should be added later today.
Hossa? Jagr? Sundin? Naslund?
Couple things to remember as the furor swirls and dies down.
1. Teams can overspend the cap by 10 percent and whittle down before opening night, which is three months away.
2. Back slowly off the ledge. For every team, there are more adjustments to come before rosters are set. Again, three months away.
3. It's a riot (a regular riot, Alice!) to read some of the passionate and well-meaning posts by long-time fans and wanna-be GMs here and elsewhere, many of whom are unaware of the thinking of the players and agents. Sure there might be flaws in the front-office thinking. But you're going against 29 other franchises with cap space, money and needs. No cakewalk.Not every player with a family will say "Oh God, the Rangers offered me a million a year less than XXX, but I don't care: It's New York."
4. Love the wild swings at the Ranger pinata. Spend no money. Play the kids. No, spend the dough. No, that blocks the youngsters. Make trades. Just give up some kids. No, never give up kids. We need to get bigger, nastier. But not too nasty. We need scoring, we're desperate for a power play quarterback. A stud winger. But they've got to be perfect and we simply cannot overpay in a sea of money.
5. After deadline, we heard the front runner for Avery is Dallas, which has plenty of dough and is willing to go over $4 mil for 4. I missed noting here (not in the paper's story, though) that Valiquette signed, foregone conclusion....Also, Voros appears to be close to a million per for two or three...
OK, thanks to all who checked in regularly and posted, vented, ached, agreed during a busy 15-hour day and to Newsday's Mike Casey for his diligence and insight.
Now, opinion time while we wait for more to shake out on Day 2. Look around the
league: Best bargain? Most overpaid?
Of the second-tier players left, who will be way overpaid by desperate teams who need to reach the cap floor of $40 million. Remember Souray last season? Demitra? Huselius? Orpik? Hainsey? Morrison? Emery? Who'd I miss, folks?
Worth repeating: Not sure if this was excised from stories, blogs, rewrites. Sather on Jags last night:
“It hasn’t been the kind of negotiation you would expect where a guy gives you a price, you give him another price, and you go back and forth that way. No, it hasn’t been that kind of a dialogue, but it certainly had something in there that he would be interested in. I don’t know whether he has anything else that he’s interested in at this time, but we’ll just have to wait and see. He knows that we would like to have him back, I’ve said that 100 times.”
Maybe the lure of opening the season in Prague will swing the pendulum for Jags. Or not. As he laughingly told me at one point last season, "I don't know. You'll be there. I'll be watching on the internet."
Comments (17)
The rangers will go in a different direction than jagr.I think hossa will be a ranger and so will orpik.The rest of the roster will be fleshed out by youngsters.Sanguinetti will be a sixth d-man with potter.prucha will finally get his ice time and will be a return to form,so on and so forth.
vinnie,
your not making any sense, if we sign Orpik, which I also hope we do our D would look like this:
Redden Staal
Orpik Rosi
Tutin Girardi
with the seventh D-man being either,Potter, Sanguinetti, or if we resign Mara at a discount.
does anybody else realize that 4 of the top 6 wingers are unsigned? the defense is solid, the wings need to be filled in. 4 spots are too much to fill with unproven kids, lets see naslund and sundin or jags and avery back today
Steve, how dare you try to fill our heads with logic and reasoning. Are you trying to say that Redden wouldn't have come for half the price? Or Drury and Gomez would have come in just for the chance to play in NY? Blasphemy
Everyone tip your hat and say goodbye to Avery.
I know all this could change by the end of the day but here is what scares me: Jagr, Avery, Shanahan - that's a lot of goals currently NOT in our line-up.
I am all for adding size whenever possible but what's the deal with the Rissmiller signing? He doesn't fight, had 8 goals, was -8 and I read he was not a great skater. I know he had 111 hits and he is 6' 4" (but those of us who have painfully watched Roszival and Malik play, know size doesn't mean much if you are a cream puff). So, it anyone knows what the big upside is, please let me know.
Thanks
Rismiller had 8 goals and how many did Hollweg have????
Bertuzzi is still out there as well, someone's going to sign him to a one-year deal I would assume.
Sanguinetti is NOT NHL ready. He'll be at least another 2 - 3 years away.
I don't know...someone please put me in my place if this isn't a possibility...but why couldn't the Rangers offer Avery an incentives type contract? If their concerns are he is an injury/suspension risk... why not come to some common ground on a base salary and let his play (number of games, etc.) dictate the rest? I know I am not inside the mind of the GM, the agent, or Avery himself, but I want to believe that if we were to show we really wanted him back and were persistent with some dialogue, he'd consider. My suggestion would be a 3 year $10 mill dollar contract with incentives based on games played etc, to help that salary reach $4 mill per year. Also could have an option 4th year kick in for the number of games played etc during the life of the contract. Wishful or illogical thinking I don't know...but to let a fan favorite of this magnitude go is tough to swallow when we've broken the bank for mediocre defenseman (and yes Redden, Rozsival and Tyutin are mediocre). I throw Tyutin in there b/c the contract he signed last year for his level of play was NOT worth the money.
saveseanavery.com
because Sean Avery doesn't HAVE to take an incentive based contract.
There are teams willing to give him what he wants, guaranteed money.
because Sean Avery is under the age of 35, he can not recieve an incentive based contract.
I wasn't saying Avery HAD to take an incentive based contract. I was saying I'd like to think he'd be open to it if we showed him some love and had a constant dialogue going with him throughout this whole process, making it known we wanted him back - not just leaving his agent a message. Being persistent.
But I did not know about the age 35 thing, which answered my question, thanks.
JOECU67: I get that size-wise Rissmiller is an upgrade over Hollweg but since replacing Hollweg wasn't a Day One priority, I was wondering if there was more to this Rissmiller kid than meets the stat sheet. Maybe there isn't. And, I'll take his size and 8 goals but was just wondering if anyone knew more.
FOI9779
Rissmiller replaces Betts as a 4th line center
Voros replaces Hollweg as the crazy hitter/bad fighter but with more size and skill
FOI9779: It has been a long time since a player's impact was as evident on the ice and in the win/loss column as Avery's is on the Rangers. So, yes, it does boggle the mind that Sather is playing games with Avery.
Here is the only explanation I have:
Glen "Gone Fishing" Sather has an ego bigger than most Hollywood actors. And, he wants his ego stroked more than he cares about the team. He wants to make sure everyone knows that he is the boss and he is turned off at the first hint of a 'demand' from any player. In Sather's mind, he 'rescued' Avery from a team that considered him a cancer and put him on the world's biggest stage. In Slats' mind, Avery should now kiss the ground Sather walks on and thank him for bringing him to NY in every waking moment. Slats thinks Avery should take the money he is offered, not ask for any more and definitely, never ever suggest that he could get more from another team because that really pisses Sather off and makes him think that Avery is an ungrateful pest.
So we will be overpaying cause the free agent pool is thin, that's why I would pass on Hossa or Sundin. Just give Jagr a two year deal and sign Avery too. For one Hossa we can have Avery and Jagr.
why would you replace betts hes one of the best penalty killers we had last year......Avery in final negotiations with Dallas...