(Photo Credit: NY Daily News) The blame for the Rangers woes should go to this man, GM Glen Sather
Feel bad for Tom Renney.
He is a good man and a good coach who was usurped on Broadway by a bungled roster. He was no longer getting the most out of that roster, which is why Renney should have been fired Monday – he just shouldn’t have been the lone scapegoat (assistant Perry Pearn aside). General manager Glen Sather deserves the unemployment line as well.
His miscalculations this year left Renney without first-line forwards and a top defensive pairing in a deep and talented Atlantic Division. What formula told Sather that Markus Naslund, Nickolai Zherdev and Aaron Voros would replace Jaromir Jagr, Brendan Shanahan and Sean Avery? And what was the rationale for giving Wade Redden, a player in clear decline in Ottawa, a 6-year, $39-million-dollar contract last summer? Dmitri Kalinin was a mistake, too, last July, but we’ll give Sather a pass on Michael Rozsival because he needed some experience on the blueline and Rozsival’s $20m salary is palatable when disconnected from the other big money deals.
Two offseasons ago, it was Sather over-valuing ($86.75 million dollars combined) and miscasting Chris Drury and Scott Gomez. Jagr and Shanahan’s presence negated Drury’s leadership skills, while Gomez never clicked with #68 like the cheaper Michael Nylander did.
We can go back to the summer of 2002 when Sather handed out $45 million over 5 years to Bobby Holik. Or the 2003 Entry Draft, when Sather and friends selected Hugh Jessiman over Zach Parise, Brent Seabrook, Dustin Brown, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Mike Richards, and Brent Burns. Pick almost any season of Sather’s tenure on Broadway and there are glaring mistakes. Splurging on marquee names didn’t work at the start of his regime; mixing stars with youth had marginally better results in recent years.
He has survived to this point because he made the right choice in hiring Renney, because he chose Henrik Lundqvist in the 7th round in 2000, and because the Rangers have made the playoffs the last three years – which endears him to owner Jim Dolan because postseason games mean extra revenue.
However, all that good has been negated by all the bad, which means the Rangers are still far from the Stanley Cup. Sather has little wiggle room as the trade deadline approaches, so no roster makeover is coming.
Welcome back to the NHL, John Tortorella.
* * *
The Shootout…Despite the numerous clauses in the current CBA designed to reign in GMs’ spending, they still write too many bloated checks. But while we roast Mr. Sather for signing Redden, he does deserve one avenue for correcting his mistakes, which we hope shows up in the next CBA: GMs should be able to trade money like their counterparts in other sports. They need the ability to offer to pay part of a player’s salary to facilitate a move. To use another Ranger as an example, Rozsival isn’t too attractive to Buffalo or Dallas at $5 million per year, but might be at $2.5 or $3 million. Sather and his brethren, though, can’t offer cash in any swap right now...
Watching Alex Kovalev takeover Saturday’s game with Ottawa in his return from a 2-game banishment was certainly impressive. But let’s not go crazy praising a player that put himself in that predicament in the first place. He wasn’t coming back from an injury or an illness – he was let back on the ice by his GM after being sent home for playing disinterested hockey. There is no excuse for Kovalev to have such a lackluster year with all that is at stake for the Canadiens during their 100th Anniversary season...
Next week, a full trade deadline day recap. For now, send all comments, complaints, questions to boguschhockey@gmail.com
ACTION FROM AROUND THE LEAGUE...
-Jeff Carter scored his 36th goal of the season on the power play and Martin Biron made 34 saves for his 25th career shutout to give the Flyers (33-17-9) a 2-0 win over the Kings (26-25-9). With their seventh win in nine games, the Flyers moved within four points of New Jersey for third place in the Eastern Conference. Simon Gagne added an empty net goal.
-Henrik Zetterberg scored twice (one SHG, one PPG), Marian Hossa scored his 34th of the season on the power play, and Ville Leino scored his fifth to lead the Red Wings (40-13-8) past San Jose (41-9-9) 4-1 in a battle of the top two teams in the West. Detroit snapped the Sharks four-game win streak as San Jose failed to earn a point for just the seventh time in their last 51 games. Hossa was held out of the 3rd period due to concussion-like symptoms.
-The Penguins improved to 3-1-1 under new coach Dan Bylsma thanks to Petr Sykora's goal with 2:28 remaining as Pittsburgh (30-26-6) beat the Islanders (18-36-6) 1-0. Penguins G Marc-Andre Fleury made 21 saves for his 3rd shutout of the season and 13th of his career while Sykora's 23rd goal of the year ended Islanders G Yan Danis' five-period shutout streak.
-John Tortorella's debut as Rangers head coach went okay, but not great as the Rangers (31-23-8) lost in a shootout to Toronto (23-26-12) 2-1. Wade Redden scored the Rangers lone goal on the power play (a good for their power play woes perhaps?) and Niklas Hagman tied the game midway through the 3rd period. Nikolai Kulemin scored the shootout winner for Toronto while G Vesa Toskala made 31 saves and turned away all three Rangers shooters in the shootout. Toronto took three of four in the season series with the Blueshirts.
