most often Fedotenko), and he has consistently kept Dubinsky and Callahan together (with some center, most often Anisimov). Those two pairs have been consistent pretty much all season. Quickly now, close your eyes, and name who you think are the 5 most effective Ranger forwards of the season - from opening night through today.
Did Dubi, Cally, Prust, and Boyle all make your list? At least 3 of them did, I bet. Quite possibly all 4. They may even be the top 4 of your 5. Now, I'm not claiming that this is all because they have been paired together all season. And I know some of this is circular logic - in part, Torts has been keeping them together because it's worked. No one's saying Frolov would have 35 points right now if only he'd been on a consistent line with Christensen and Weise all season. But I also feel like Marian Gaborik might be a little more productive right now if he'd been given the chance to gel with anyone at all.
Which brings us back to Callahan. If you think of Dubi-Cally and Prust-Boyle as the only two "line pairs" we've got, then the loss of Callahan means the loss of one of our only two units (and the better one, at that). So, then, yeah. Maybe this is all on Callahan.
In other news, defense. After half a season (yes, folks, tonight is the 41st game of the Rangers' 85th anniversary season - after tonight, we will officially be halfway through the regular season) of playing mediocre-to-bad defense and not really scoring points at a pace to make up for it, Michael Del Zotto (2-7-9, -1) has been reassigned to Connecticut. Good. He's a kid, and time on the Whale will help him. I have no use for a defenseman who forgets how to back-check so he can put up 20 points a season. Sorry, Mike Green. Let DZ go back and learn to play defense, then come back up when he's ready.
Meanwhile, what an opportunity for Gilroy, who has played out of his head since he's back as a lineup regular, and I couldn't be happier about it. I like the guy a great deal, and I'd love to see him succeed here. He looked very good in the few games for which he replaced DZ, before DZ returned to one more before being officially sent down. Also, we've called up Ryan McDonagh in case we need a 7th. Interesting move. I like the personnel choice, but if we're not gonna play him, why not just leave him in Connecticut getting ice time until we need him? Meh, maybe I don't understand how hockey works.
And speaking of defensemen, will I be the world's least popular Ranger fan if I point out that over this 3-game skid, the one Ranger that really stood out making smart plays and generally being an asset on the ice was Michal Rozsival? Cause he really has been good.
Anyway, things aren't all bad for the Rangers - it was just 3 bad games, so far. And in a division with the Flyers and Pens (due to the way the playoffs now work, if we can't pass either of them, we can't end up above 5th in the conference), we're not doing so badly for ourselves. Maybe the Rangers will play a game that isn't painful to watch, tonight when the Hurricanes visit. We can hope so. That's all I've got for the Rangers, but before we go, does anyone know what time it is? 'Cause it looks to me like it's Kovalwatch!!!! time!
At the risk of this becoming a Kovalchuk-themed blog, I had to do another edition today, because of last night's gem. The Devils and the Wild are tied 1-1 a minute or two into the third. And then this thing somehow happens:
It's hard to see, but as Puck Daddy explains, Wild player Clayton Stoner (tee-hee) is trying to dump the puck into the Devils' zone. Ilya the Rich moves in to check Stoner, and the dump-in takes a weird bounce off of his (Kovalchuk's) stick back toward the boards. It then takes a weird bounce back off the boards towards the Devils net, which Johan Hedberg (in for an overrated Brodeur) has vacated so that he can go retrieve the puck along the boards. Hedberg can't get back in time, and the Wild go up 2-1, the score by which they would end up winning the game.
I know, Kovalchuk did nothing wrong on this play. But that does not make it any less hilarious! Nor does it make it any less of a minus one on his increasingly astounding stat sheet. It brings him to a -29, undisputed worst in the league, and on pace for a -60.9 on the season. That would be the 9th worst in the recorded history of the statistic, from what I can tell. Hopefully that projection crosses -61 soon, at which point he will jump in the rankings. I'll let you know.
Meanwhile, the Devils have found themselves a full 8 points behind even the Islanders, who have 2 games in hand on them. Their 22 points in 39 games puts them on pace to finish the season with 46.25 points. For perspective, since the Rangers won the Cup, 3 teams have finished with fewer points than that: the '95-'96 Senators, with 41; the '97-'98 Lightning, with 44; and the inaugural '99-'00 Thrashers, with 39 (the last being the only one since they started giving points for losing in OT). This is a Very Bad Team, is the point.
Man, this is a fun feature to write.
Anyway, let's talk about the New York Hockey Rangers. The good news is that, in three consecutive awful games - almost certainly the worst 3-game string we've put together this season - we came away with three points. We beat the Devils playing shitty hockey, because the Devils are just awful. Then, we stole a point in Tampa playing shitty hockey by relying on the two big-talent names on the team: Lundqvist made a bunch of great saves, and Gaborik scored with 30 seconds left to push it into OT (in which we lost on the first shot). Finally, we got the 0 points we deserved by playing shitty hockey in Florida, where a bunch of old, retired Ranger fans apparently live.
My father said something to me the other day. I will tell you what it was, because it will act as a nice lead-in to my point. That is a Writers' Trick, using a personal touch as an introduction to a grander idea. Here is what he said: "Come on, do we really believe that this is all due to missing Callahan?" And, I mean, of course not. Callahan's great, but he can't be the skill difference between the team that beat the Caps and Pens by an aggregate 11-1 and the team that lost to the Lightning and Panthers by an aggregate 5-1. So I start to wonder: what's the actual problem here?
