We talked about Quenneville early on, but seemed unlikely we'd go there. With him now scheduled to meet with Bettman after the playoffs, I guess anything is possible. I still think we are more likely to hire a coach with NHL head coaching experience like Lavy, Q, Keefe, etc. than one with no NHL head coaching experience, but we'll see. Should pick up big after the playoffs before draft and FA time. I also think we have at least one team altering big move in us.
Have to wonder what Sather and Dolan are up to - puzzling. The Rangers have dismissed head athletic trainer Jim Ramsay, The Post confirmed on Friday. Ramsay had been the head trainer for the past seven years and with the franchise for 29 seasons.
Staple reporting rangers have interviewed Babcock and Laviolette. also mentioned Carberry and leach on the list and speculated about Keefe and Q. Evidently Drury is good friends with mike Sullivan who is pushing leach hard.
I think most here would attribute Florida's success to the Calgary trade and not the coach's system. Fire the head coach, fire the longtime trainer, keep the player development coach - makes perfect sense. Hopefully Drury has a similar trade up his sleeve, the current roster is not made for the playoffs, too many shy away from the physicality. Have read a few stories about the Canucks being interested in Laf, might have to use him for the right deal.
All the teams that are left have the type of players that compete and grind in the playoffs. Rangers had that last year but didn’t get enough out of some top players. This year they had a 1st round exit team
I thought it was Gaudreau that was making Tkachuk. Boy was I wrong. LOL. If they had gotten Bennett and Gourde when I wanted them back in the day when they were available, this team would still be playing.
Not sure who they have that could help us but let's face it, our top 2 wing positions are taken for the long term, so it would not be a bad thing to move Lafreniere in the right deal instead of jamming him into a role player in the 3rd line.
That's why I call them stories 31, writers nowadays can make up whatever they want and sadly I'm more interested in Rangers trade rumors than who's left playing for the Cup. I think if I'm Drury Edmonton and Toronto are my first targets to make a trade but realistically Laf is going to be undervalued. It's not surprising to see all those soft ex-Rangers getting rolled by Tkachuk and company, postseason success is on the players and their will to be physical and play all-out, there's nothing a coach can do if his players don't want to get their hands dirty as we saw wthl GG.
I don't get why they weren't willing to sign Grubbe to an ELC when they don't have much C depth in the minors.
First off I wish him well. That's a tough procedure. You almost wish it was a labrum. Longer recovery time but more of a straightforward and routine surgery (yes easy for me to say as I type this comfortably on my couch). Resurfacing has ended several careers and Backstrom looked terrible l last year when he came back from it. The other point of note is that he will in theory be "healthy" - or whatever his new standard of healthy will be - by around December. Will make it tougher to stash him on LTIR for the season. If he's in the plan then we'll need more space this year to activate him. Tough news for him, tough situation for us.
I think Kane will take 2 million or less for one year to come back. He's a proud guy and I'm sure he wants to make up for last season.
That would be great as that's probably all Drury can afford, he'll get better offers than $2 mil. I'd rather see the Rangers go back to the gritty philosophy that had them so close. Vegas is like the Gas House Gorillas, they're all up in Tkachuk's face and even their smallest player Marchessault is a tiger, ironic that the Panthers gave him up in the expansion draft. Vegas is a 6 year old franchise with 2 Cup appearances already, hope Drury is taking roster building notes.