OTHER HEADLINES
-Brent Sutter skated over to Martin Brodeur after the New Jersey Devils practiced Wednesday and had a couple of easy questions for arguably the NHL's top goaltender. The Devils coach asked him how he felt and was he ready to play? The answers were 'Good' and 'Yup.' With that, Brodeur was told he would be returning to the nets on Thursday night against the Colorado Avalanche for his first game since undergoing elbow surgery almost four months ago. "We do something pretty cool playing hockey, so I am excited every game to play," Brodeur said. "But definitely there is a little more emphasis on this. I have not played in a long time and I want to get out there and see how it goes." Brodeur was hurt Nov. 1 in a game against Atlanta and had surgery days later to repair a torn biceps muscle in his left elbow, the first major injury of a 15-year career that has seen him lead the team to three Stanley Cups. "Until something is taken away from you, you don't appreciate it," Brodeur said. "I think it (the injury) puts stuff in perspective. You sit back for so long and wait and look at people, and guys having fun and you're like sitting there, and you'd like to have fun with them but you can't. It's tough because I never lived that before." Brodeur started skating about six weeks ago, practiced with the team for the first time since the injury on Valentine's Day and then got the bulk of the work in practices the past three days, a period during which the four-time Vezina Trophy winner, including last season, was evaluated by the staff. "I feel good," Brodeur said. "I feel I haven't lost much out there practicing and moving around and then feeling the puck and controlling my rebounds and all that. It's a question of seeing game action and I am sure that will take a bit." Sutter would not speculate how much Brodeur, a workhorse in his career, would play over the final 22 regular-season games, saying the decision will be made on what is best for the team. (Courtesy - The Canadian Press)
-St. Louis Blues forward Cam Janssen has been fined $2,500 for his high hit last night on Zbynek Michalek of the Coyotes, but he will not be suspended. The incident happened in the first period behind the Phoenix net. Janssen jumped up during a check and got his elbow up on Michalek. No penalty was called on the play. Janssen was suspended for three games while with New Jersey in 2007 for a hit on Toronto's Tomas Kaberle.
-The Swedes are excited to watch some of their countrymen open the NHL season in Stockholm. Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland said Wednesday that tickets for their season-opening games against the St. Louis Blues sold out in less than an hour. Detroit, which features stars from Sweden such as Nicklas Lidstrom and Henrik Zetterberg, will begin the 2009-10 season on Oct. 2-3 in Stockholm against St. Louis. The NHL announced earlier the matchup earlier this month and also said the Chicago Blackhawks would face the Florida Panthers on the same dates in Helsinki.
-The Carolina Hurricanes have sent center Brandon Sutter to their AHL affiliate in Albany for a conditioning stint. The team said Wednesday that their 2007 first-round draft pick would spend up to two weeks in Albany. He is eligible to play in Wednesday night's game at Bridgeport in the River Rats' first game since four players and a broadcaster were injured when the team bus crashed last week on the way home from a game. The 20-year-old Sutter has one goal and five assists in 50 games of his first full pro season with the Hurricanes. He is the son of New Jersey coach Brent Sutter and was the ninth member of his family drafted into the NHL.
-It looks like the Nashville Predators financial woes could be coming to an end soon:
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=268589&lid=sublink06&lpos=headlines_nhl
RUMOR MILL
-Panthers GM Jacques Martin took in last night's Kings-Flyers game in Philly. If that doesn't give any creedence to the Bouwmeester to Philadelphia rumors, I don't know what will.
-Carolina wants winger Erik Cole back and Tuomo Ruutu would be one of the key pieces heading back to Edmonton
-Alexander Frolov's name is coming up again, and the potential destinations are Pittsburgh, Buffalo, or Colorado
-I'm not sure how much creedence there is to this, but supposedly, when John Tortorella agreed to become the Rangers head coach, he was told "to probably expect to be coaching Sean Avery at some point this season"...interesting.
TONIGHTS ACTION:
Anaheim @ Boston - 7PM
%Buffalo @ Carolina - 7PM
Colorado @ New Jersey - 7PM
Toronto @ NY Islanders - 7PM
Florida @ NY Rangers - 7PM
Atlanta @ Washington - 7PM
San Jose @ Ottawa - 7:30PM
Phoenix @ Nashville - 8PM
St. Louis @ Dallas - 8:30PM
Columbus @ Edmonton - 9PM
% = Game of the Night
^All Times are Eastern
*My weekly power rankings comes back on Monday
~Dropping the Gloves with Andrew Bogusch comes out on Thursdays
TO EMAIL FTS, EMAIL FROMTHESLOT@GMAIL.COM
BTW, happy birthday Mom. She will be celebrating her birthday by taking her first Rangers game in with her favorite (and only) son tonight @ MSG against the Panthers.
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