2016 BSB Off-Season Plan Contest

Jeff, who?

Well, here we are. It’s May 6^th and the Rangers are no longer playing hockey games. I’m sure it still stings for many of you (us). Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen frustration and venting in the comments section. Lamenting decisions from both the coaching staff and management are perfectly natural as we process the death of another chance to bring the ultimate prize to Broadway.

Fear not, BSB faithful, we are here to help. The upside to an early exit is we get to implement the BSB Offseason Plan Contest a few weeks earlier this year.   It seems like it will be a really fun year to do it, too. For those of you unfamiliar, we have run this little exercise for the past few years (save for 2014-2015, as they were just playing hockey for too damn long to make the timing work). Basically, you get to play GM of the New York Rangers.

The rules are fairly straightforward. You will design a comprehensive off-season plan proposal, taking us from The Draft to the start of training camp. You will have all of the assets and resources of the organization at your disposal to make trades, sign free agents, re-sign players and make call-ups. Once you have created your plan, you will submit your outline to the writing staff for evaluation.

The staff here will decide on the three best submissions and run those as guest posts. Then, you, the vaunted experts of our readership shall vote on the very best offseason plan. The winner will get to pen a guest post here and live on in BSB infamy forever. Just for reference, our last two winners were Tommy T and Hatrick Swayze, and their submissions can be found here and here, if you want to see what a winning plan looks like.

Alright, so we are going to be working with some baseline assumptions, to ensure everyone starts on the same playing field. Said assumptions are as follows:

1. Since we do not have an accurate salary cap figure for next season, we are going to use Gary Bettman’s estimated increase of $3 million. This would put our hypothetical salary cap at $74.4 million.
2. All conditions exist as they do today, May 6, 2016. Steven Stamkos is still headed to free agency and the Leafs have the number one overall pick. The Rangers currently have 14 players under contract at $56.075 million in committed cap space. That would give you $18.325 million to field a roster of 23.
3. Your notable UFA’s are Keith Yandle, Eric Staal, Dominic Moore, Viktor Stalberg and Dan Boyle.
4. Notable RFA’s are Chris Kreider, JT Miller, Kevin Hayes and Dylan McIlrath.  All contract information can be found at General Fanager.
5. Since there has been no formal announcement or disclosed agreement, we are going to assume that there is no Expansion Draft planned for this season, and therefore no compliance buy-outs or other associated maneuverings. If the NHL decides to announce said draft and has avenues for shedding bad contracts/exposing them to the draft, we may allow submissions of addenda to reflect this.
6. Alain Vigneault is the Rangers head coach. If you don’t feel he should continue to be, that is totally up to you. If you choose to replace him, it must be from the currently available pool of candidates. No poaching Quenneville from Chicago.

So, what is the best approach to a successful submission? Try to be realistic with your trade proposals and signings. Always remember, your trade proposal sucks. When making hypothetical trades, try and consider what value is being exchanged and whether it is realistic. Try using some comparables if you are going to go outside the box with some trade ideas. Always ask yourself “would this fictional opposing GM really consider this trade?”

Take market forces into account when determining signings. Steven Stamkos isn’t going to sign for five years at $7 million. It’s going to hurt to sign him, so if you want to go down that road, start with seven years at $10 million per season. Also, puck-moving defensemen are all the rage, which means you probably can’t re-sign Yandle for three years and $5 million per, either.   This is all about credibility.

The Draft is entirely up to you. If you fancy yourself a prospect guru, feel free to draft on the Rangers’ behalf. If not, no big deal, just concentrate on the other moving parts. For reference, the Rangers hold picks 82 (3), 97 (4), 142 (5), 172 (6), and 202 (7) in the 2016 Draft. All of these picks (plus all other assets) are available in trades.

You can put as much or as little research into the project as you would like. However, with a couple years in the books, our successful submissions have been pretty well researched and creatively presented. The more work you put in, the better your chances of winning. Sites like General Fanager, HockeyDB, War-On-Ice, Behindthenet.ca, Hockey’s Future, etc., are invaluable resources when taking on a project like this.  Armchair GM over at CapFriendly can help get your organized.

Make sure your submission is post-worthy. Check your spelling and grammar. A few typos here and there are perfectly fine, but if we have to do a full-scale re-edit, we will probably just going to go with a different candidate. You are encouraged to attach visual media (charts, photos, etc.) to your submission to illustrate your concepts.

Be sure to include all eight writers on your submission (emails in the sidebar), with the subject reading “BSB Off-Season Plan Contest”. All submissions are due by the eve of The Draft, June 24, 2016. That gives you over six weeks to put everything in place.

The exit this season was rough and plenty of changes are coming, so we are really excited to see what you all come up with. Remember, have fun with it. Use it as an outlet. Make big changes, make some tweaks, and shake things up. Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions, or sound off in the comments below.