Procrastination

If Jaromir Jagr is intent on remaining a Ranger for at least one more season, as his agent told Larry Brooks (see yesterday's New York Post) -- and the truth is that we're still not convinced that he will return -- then perhaps we ought to be looking beyond this season's free agent crop to next year's. If we assume that a couple of dominoes will fall in line behind Jagr (dominoes named Straka and Rozsival), and if we assume that Sean Avery and the Rangers will figure out that they have no better match for each other than each other, then there is really no room for a marquee free agent, except perhaps on defense where a power play quarterback and crease clearer are still chronic shortcomings.

Should this scenario unfold (and you probably have to add Brendan Shanahan back into the mix for one more season, making next year's Rangers almost identical to last year's), then the 2009 free agent market is what we should really be working toward to find high-scoring wingers, the one thing the Rangers have not been able to acquire in the draft -- there are not nearly enough on this year's ultra-thin menu, especially up front. Granted that some -- many -- of these players will be re-signed by their current teams before they hit the open market, here are the top names currently slated for unrestricted free agency a year from now:

The most important area to consider is on the wing, as the Rangers will remain stocked down the middle a year from now with Scott Gomez, Chris Drury, and Brandon Dubinsky. Candidates in what looks like the deepest positional pool for 2009-10 currently include Marian Gaborik, Martin Havlat, Henrik Zetterberg, Alex Tanguay, Daniel Sedin, Brian Gionta, Maxim Afinogenov, Ales Kotalik, Jere Lehtinen, Erik Cole, and a half dozen or so familiar names we don't want because most are aging and fading fast, some of whom have already been in and out of New York (Kovalev, Sykora, Dvorak -- the first two had good seasons, but does anyone doubt how fast they'd fade if they came here in 2009?).

At center, there is Vincent Lecavalier, Henrik Sedin, Mike Cammalleri, Nik Antropov, Johan Franzen, Shawn Horcoff, Mike Comrie, Tim Connolly, and another half dozen aging veterans, plus a half dozen defensive specialists. Even on defense, next year's list has some intriguing names, though most would only be short-term placeholders until (if) Bobby Sanguinetti is ready to step up: Scott Niedermayer, Sergei Zubov, Mattias Ohlund, Filip Kuba, Derek Morris, Nick Boynton, and Brendan Witt. The most intriguing name, Mike Komisarek, cannot possibly reach free agency, although the way Montreal handled its goaltending situation this spring, one can suppose that anything's possible up there.

In other Ranger news, Fedor Tyutin proved to be the one out of four Rangers in the World Championship to bring home the gold in Russia's win over Canada, with Tyutin assisting on the goal that began Russia's third period comeback from two goals down (see NYR.com). Henrik Lundqvist complained of burn-out after Sweden was ousted by Canada in the semifinals (story here), and Canadian coach Pat Burns boasted about instructing his players to go high on Lundqvist, although he also granted that as a Devils coach his team was only able to beat Lundqvist twice in thirteen tries this season (story here). A Globe and Mail analysis that postulates that coaches control special teams and defense but not five-on-five goal scoring has the Rangers' staff finishing sixth in the league despite their low-ranked power play.

Finally, after taking a lot of grief about our complaints over the officiating in the Rangers' second round series against Pittsburgh, it's interesting to note that complaints have not diminished even though the Rangers and Ranger fans are no longer part of the mix -- NHL commissioner Gary Bettman actually had to answer questions posed by the Denver Post about the league rooting for a Detroit-Pittsburgh final, and Spector at FoxSports.com analyzed Flyer fans' complaints of league bias toward Pittsburgh. Spector is going to have to update his comments to include more than just the number of penalty calls for and against if he, like us, is left wondering how the Pens could score a goal after checking the stick out of the goalie's hands behind the net without penalty and then get a power play for a nearly identical play behind their own net less than 90 seconds later.

The Times's Slap Shot blog seems to think checking the stick out of a goalie's hands is not a penalty in their long examination of the history of claims that the NHL influences games on purpose -- they seems to be making the point that the fix is not in, despite an eye-opening list of incidents that go way back, and they don't seem to make the connection that the only alternative explanation to bias is gross unrelenting endemic incompetence. I know it's a huge stretch to imagine a conspiracy that so many people have to be part of -- though it's not a stretch for me, having been told by someone who was in the room that the NHL asked its officials to make sure the Pens would not be adversely affected by the loss of Mario Lemieux in the 1992 playoffs after he was slashed by Adam Graves.

But it's just as huge of a stretch to see such massive incompetence continue year after year after year without anyone ever looking across the street to the NFL for the simplest of answers: just enforce the damn rules as they are written! That the NHL steadfastly refuses to take such an easy and sensible course of action leaves only two possibilities, and neither of them are flattering to the people making the decisions.

