Todd Cordell If the New York Rangers' window to win hasn't closed it is dangerously close to doing so.
They are still a few pieces away from being a legitimate Stanley Cup contender and, due to their awful cap situation, I'm not sure how they can go about plugging the necessary holes.
Dan Girardi has been a train wreck the last couple years and Marc Staal has proven to be vastly overpaid. Those two are signed for at least four more years at a combined $11.2 million per and will really hinder the Rangers' ability to improve.
The Rangers have a good core but they've surrounded it poorly and, again, due to cap issues and a lack of draft picks I'm not sure they can fix everything.
Jason Lewis No it is not closed. They have plenty of really good pieces and still have a few years.
Between Lundquist, Brassard, Stepan, McDonagh and Zucc, they have a very good core of players. They also have some nice add-on players they should re-sign/keep in Kreider, Miller, Fast, Hayes, Yandle, and Skjei. That right there is a group of players that is relatively young and can win you some hockey games. Add in a few key free agent pieces and ditch some dead weight and you have a team that can challenge. Lot of quality in that NYR lineup.
Oh and Buchnevich looks like a stud.
James Tanner It closed a while ago. I think the only reason the Rangers were as successful as they've been the last few years is Henrick Lundqvist.
For at least this year and last year they were a team that was massively overrated because their goalie killed it for them. The King has hidden horrible defensive play, regressive, terrible personnel decisions and one of the worst coached/defensive teams in hockey from the world with his amazing play.
This is a team that dresses Dan Girardi and Mark Staal way too high in the lineup for way too many minutes, and who have doubled down constantly on bad decisions/philosophies because of good results, even though it's been obvious the process isn't working and the good results are because of a goalie.
They've traded too many picks, have too many bad contracts and now that Lundqvist will be 35 next year, they will likely be headed to the basement to replace up and coming teams like Arizona, Toronto and Edmonton, who're going up.
Peter Tessier With no draft picks in the first round in forever what's coming up in the Rangers system to keep them afloat? They have mortgaged the future on trades, attempts, contracts to compete and win and in the process saddled themselves with bad contracts on some dubious talent.
The window is almost shut and this off season they have some serious questions to answer. How do they continue to compete without adding more salary and how do they get rid of salary so they can add some younger talent?
Oh who are we kidding- it's shut and they might as well start the rebuild/tool. I wouldn't expect them to find much help from other GMs and it's likely that the best asset they have is the one they should move, Henrik Lundqvist and we all know that's not going to happen.
Recent posts: Stanley Cup Predictions