Av-merican
Un-Tenured Professor of Hockey
Joined: 17 Oct 2007
Posts: 1435
Location: Denver
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 Posted: Sun May 04, 2008 5:40 pm Post subject: What now? |
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The Rangers seemed to sputter out the gate but put it together well enough to make it to the 2nd round. So now Slats has the dubious task of taking that next step and deciding which of his many veterans to retain and which he should let walk.
Brendan Shanahan, Sean Avery, Jaromir Jagr, Michal Rozsival, Marek Malik, Brendan Shanahan, Paul Mara, Martin Straka, Jason Strudwick, and Stephen Valiquette are all UFA's this summer. The only one I'm fairly certain won't be back is Avery. I doubt Shanahan will be either, and pretty much everyone thinks Jagr will spend the remainder of his career in Russia. While I'd like NY to keep Rozsival, he'll probably find a more lucrative deal from another, more desperate team.
Hard to say whether Slats should re-sign Straka. He's been a spectacular pickup, staying surprisingly healthy (until this year) and doing pretty much everything that's been asked of him. It'd be a real shame to lose him, but you have to wonder with advancing age whether it's worth keeping him around, especially since he could suffer another injury-plagued season.
Rags don't have a ton to worry about in the RFA department right now, Fredrik Sjostrom and Nigel Dawes are the most important names there. Dawes acquitted himself well this postseason and should be made the priority.
Currently the Rangers' roster is centered around a young and talented core of Gomez, Drury, Staal, Dubinsky, Callahan, Girardi, Tyutin, and Lundqvist. Dawes, Korpikoski, Baranka, and that Russian kid (too lazy to look it up) figure to be incorporated in time. I'm not yet sure what NY intends to do with Petr Prucha...next season is his last year before RFA status. It's probably best to see if he can bounce back from a pretty lousy season and earn a long-term deal in 2009.
BIGGEST priority this offseason will be for the Rags to get a true go-to guy on the blueline to anchor the offense. For too long now they've struck out badly trying to upgrade the offensive punch from the D...and it's not like they have a ton to choose from in the UFA market. Two guys who could help them would be J-M Liles or Brian Campbell, but I doubt they could afford either. Maybe a more inexpensive measure would be in order, though I'm not sure exactly what is available in the bargain bin. Trades are always a possiblity, but again, not sure what the Rags could give. They gave away their best trading chip in Al Montoya for, well, not a whole lot.
Lastly, Tom Renney deserves another year at least. It might be a very different looking roster, so we'll just have to wait and see what Slats comes up with... |
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