jeff gorton

Happy Fourth of July everyone. Enjoy the day off with some musings of the Rangers’ offseason thus far.

  • Jeff Gorton has had an interesting offseason. It’s clear his goal was to upgrade the defense, and he did just that by buying out Dan Girardi, re-signing Brendan Smith, and signing Kevin Shattenkirk. He got a bonus in Kevin Klein’s retirement. So on that front, so far so good.
  • The top four on the blue line, as mentioned yesterday could be the best in the Metro Division. It has established puck movers who are solid two-way defensemen. This top-four will help resolve the issue the Blueshirts had with zone exits last year.

  • More on zone exits: Nothing infuriated me more than watching the defensemen dump the puck into the neutral zone, which forced the forwards to go chasing the puck. It was a specific style of play that Alain Vigneault had his club doing regularly because outside of Ryan McDonagh and Brady Skjei (and later Brendan Smith), none of the regulars could move the puck quickly to transition to offense. That shouldn’t be a problem going forward, at least with the top-four.
  • That bottom pairing, assuming it’s Marc Staal-Nick Holden, is going to be a train wreck right now though. They were not good last year, save for a two week span, and were just downright awful in the playoffs. If that’s the third pairing, then the Rangers are going to get exploited regularly.
  • However there has to be something coming, right? With Staal, Holden, Anthony DeAngelo, Ryan Graves, Neal Pionk, and Alexei Bereglazov, the Rangers have six guys competing for two starting roles and the 7D. Even if you assume Pionk and Graves are in Hartford to start the season (Bereglazov has a KHL-out clause if he’s not in the NHL), that’s still four guys for three spots. It’s a good problem to have, as injuries happen throughout the season. But with other holes on the roster, I’m curious to see how this plays out.
  • On to the forwards, and I still don’t like the Derek Stepan deal for a win-now team. With Klein’s retirement, the Rangers didn’t need to clear that cap space. Sure it would have been tight, but it was certainly doable (simply trading Nick Holden would have alleviated that issue, and solved some of logjam mentioned above). The club traded their 1C and got the #7 pick (Lias Andersson) and DeAngelo. Neither of which are guarantees and while significantly talented, have their own concerns. I guess I just wanted to see them get something that was a sure thing.
  • There is still an issue at 2C – I don’t know if Kevin Hayes, who had a sneaky-bad season last year, is the answer. Maybe there’s a trade coming to fix the logjam at defense. Maybe someone actually wants Staal or Holden. If Girardi can get a multi-year deal for $3 million despite getting bought out, then anything can happen.
  • Perhaps there’s more to the Lias Andersson pick than meets the eye? Maybe the Rangers have hopes he can make the team out of camp? Other than that, I find it odd that the club was out on Thornton/Marleau immediately after landing Shattenkirk. I just feel like more is coming.

Enjoy the holiday folks!

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