Yes, the Rangers were playing a little over their heads. But more than that, they were winning games through sheer force of will. Just shooting pucks all the time, crunching bodies constantly, and winning the possession game on every shift - there was even a game or two in there wherein we won more faceoffs than we lost (!) - helped us beat hockey teams that are really more skilled than we are. So where does that stuff come from, and where, more importantly, did it go?
At the risk of being kicked out of the VORPies, I'm ready to call it "chemistry." More in hockey than in discrete-event-driven baseball or in set-play-at-a-time football, knowing what your teammate is thinking is important. You don't have time to call plays, so you have to either look around and make decisions based on what you see or put the puck where you know it's going to belong. I've yelled and screamed about it a lot, but Tortorella refuses to use consistent line combinations, ever. Other than a few guidelines (double-shift Gaborik somewhere, make sure Avery doesn't break 10 minutes of ice time for some reason), there's really no consistency from one period to the next. He just puts out some guys and tells them to skate together.
With two exceptions, of course. For most of the season, he has consistently kept Boyle and Prust together (with some additional wing, most often Fedotenko), and he has consistently kept Dubinsky and Callahan together (with some center, most often Anisimov). Those two pairs have been consistent pretty much all season. Quickly now, close your eyes, and name who you think are the 5 most effective Ranger forwards of the season - from opening night through today.
Did Dubi, Cally, Prust, and Boyle all make your list? At least 3 of them did, I bet. Quite possibly all 4. They may even be the top 4 of your 5. Now, I'm not claiming that this is all because they have been paired together all season. And I know some of this is circular logic - in part, Torts has been keeping them together because it's worked. No one's saying Frolov would have 35 points right now if only he'd been on a consistent line with Christensen and Weise all season. But I also feel like Marian Gaborik might be a little more productive right now if he'd been given the chance to gel with anyone at all.
Which brings us back to Callahan. If you think of Dubi-Cally and Prust-Boyle as the only two "line pairs" we've got, then the loss of Callahan means the loss of one of our only two units (and the better one, at that). So, then, yeah. Maybe this is all on Callahan.
In other news, defense. After half a season (yes, folks, tonight is the 41st game of the Rangers' 85th anniversary season - after tonight, we will officially be halfway through the regular season) of playing mediocre-to-bad defense and not really scoring points at a pace to make up for it, Michael Del Zotto (2-7-9, -1) has been reassigned to Connecticut. Good. He's a kid, and time on the Whale will help him. I have no use for a defenseman who forgets how to back-check so he can put up 20 points a season. Sorry, Mike Green. Let DZ go back and learn to play defense, then come back up when he's ready.
Meanwhile, what an opportunity for Gilroy, who has played out of his head since he's back as a lineup regular, and I couldn't be happier about it. I like the guy a great deal, and I'd love to see him succeed here. He looked very good in the few games for which he replaced DZ, before DZ returned to one more before being officially sent down. Also, we've called up Ryan McDonagh in case we need a 7th. Interesting move. I like the personnel choice, but if we're not gonna play him, why not just leave him in Connecticut getting ice time until we need him? Meh, maybe I don't understand how hockey works.
And speaking of defensemen, will I be the world's least popular Ranger fan if I point out that over this 3-game skid, the one Ranger that really stood out making smart plays and generally being an asset on the ice was Michal Rozsival? Cause he really has been good.
Anyway, things aren't all bad for the Rangers - it was just 3 bad games, so far. And in a division with the Flyers and Pens (due to the way the playoffs now work, if we can't pass either of them, we can't end up above 5th in the conference), we're not doing so badly for ourselves. Maybe the Rangers will play a game that isn't painful to watch, tonight when the Hurricanes visit. We can hope so. That's all I've got for the Rangers, but before we go, does anyone know what time it is? 'Cause it looks to me like it's Kovalwatch!!!! time!
At the risk of this becoming a Kovalchuk-themed blog, I had to do another edition today, because of last night's gem. The Devils and the Wild are tied 1-1 a minute or two into the third. And then this thing somehow happens:
It's hard to see, but as Puck Daddy explains, Wild player Clayton Stoner (tee-hee) is trying to dump the puck into the Devils' zone. Ilya the Rich moves in to check Stoner, and the dump-in takes a weird bounce off of his (Kovalchuk's) stick back toward the boards. It then takes a weird bounce back off the boards towards the Devils net, which Johan Hedberg (in for an overrated Brodeur) has vacated so that he can go retrieve the puck along the boards. Hedberg can't get back in time, and the Wild go up 2-1, the score by which they would end up winning the game.
I know, Kovalchuk did nothing wrong on this play. But that does not make it any less hilarious! Nor does it make it any less of a minus one on his increasingly astounding stat sheet. It brings him to a -29, undisputed worst in the league, and on pace for a -60.9 on the season. That would be the 9th worst in the recorded history of the statistic, from what I can tell. Hopefully that projection crosses -61 soon, at which point he will jump in the rankings. I'll let you know.
Meanwhile, the Devils have found themselves a full 8 points behind even the Islanders, who have 2 games in hand on them. Their 22 points in 39 games puts them on pace to finish the season with 46.25 points. For perspective, since the Rangers won the Cup, 3 teams have finished with fewer points than that: the '95-'96 Senators, with 41; the '97-'98 Lightning, with 44; and the inaugural '99-'00 Thrashers, with 39 (the last being the only one since they started giving points for losing in OT). This is a Very Bad Team, is the point.
Man, this is a fun feature to write.
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