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New York Rangers Blogger •
The Rangers yesterday made a bold move or were bailed out, depending on your view point, to free up cap space and make themselves players in either the 2009 or 2010 free agency/trade market. By moving their erstwhile top center in Scott Gomez and obtaining two solid pieces back - one for now and maybe one for the future - GM Glen Sather miraculous cleared about $5 million in cap room to play with.
As everyone by now knows - unless you have been living under a rock or somewhere without internet and twitter messages - the deal was Gomez, Tom Pyatt and Mike Busto to Montreal for Higgins, former first-round pick Ryan McDonagh and Pavel Valentenko, both blueliners. The Rangers also get the rights to Doug Janik, who becomes a UFA today. Gomez wanted to and embraced being a Ranger and while the efoort for the most part was there - though some whispers, not so quietly, have come out that coach John Torotorella questioned his commitment and fitness, the production was lacking. Gomez failed to mesh with Jaromir Jagr and then was moved around by former coach Tom Renney and Torts to find a good fit, though one never appeared and he tallied just 58 points in 77 games.
Higgins is coming off a season in which shoulder and groin problems forced him to miss 25 games and those injuries contributed to a major drop in production. That said, he is a local boy, born and bred in Long Island, so he knows what it will take to succeed here. He should bring some grit and work ethic along with a solid scoring touch - having scored 20+ goals three straight years before last year's drop off- and should line up on one of the top two lines. Getting McDonagh, the Canadians' first round pick, 12th overall in 2007, is a bonus. While he has panned out yet as Montreal had hoped when they selected that high and fallen off the top of their own internal defensemen prospects ratings, he still is a solod prospect and a chip for the Rangers to deal elswehere or allows them to deal one of their own blue line prospects knowing that they have him in the fold.
I am happy with the trade given that Gomez hadn't panned out as hoped and in today's salary cap environment, space is king, so this allows the team to be players and aggressive pursuing others. I wish Gomer well in Montreal and think he will rebound up there and reserve a smidge of judgment on the deal until we see what Sather does with the room afforded to him.
So where do the Rangers go from here? The cap room allows them to be players for Dany Heatley, though after seeing what transpired last night with Edmonton do we still want that selfish of a player here and how well would his personality play with Torts? Per Larry Brooks, the team may re-explore a deal for Brad Richards, using Michal Roszival as bait, which would make lots of sense as Dallas needs an offensive d-man while the Rangers have the excees cap room and need for a center to make it work. The Blueshirt Bulletin says maybe the deal makes a play for Vincent Lecavalier, who has been through the ringer - good and bad with Torts - and who Tampa Bay might move for cap reasons if they get the right return or if not him, how about the mighty mite, Martin St. Louis to give the Rangers a true sniper at wing.
In free agency, the big names to pursue would be Marian Hossa, Marian Gaborik - who may be heading to LA and possibly Mike Cammalleri, who could fill a top-two center role, or Martin Havlat, who showed what he could do when healthy but may end up back with Chicago or in LA? Others to consider include Alex Tanguay, Erik Cole, Mike Knuble or Mikhail Samuelsson. On defense, obviously Mike Komisarek and Rob Scuderi and possibly bring back Paul Mara if we move another d-man?
In my opinion, I would rather see the Rangers stay out of the prime shopping aisles and sign one or two second tier wingers like Knuble and Samuelsson while adding a defensive defenseman like Komisarek. This would save some room under the cap allowing the team to maybe puruse a deal for Rick Nask or Ilya Kovalchuk during the season, or at worse, next year as free agents. What's your view? Who do you want to here? Should we go hog-wild as we normally do in free agency or try and get some relative bargains for salary vs. production?
As everyone by now knows - unless you have been living under a rock or somewhere without internet and twitter messages - the deal was Gomez, Tom Pyatt and Mike Busto to Montreal for Higgins, former first-round pick Ryan McDonagh and Pavel Valentenko, both blueliners. The Rangers also get the rights to Doug Janik, who becomes a UFA today. Gomez wanted to and embraced being a Ranger and while the efoort for the most part was there - though some whispers, not so quietly, have come out that coach John Torotorella questioned his commitment and fitness, the production was lacking. Gomez failed to mesh with Jaromir Jagr and then was moved around by former coach Tom Renney and Torts to find a good fit, though one never appeared and he tallied just 58 points in 77 games.
Higgins is coming off a season in which shoulder and groin problems forced him to miss 25 games and those injuries contributed to a major drop in production. That said, he is a local boy, born and bred in Long Island, so he knows what it will take to succeed here. He should bring some grit and work ethic along with a solid scoring touch - having scored 20+ goals three straight years before last year's drop off- and should line up on one of the top two lines. Getting McDonagh, the Canadians' first round pick, 12th overall in 2007, is a bonus. While he has panned out yet as Montreal had hoped when they selected that high and fallen off the top of their own internal defensemen prospects ratings, he still is a solod prospect and a chip for the Rangers to deal elswehere or allows them to deal one of their own blue line prospects knowing that they have him in the fold.
I am happy with the trade given that Gomez hadn't panned out as hoped and in today's salary cap environment, space is king, so this allows the team to be players and aggressive pursuing others. I wish Gomer well in Montreal and think he will rebound up there and reserve a smidge of judgment on the deal until we see what Sather does with the room afforded to him.
So where do the Rangers go from here? The cap room allows them to be players for Dany Heatley, though after seeing what transpired last night with Edmonton do we still want that selfish of a player here and how well would his personality play with Torts? Per Larry Brooks, the team may re-explore a deal for Brad Richards, using Michal Roszival as bait, which would make lots of sense as Dallas needs an offensive d-man while the Rangers have the excees cap room and need for a center to make it work. The Blueshirt Bulletin says maybe the deal makes a play for Vincent Lecavalier, who has been through the ringer - good and bad with Torts - and who Tampa Bay might move for cap reasons if they get the right return or if not him, how about the mighty mite, Martin St. Louis to give the Rangers a true sniper at wing.
In free agency, the big names to pursue would be Marian Hossa, Marian Gaborik - who may be heading to LA and possibly Mike Cammalleri, who could fill a top-two center role, or Martin Havlat, who showed what he could do when healthy but may end up back with Chicago or in LA? Others to consider include Alex Tanguay, Erik Cole, Mike Knuble or Mikhail Samuelsson. On defense, obviously Mike Komisarek and Rob Scuderi and possibly bring back Paul Mara if we move another d-man?
In my opinion, I would rather see the Rangers stay out of the prime shopping aisles and sign one or two second tier wingers like Knuble and Samuelsson while adding a defensive defenseman like Komisarek. This would save some room under the cap allowing the team to maybe puruse a deal for Rick Nask or Ilya Kovalchuk during the season, or at worse, next year as free agents. What's your view? Who do you want to here? Should we go hog-wild as we normally do in free agency or try and get some relative bargains for salary vs. production?
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