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Select the best Rangers’ team with a few parameters/ caveats/ twists/ rules

July 19, 2018, 2:26 PM ET [226 Comments]
Jan Levine
New York Rangers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Since we are truly in the summer doldrums for hockey, in essence just waiting for restricted free agents to sign, finding a way to keep the blog fresh is a challenge. A few weeks ago, bridging off a tweet, I ran a blog where we all selected our favorite players to build one or two complete lines, including a center, left and right wing, two defensemen and a goalie. Included within that blog was performing similar for the Rangers; not necessarily the best team but our favorites. Ryan Wilson is running a current blog where he picks his favorite player from each team in each division and then lists that division’s list. So as you see, we all are working on ideas to help pass the time until training camp opens.

In this blog or blog series, as I am throwing that question out to you, the content will also spring forward from a suggestion in that blog. Rather than just picking our favorites, why not try and build the best Rangers team. But I am going to add a few tweaks so that someone like Rod Gilbert ends up on the fourth line or Doug Harvey on the third pairing.

These are the parameters to the blog but open to thoughts on how best to tweak and end up with the optimal way forward:

1) skaters and defenseman have to be placed on the line where they spend most of their time. Meaning if a forward was spotted onto the third or fourth line when he first was promoted or acquired but most of his career on the second line, that’s where he is eligible

2) the goal is to build the best team but that requires having checkers or someone of that ilk on the third or fourth line rather than making room for a scorer on that trio. For example, Carl Hagelin, if you think he is the best, belongs in the third line, someone like Adam Graves does not just so you can place him on your team

3) building off of this, team construction will consist of four lines, deployed in the traditional manner, three defensive pairings, with the third duo a checking group, and a pair of goalies. Plus thinking a taxi squad of five skaters and a goalie. Again, I welcome your feedback and suggestions.

4) this is another one where I welcome your input. The hope is to avoid just stocking the team with elite players who had just a cup of coffee with New York and almost all of his best work and play was elsewhere. My thought was to place a three-year requirement for eligibility. Based on this rule, for example, Wayne Gretzky would be eligible but Martin St. Louis or Pavel Bure is not. I am open to your ideas here.

5) reiterating again, select players whose best work was in New York or at a minimum, his play and production could stack up fairly against his output elsewhere. A good example of this would be Mark Messier. While his best stats occurred in Edmonton, his numbers in New York are more than good enough to not pale by comparison to his Oilers’ days.

A few other questions for you:
First, should we do all at one or go line by line and pairing by pairing to build up to an overall team? My view is the latter to go line by line and pairing by pairing rather than all at one, but open to your thoughts.

Second, should we get suggestions for each line and run a poll to pick the best or have me select mine and each blog commenter present their own? One important component of this is that if a forward or defenseman is listed for that specifically line, regardless of which it is, they are then ineligible for the next line. Meaning that if we have 12 skaters for the second line, the nine that don’t get selected, or six if we pick two teams, are ineligible for the third line.

Third, do you want to select one team or two? My view is two teams to broaden the population utilized but open to ideas.

Last, do we want to break this into eras and if so, which way? Would we go 1960-80, 81-2000 and 2001-present? Have an older and modern era, so go 1960-1990 and 1991 to current? Another option is just start for example in 1972-1990 and 1990 to present. Also, if desired, a possibility is to go all the back to 1927 and forward. Finally, we could have just one team and leave it at that. Again, I am open to all thoughts and might go with consensus even if differs from what I might personally like.

Let me know your view on each question posted.

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