By Greg Caggiano
Last night was the game where the Rangers were missing their star forward. Last night was the game where the Rangers needed someone to step up in his absence. Last night was the game where no one showed up to play.
After yet another game of listless, uninspired play, the Rangers should be setting their sights on one thing and one thing only-- the draft lottery. This is where the bottom five teams in the league get entered in a powerball-like sweepstakes for a chance to land the top draft pick. The lower a team finishes, the more balls they get entered into the machine. The Rangers will never be bad enough to get the last place pick, but all they have to do is get in, and they will have a chance. This year's draft is considered to be very weak, with only a few big names available: Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin, and Kirill Kabanov. The Rangers currently sit as the sixth worst team in the league, yet when you look at the other side of it, they are only four points out of a playoff spot.
So why tank instead of win? That's a good question because you know the Rangers will never go into a complete sell-everyone-and-lose mode, because it's New York. No team can do that in a city as big as this. What most of us can agree on is that the Rangers need to be sellers at the trade deadline. Every player except Gaborik, Lundqvist, and Del Zotto should be fair game, and I mean everyone.
The Rangers need to start with doing something about Chris Drury, the so-called captain who has been nothing but a mucker out there on the ice. He has done absolutely nothing this season to warrant wearing the captain's C, and has even found a nice comfortable spot on the fourth line. Would the Rangers waive him? No, but I think Redden has a better shot of that being his fate than Drury. If I am Glen Sather, I am calling up Colorado and Phoenix asking if they will take him. Drury does have a full no-trade clause, but I think he would waive it to go to either of those two very successful teams out west. How does Drury for Svatos and Liles from Colorado sound? Or maybe for Peter Mueller on Phoenix? Rangers must explore those options.
They must also look into trading Vaclav Prospal, a player who came at the most affordable rate we have seen in years and someone who is producing at very high levels while centering Marian Gaborik. If Dominic Moore and Nik Antropov fetched a 2nd round pick last season, isn't Prospal worth a 1st? That is further reinforced when you look at Carolina wanting a 1st round pick for Ray Whitney, a player who is older, making more money, and has had a less successful season. Maybe the Rangers can trade him for a pick and then re-sign him in the off-season.
Now to Donald Brashear, the Rangers enforcer who has not played a game in forever. I honestly cannot remember the last time he laced them up. A complete waste of $1.4 million has been sitting on the bench thanks to coach John Tortorella, who begged Glen Sather to bring him in. As much as fans love to rip on Brashear, we can only wish that our biggest problem was a 4th liner who is making peanuts compared to other players. He has supposedly requested a trade today because he is unhappy with his situation, and I don't blame him. The Capitals, his former team, could use an enforcer back and perhaps the Rangers can ship him along with Correy Potter there for a 3rd or 4th round pick. I would call that a win.
I said earlier that Redden had a better chance of being waived than anyone else on the team, but that doesn't mean they will do that. If they were to, however, you can be sure it would happen in the off-season so it doesn't end up as part of the spotlight. But would there be a team out there that would take the beleaguered underachiever? Very unlikely, but with Sheldon Souray stating he would waive his no-trade clause to come to the Rangers, perhaps Sather can use some persuasion to make an even swap of the two.
In all honesty, not many of these moves are likely. The Rangers have never had the number one overall pick because they were never bad enough for it. They were also not good enough to get anything done. In this day and age, being mediocre in the NHL is worse than being terrible. A type of "no man's land", as I like to call it, can destroy a franchise like nothing else. Rangers are on the cusp of both making the playoffs and tanking for a lottery pick; the parity in the NHL has allowed for that to happen. But in being so close to both, which direction to the Rangers head in? The only way something seems to get done with this franchise is through embarrassment, so maybe a year without playoffs is for the greater good. The Rangers can then get rid of the coaching staff because they have done a horrendous job this season. Tortorella is a win-now coach, and this Rangers team won't be in that mode for at least another two seasons, and that is the grim truth.
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