Thorny

Rangers could be finished

The victory of a well-worded poll I had no choice but to vote for the affirmative 😏

There’s improvement from core, improvement from outside additions, and then the amount those two things *when combined* improve BOTH Ie you don’t get all the benefit of your core until you have depth, and you don’t get the benefit of depth until your core is firing you gotta keep it flowing. you pay the quarter, and the machine goes arroooooooubd doing the bull dance feelin the flow working it

We didn’t really add anyone to them last season though did we? But ya we’ll need better from the core, I agree, but how much we need is somewhat within our manual control by way of a) outside additions and B) the amount of free upgrade we get from the core because the rising tide of a deeper roster tends to float all boats Ie a portion of the core improvement will actually be depth improvement masquerading as core improvement then there’s the raw output of the additions. and, yes, raw improvement from core which we also need

We talk about the rough ride of sabres fans but there’s very few who’ve lived a better sports life of luxury over the last decade than Kris Baker. Have the Sabres ever FED this guy with prospects to wax poetic about..im not even joking- there wouldn’t be a better spot in the nhl over the last decade for this type of analyst. Remora like

Rangers are so lucky

No, the biggest reason is that there were a lot of reasons I’d wager there were several things we could have weathered but there was a combination of too many things. The team was kinda bad this year People always want to dial it down to the “biggest” or “only” issue but that’s the very thinking that gets you into trouble ESPECIALLY in a free flowing game like ice hockey. Everything feeds everything

McDavid has probably played the game better than anyone ever. Not relatively (Gretzky) but just in terms of raw performance and aptitude

All reasonable. I definitely have a differing opinion on the bolded bit, that’s probably my biggest contention: playoff berths are things that can be shaped year over year, with a different GM and or strategy I definitely think we could have made it already, probably a couple times. The entire point of this strategy was to specifically de-prioritize the immediate for future success: build *sustainable* success. Adams said it himself. I happen to just be of the opinion it was more important to simply achieve a LEVEL of success first, and go from there. I’m glad you said we can judge Adams’ in the coming season because really by the timeline of his own plan we should have made it this season It’s me, right? It’s me

Of course, it’s just so easy to do now and yes I know your post was actually about the scouts. It’s just a funny distinction I wanted to raise because as of now, I’d rather have Jack’s career than Connor’s. We’ll see on the oilers this year tho i do know the Canucks are finished

It’s that simple for me. Me and Adams are very different (beyond the full luxurious head of hair thing). Adams is a Stanley Cup champion. I have decided a Stanley cup is never likely therefore useless as as both justification, and utter goal, of being a Sabres fan

He might value long term success as much as I/we do: I’m not inside his head. Seems like it’s plausible. But he doesn’t value a playoff berth in and of itself as highly as I do: I think that’s clear Both in terms of product value outright, and also strategically in terms of it’s usefulness as an almost alchemical tool in building future success for him playoffs are a “achieve by way of the successful implementation of..” and for me they are a little more of a “will result in more success” dynamic. For him playoffs are symptom of success, for me I think they may be cause, in large part - such is the nature of this mystical 13 year stretch

I think the way you worded it is pretty accurate. Adams is a man of conviction. No absence of the typical human stubbornness we are all prone to. As mentioned, the prevailing tone of that video is “I told you this would happen.”, it really was. There won’t be an urgency to turn over every stone in a pursuit of any lose cheerio that may provide the nutrients of a season in which we can finish top 16: but you can see it in his face and demeanour - there’s certainly an urgency for the a top 16 finish *by way of the natural fruition of his plan*. He thinks that’s probably this coming season but, the goal is never going to come before a descriptor of the process in any uttered sentence from him, do you know what I mean? Not sure if that answers your question

That’s the only way any dealing of future assets makes sense - that’s why you are dealing them. No one prefers to give up the better asset just for fun. It’s just that, if you aren’t willing to deal your most valued future assets, that’s fine, but the offshoot is generally a season filed with “well, who even was there?” you sacrifice the pick because you need to make the deal, not to present a message. Adams talks a lot of messaging but i haven’t seen him make any personnel swaps that seem a message in and of themselves

Won a cup as the best player in the entire playoffs, so, the ideal player to draft “lol”

There’s a statute of limitations on all this “when the poor culture started” stuff. It can change year over year simply by fielding a winning team. The mistakes of the tank aren’t a literal obstacle anymore. We missed the playoffs by 1 point last year, and that’s all we need to shake it: we weren’t prevented from gaining that 1 point by some mystical lingering culture force

People are saying his messaging has been on point this offseason, and I can kinda see it at times, but if you watch that there still seems an incredible resistance to simply uttering the words “playoffs are the goal.” the overall tone here was one imo more so of defensiveness: “if you remember 4 years ago, I said it would take time and patience. Well, you got it. Plan continues.” And he started out by carefully highlighting that it was his 5th year of GM. At first I was impressed: ok, he’s saying year 5, he’s saying it’s been a long time now and it’s go time. But he actually brought up year 5 to separate himself from the “13 years” frank led off with Haha

Because the league also primarily exists to sell tickets and winning gets you more games you can sell tickets to: the reality of the AHL is that it’s both. It’s a development league and a professional, entertainment based league, too. Tough balancing act for every organization. It does provide a good cautionary tale in general: our alottment of prospects doesn’t translate to winning in an inferior league, we can’t just graduate guys and win in a better league, it just doesn’t work like that. I understand we don’t have all our prospects together at the same time there but no team ever does, NHL or not. We didn’t even have prime Eichel together with ROR. A lot of team building is timing. Regardless of league

Benn is such a dirtbag

He’s been excellent all playoffs Rangers Stars would be a powerhouse matchup

It all got bumped from arguably pointless speculation to legitimately worthy discussion because of those comments Adams made (and didn’t make) at the end of season conference - I can’t even remember exactly what they were but it was a distinct “they thought they were already there!” thing which he went along with so…that’s exactly what we are talking about isn’t it? If you “think you’re there”, certainly “drive” is something perhaps on the table as a discussion point

This series is fun but you can’t pretend it gives you the vibes of a Dallas / Colorado playoff series when dallas’ sweaters looked liked this:

Only the Canucks are more finished than the Hurricanes

I dunno about fancy schmancy, but he was 2nd overall in takeaways this year Crosby was 8th ”I’m literally in love with buffalo” Alex Tuch was…4th. Overall!

And now the rest of this series is noooooooot I can’t shake the impression the playoffs were better before the in-division format