You can't have liabilities in the lineup if you want to win the cup

i don't even blame Glass Chuck. I think it was stupid for AV to put him out there with Stamkos on the ice. AV changed lines and put Glass out there. Just stupidity there.

 

Again, anyone who would blame Glass is missing it. Bad play yes, but blaming him for where we are overall is ridiculous.

 

TB has TWO lines scoring dump. That is all. Their 3rd and 4th lines have done nothing.

The difference in the series is their top guys are scoring...are top guys aren't doing sh*t. That is all.

You want to blame Glass you go for it dump. It is all on Tanner Glass that Staal is a -4, and MSL is a -5, and Nash has zero points in 4 of 5 games, and Brass has 1 goal, and Hags hasn't scored since the Pitt series. BLAME GLASS...LOL.

 

Some of you are living in a world of make believe. The 4th line was excellent last year. Fact. The team had a lot of dominant periods and games in the playoffs. This year, they have struggled almost every game. It's really a miracle they made it this far. I said the team was flawed at the beginning of the year. They are. They won a ton of regular season games because they play hard almost every regular season game and they are pretty deep, talent wise. However, as the playoffs started they were exposed. They don't have a 4th line. They struggle terribly with big teams with speed who could match their speed. They also suck on faceoffs.

 

Does TB have a 4th line? Maybe I missed it.

Is that why all our top guys have done sh*t this series?

And I know Zucc is a big loss, but I can't hear that right now. Teams have injuries and need to deal with them. Would things be different if Zucc was here, who knows, but he isn't and if our top guys weren't sucking we'd still be okay. We beat the Caps without him. We struggled to score against Pitt with him. A loss, but no excuses. We had enough to get by the Caps without him, so I don't want to use that as an excuse.

 

And for the record, I do agree with you dump that we need to upgrade the 4th line for next season, part of the tweaks I think we need, but I cannot blame Tanner Glass for us being down 3-2 against TB.

 

Again, just look at Chicago. They won it all and broke it down. Money reasons and because they knew what their core was and knew who they had to keep. I was on the fence about Stepan being the core but now I say the core going forward for the next 3-4 years is this.

Kreider, Brassard, Stepan, McDonagh, Zuccarello, Hayes, Fast, Miller and Lundqvist. As far as I'm concerned, any of the others can be dealt to build the team a different way. I think Miller will be a great third line guy. I think Fast can be a great 4th line guy with Lindberg and Moore.

 

Kreider/Step, Zucc/Brass, Miller/Hayes that is a good start to lines 1-3. I would say Nash will be here still to complete the Zucc/Brass line. Hags will be here to complete the Miller/Hayes line. I like a Fast/Moore/Lindberg 4th line. The question is who do we replace MSL with and fit in with CK and Step. And how much can we spend on that spot?

On D the big 4 will be here. I think Yandle will be here at a great cap hit next season. The question there is Boyle as the 6th dman OR do we save some money there and give a kid that spot so we can add a forward to replace MSL. That is the route I go.

 

The reality is that the window is closing on this team the way it's constructed. They came close last year. To me, the regular season masked the fact that they slipped backward as a playoff team this season. They struggled all playoffs. The team needs to be constructed differently. That starts with Sather. No more rejects like Glass. I have said for years this needed to be a 4 line team. I talked for years about the 4th line being an all Swede line of Hagelin-Lindberg-Fast. That is the direction they need to go in. I talked for years about having a nasty defenseman like McIlrath on the defense. AV needs to get a clue and develop him.

 

You are crazy with Glass dump. I mean no one in here likes him, but my lord he is your whipping boy. The guy is a 4th line bit player who has actually been decent in the playoffs. ZERO ability to score, and the 4th line needs to be upgraded next season with him off of it, which won't be easy to do given the moronic contract we gave him, but that still won't change the fact that the guys who are supposed to be scoring haven't done sh*t in this series.

That is your issue, not 4th line Glass that should be off the team next season in an effort to add some more scoring to the 4th line. I like Fast/Moore/Lindberg as a 4th line...I agree. But Glass isn't close to our biggest issue, and you mention him in every post.

As for McIlrath, what I have seen tells me the guy isn't good enough. Hasn't done much in Hartford. Came up here and cannot skate at an NHL level. If he wants to be in the 3rd pair mix next season, he should spend the summer becoming a much better skater. That at least would give him a fair shot to be a player for us. Right now I just don't think he can keep up on D. That is NOT on AV, it is on McIlrath himself.

 

One problem is this team doesn't have dominant offensive players... Stepan, Kreider, Brassard, Zucc, etc do not put up numbers like Kane, Perry, Getzlaf, Toews, Stamkos, Johnson

 

Maybe they can grab a couple players through free agency. I really don't see anybody is Hartford being the answer for this team... Lindberg is a point a game player for the pack in the AHL playoffs.. That gives us hope he can elevate his game.. But this team is missing guys that just get it done in the playoffs consistently (besides Hank).. Just please do not sign Justin Williams

 

Interesting you say that when Nash is a multi time 40 goal scorer, and scored 42 this season. So he is a dominant offensive player, he just doesn't do it when it counts most because he is soft.

I think we have enough scoring on paper, I just don't know if we have enough guys who can score playoff goals where getting dirty and taking punishment to score is the way it is. Kreider does it, but is way up and down from game to game.

To me our biggest issue is still being too fancy when push comes to shove. We are a very dense team in that we don't get it in the playoffs when it comes to scoring. We do it one game, and then flip right back to old habits the next game. Nothing about our game was hard last night. We made life so easy on Bishop. When we had control in the 1st we passed and passed and passed again as if games 3 & 4 didn't happen. That is really frustrating with this team.

 

Here is the issue, Nash is paid like a star with a 7.8 mill cap hit. Nash is also a star in the regular season. So what do you do with Nash? When you have him at 7.8 mill and Hank at 8.5 mill it is real difficult to add another star cap hit. That is where Nash's playoff struggles really hurt us...cap wise.

 

They need to see if Skjei is really ready to step in as he could be an alternative and 3m savings to Boyles last year. Lindberg has to be on the team next year or it's just incredibly absurd. I don't know how they rid themselves of Glass, or even scarier do they even want to. With MSLs $$ Glencross is affordable with a bit to spare. They need a prospect like Buchnevich to get here as he has that Russian flair these others are burning us with.

 

At this point in the season, every Ranger that sets foot on the ice has to be better. They don't have to be all stars, but they need to be better. You can't keep playing the same style that got you into the playoffs, believing that that will be enough to carry you to the Stanley Cup. History has shown that it doesn't work that way. The entire team needs to be on the same page, and they need to play for 60 minutes. Let's be honest, have we seen this team bring it for a full 60 minutes during these playoffs? I don't think so, and because of that, they are exactly where they deserve to be. Once again they've dug there own grave, the question is, do they have it in them to claw their way out one last time?