derek stepan

How did we get here? How did the Rangers get this bad?

Don’t let their record fool you, outside of a fun stretch in November, which saw the Rangers’ SH% normalize and a related offensive outburst, the Rangers are not a .500 hockey team. They’ve been allowing a record number of shots, both attempts and on goal, and have looked like a cellar-dweller more than a Stanley Cup hopeful. If not for the Vezina caliber season of Henrik Lundqvist, the Rangers would be in the cellar, slightly above Buffalo.

The reason we are here is simple. The Rangers, during their successes of 2013-2015, learned a series of lessons and adjusted accordingly. The problem is that they learned the wrong lessons, and their adjustments made them worse, not better. The warning signs were there as early as 2015, but went either ignored, or worse, unnoticed.

Let’s start with the summer of 2014. Fresh off their crushing defeat in the Stanley Cup Final, the Rangers learned that their powerplay was not up to snuff. They needed a true puck mover, which in part was true. However instead of learning the right lesson that the game was shifting, and Anton Stralman could potentially be that guy, they went old and slow. Dan Boyle was signed instead, to an identical $4.5 million salary as Stralman got in Tampa. Stralman is a top pairing defenseman on Tampa now, thriving with Victor Hedman.

Moving to early 2015, the Rangers were showing how bad defensively they were going to be. They needed to be better. That they knew. But again instead of adapting to the new game, they learned the false lesson that defensemen should only play defense. The evolution into a transition game was lost on them. So they re-signed Marc Staal to a massive contract. This contract, along with Girardi’s cost the Rangers their ability to re-sign Carl Hagelin, trading him for an aging prospect and a 2nd round pick.

Still in early 2015, the Rangers make a huge splash in acquiring Keith Yandle. The Blueshirts come one game short of a second straight trip to the Stanley Cup Final, overcoming a pair of 3-1 series deficits in the process. The team is starting to show that they are a bit of smoke and mirrors.

Fast forward to the 2016 trade deadline. The same issues plague the Rangers, but the Rangers, learning the wrong lesson that just one player will fix their problems, make a bone-headed trade for Eric Staal. The Blueshirts are embarrassed in the playoffs.

Let’s move on to something more recent, the signing of Kevin Shattenkirk. By all means the right move. He’s an elite puck mover and can put up 50 points a season. He’s in his prime, and isn’t a huge commitment at just four years. However the lesson the Rangers missed was that their coach, who already had one elite puck mover in Keith Yandle, doesn’t like his type of player. This isn’t so much a wrong lesson as much as ignoring a lesson, so it’s admittedly a reach.

The Derek Stepan trade, which created the cap space for Shattenkirk, was a product of fear and panic. The Rangers, learning the lesson that they shouldn’t commit long-term deals to late-20s/early 30s players with no-move clauses, trade Stepan for pennies on the dollar (an aging prospect and a 1st round pick – sound familiar?). The organization, learning from Staal and Girardi, didn’t want another no-move clause on the roster. Yet Stepan was just 27 at the time of the deal, was still a productive 1C, and would have his contract expire at 30 years old. The Blueshirts still have not replaced him.

In the salary cap era, a team can only make so many expensive mistakes before they are no longer able to truly compete. The Blueshirts made six major mistakes since 2014, leading to what we see today. They are a team that cannot truly compete, yet cannot truly tank and rebuild. What we see before us is the sad product of learning the wrong lessons.

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