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Comments

[i]

since their only answer has been to add another ref, they don't think it's a real big problem. Why is not provable, but sure looks like a duck.

[Greg L]

Practice that power play boys!!!

Mr Sather , please sighn yer 1 PP unit right away ....and work on it now , maybe steal a few ideas from MtL? Study it , analize it , work work work...keep researching it!!! Jagr did not make his required points . Prucha got demoted down , Drury had low numbers as did shanny . If the power play doe not produce , then what incentive is there to working hard down low ...trying to create chances and earning a powerplay . The reward is usually turned away so that the other team has a emotion lift against us . The whole team suffers when the powerplay does not produce.

Its all about the system .

[Matt]

I like some of the comments made by Haywood.
1- Let the coach challenge a play, mainly on goal calls, but also on any blatant attempt to injure.
2- I agree with immediate whistles for bleeding players, with a review of the play and retroactive calls to be made (see Drury in the Penguin series).
3- Have an off ice offical be able to make calls, maybe in place of a 2nd ref. The game is too fast for the guys on the ice to take in everything.
4- A good start to more offense were the "Brodeur" lines, that limited a goalie from wandering too far behind the net. I say go further, make the goalie fair game, except for a limited area in front of the net. If he wanders away from that area he should be just another player, able to take (and give) punishment.
5- Is the game fixed? I can't wrap my head around that. I would think that they'd fix the games in favor of the Rangers, not because I'm a fan but because a strong team in NYC would make the league stronger, as we saw after the 94 Cup (which was followed by the dumbest thing that the NHL could do, enforcing a lockout).

[Three Chord Monte]

Well, I hesitate to say this, but here goes. The game has evolved to the point that the NHL needs to officiate in the template of international play. That's right boys, let's embrace the disaster and eliminate fighting from our "fair" game. It's time. Or it's too late. No matter how you look at it, we are in a post enforcer era.

The refs are confused about implementing instigator penalties, linesmen jump into conflicts too quickly and with subjective discretion about the players involved, players with shields vocally challenge players with no facial gear, and it’s just a mess out there. Meanwhile the few fighters who are allowed to go at it have evolved into a uniquely North American mutation of the nihilistic ubermensch, capable of killing a man with one blow and abiding by an unwritten, defacto, code of conduct that is not recognized by the NHL or the NHLPA. And then there are those who want to pummel a guy when he’s down, knowing that cowardly violence of this nature will not be penalized unless a Moore-like, career ending, injury is suffered.

It’s time for a game misconduct for fighting and full facial gear requirements. There’s no turning back now. There’s already a mandate for keeping sticks down. No touch icing, one ref on ice, one off.

I am woman, hear me roar.

[Dubi]

Interesting that this post generated more discussion about officiating, a footnote to the main point, than about the Rangers. I guess we've just about tapped about speculation about the Rangers.

Personally, I don't think the two-ref system is to blame, and I don't the NHL can possibly backtrack on the system if for no other reason than the extra pair of eyes trained on what's going on behind the play -- perhaps a compromise should be worked out where one ref is responsible for the play in his end and the other is solely responsible for shenanigans behind the play and only the most obvious of calls missed by the primary ref.

I have always been of the opinion that the sole problem with officiating in the NHL is the subjectivity of rules enforcement. I have always been of the belief that if you just call the rules as written and do so on a consistent basis, problem solved. They tried to do that coming out of the lockout but they got too sidetracked with obsessively calling one or two things while letting other things slide, and now they're backsliding in just about every area.

The problem is that the NHL has too many unwritten rules and too many people "writing" these unwritten rules, starting with Colin Campbell, who has no authority to rewrite the rule book at his own whim. How the NHL can turn over a position of common sense to the person who tried to make Alexei Kovalev into a fourth line grinder and Tim Sweeney into a first line goal scorer is beyond me.

But to me the solution is simple: do away with the unwritten rules and enforce the ones that are written. Only in the NHL can unwritten rules supersede written ones. Just look at the NFL -- there's your model. Someone suggested the NFL system of giving coaches the ability to request a review or else lose their timeout -- it works in the NFL. There are way more than two guys making calls in the NFL -- it can work in the NHL if those idiots weren't so stubborn as to never be able to admit making a mistake and overturn a call.

But it's the NHL -- nothing as sensible as anything you and I can come up with will ever be instituted.

[savebylundqvist353330]

I want Zubov back on broadway now!!
good god did you see some of the passes he made to modano during the playoffs. now thats a power play quarterback.

[Greg L]

Zubov is cool!!!