One word that has been a consistent since Chris Drury took over is his plan with the Rangers. He has a plan, he will execute his plan. He will do what he needs to within that plan to turn the Rangers into a Stanley Cup contender for years. We’ve seen part of that plan move into place, specifically with the signing of Barclay Goodrow to an admitted overpay. The second part of the plan was “clearing cap space” by sending Pavel Buchnevich to St. Louis for Sammy Blais and a 2nd round pick.
That part of the plan is balancing the lineup by infusing grit into a primarily skill lineup. Goodrow made sense, even if the contract is rough. But the Buchnevich trade has been universally panned as an awful trade that wasted a primary asset for nothing. To be clear, trading Buchnevich wasn’t necessarily the problem. It was the trading of a top line player for bottom-six grit under the guise of needing cap space, which has already been disproven multiple times.
Lineup balancing – at what cost?
The concern here is that the infusion of grit style players is going to come at the cost of the high-end skill the Rangers have amassed throughout the rebuild. If there is one lesson to take from this post, it is that adding grit at the expense of your top skill players is never a recipe for success. The Buchnevich trade was an awful trade, and there is no other way to put it.
Aside: Now if you want to sell me on moving Alexis Lafreniere to the right side with Kaapo Kakko as the 1-2RW, then fine. Or even having Laf-Panarin-Kreider on the left and Kakko-Vitali Kravtsov-Goodrow on the right side, that’s fine. But it’s been presented as cap space only at the moment.
Now bring in the draft approach, which seemed to be more of about grit than adding high ceiling players, and you have a philosophical concern within the Rangers front office. The Rangers went with grit in the 2020 draft in the first two rounds with Braden Schneider and Will Cuylle. The difference was both of those kids are solid players and bring more than just effort and hitting to the lineup. There were more than a few picks that were all about effort and not about skill or ability to actually play the game of hockey.
Philosophical change
In the Jeff Gorton and John Davidson era, however short lived it was, the Rangers amassed a ton of skill. It was an embarrassment of riches. It was the proper way to at least start the rebuild. Get as much skill and high ceiling players as possible, identify who is a part of the future, and deal the rest to either balance out the roster or address other needs.
This is where a major shift in philosophy can completely derail the Rangers throughout this rebuild and for years to come. If the pendulum was too far in one direction, it is swinging too far in the other right now. Skill is infinitely harder to get than grit, and swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction gets you the 2010-2012 Rangers. Borderline playoff teams that can be carried by a generational talent in net.
First it was only one contract, so it may have been an overreaction. Then it is only one trade, so this may be a complete overreaction. This weekend was only one draft, so it may be a complete overreaction. Three different events are the beginnings of a trend, and that is the larger concern right now. If Chris Drury’s plan with the Rangers is a complete 180, then that’s a problem.
However in the grand scheme of things, we’ve only had on week of the offseason for Drury to enact his plan. Obviously there is more to come.
Wholesale changes weren’t needed
One last thing here is that the Rangers really didn’t need to overhaul the roster. The hill I will die on is that a better coach with a better system in place was all this roster needed, with a few tweaks. Gerard Gallant is that coach. His systems in Vegas and Florida were designed to get the most out of his players. His systems are aggressive on the forecheck and backcheck. That makes the Rangers harder to play against.
In all fairness, the Rangers probably could have trotted out the same roster with Gallant and made the playoffs. They just had to stay the course. Drury –or perhaps Sather?– could be missing the forest for the trees here. They see the “need to be tougher to play against” but are fixing something that might not be broken.
Roster tweaking is different from what we might be seeing right now, which is a roster overhaul. A tweak is adding Goodrow, or perhaps dealing from a position of strength to acquire a top center. An overhaul is sending multiple roster players packing. Now it is easy to criticize, since the Buchnevich trade was so bad and it’s fresh in everyone’s mind. However Buchnevich, Strome, and Georgiev likely weren’t going to be on this roster long term, or even beyond next season. Remember that it is better to trade a player a year too early than a year too late. That said, removing all leverage you have doesn’t help either. It’s a delicate balance.
What if the plan is just bad?
Which circles back to the fear many have: What if the plan is just bad? As mentioned above, if Chris Drury’s plan with the Rangers is to swing the pendulum in the complete other direction with all grit and a little skill here and there, it won’t end well. What Tampa has is a great balance. There’s a ton of skill in that lineup, from top to bottom. Depth players can contribute. Their drafts are almost entirely skill based, going for high ceiling players in mid rounds to maximize their chances of hitting a homerun. That’s the model.
So if the plan is grit over skill, then it won’t end well. If the plan is a sprinkling of grit to balance out the roster, then by all means that sounds good. So far, so bad though. For all the good will Drury did in his first month, he managed to undo it in a week. We need to see what the rest of the offseason holds. But fear is now warranted, whereas before it wasn’t.
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