Feels like 1998...

In response to Christina's last post... I'm long winded, I'm sorry!

Last Saturday Ottawa shut out the Rangers. Last night, the Rangers lost to their Long Island rivals. There is panic in Ranger-topia. After July 1st, we were sure thing to go all the way... weren’t we?

Well, here's the deal. We opted out of the Straka-Nylander-Jagr line when we let Nylander walk. Fussy Mr. Jagr found great chemistry with Nylander. Unfortunately, Nylander was looking for a long-term contract- or as long-term as someone his age could get. The Rangers have a youth movement going on (yet we're still harassed for buying our team... but that's a whole other subject.) Think about our homegrown- Lundqvist, Prucha, Callahan, Dubinsky, Hollweg, Girardi, Tyutin, Hossa, and Staal. In defense of GM Glenn Slather, signing Nylander long term would have been an anti-youth movement. Instead, he goes out and finds two of the top UFA available, who happen to be middle aged players, not old ones. Yay!

This looks fine and dandy until we analyze the way the Rangers played the past two years. A European-infested team plays like they did in Europe. We can consider this the reason for the Devils sweep of the Rangers in the first season after the lockout. The year after, we realized we needed some North American blood and some North to South style hockey. Enter Brendan Shanahan and line number 2 (including Matt Cullen, Petr Prucha, and Sean Avery). But remember Jagr is still playing with Nylander and Straka(East/West hockey), racking up points despite shoulder and hip issues. They frustrated the hell out of us (remember the "SHOOT THE PUCK" chants?) but line 1 continued to produce. Cycle, cycle, cycle. Occasionally a shot. Cycle more.

The signing of Drury and Gomez look great on paper. Two American boys, top centers, each a hero from where they come from. Look closer, and we can see an obvious problem. Drury and Gomez play North/South hockey. Jagr? Not so much. We don't have a center who can immediately compliment Jags. Shanahan looks like he should be playing checkers, not hockey. This man is not moving. Old age might be kicking in. He might just need to shake off (a ton) of rust. In any case, he's not the same man he was last year at this time. So despite playing North to South, Shanahan is not being complimented, and nor is he complimenting.

Here is where I cut Drury some slack. Chris Drury has a couple assists, is noticeable on the ice, and is playing with Jagr (this being negative because of their different styles of play). Gomez is not producing, not helping Shanny produce, and is an all-around waste of ice time. Couple that with the loss of Sean Avery for 4 weeks and you have one pretty crappy team of all stars.

What's that? We're back in '98?

Note to Coach Renney:
Prooks and Callahan were your best forwards last night. Let Straka center Jagr and Hossa, let Gomez and Shanahan bomb together and eventually figure themselves out, have Drury center Prucha and Callahan but give them a ton of ice time, and let line 4 do it's thing.

This is a chemistry problem. It’s not all that serious, even. They'll all grow into each other. But if they are not made to fit, if the chemistry continues to be bad, we will not be making a run at the cup this year. This team SHOULD be making a run at the cup this year. And I believe we will.

After a rough start.

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The End of the Gomez/Rafalski Era

{Cross-posted to Interchangeable Parts}

As a fan, this always sucks. Always.

We are not idiots — we understand there are a ton of reasons we don’t want to consider that go into choosing to sign with a different team when a player reaches free agency. Obviously there’s the money. We’d be fat-faced liars if we said we’d turn down, say, $6.5 million over 8 years in favor of $4 million over three years. Yes, rationally, even the lesser amount is more than enough money to live quite comfortably, but the bigger contract is, well, that much more comfy. Again, we’re not dumb. Also, there are considerations about the personnel on teams, the geography, familial pressures, future plans, blah blah blah. But all we see, as fans, is that the player who’s signed with someone else has rejected our team. And rejected us. And it sucks. So with that caveat, we present IPB’s take on the Rafalski and Gomez signings.

Brian Rafalski
As full-fledged members of PaulieMartinNation, we’ve been counting on Raffie signing elsewhere since the end of the season. With two big RFA’s to ink to long-term deals, we felt it was necessary to avoid paying top-dollar to Raffie, a moderately offensive, moderately speedy d-man/PP-quarterback. But then Raffie, through his agent, said he’d be willing to sign for less to stay with the team. Since there’s a precedence for key players to sign for less to stay with the team (Marty Brodeur, Scott Stevens, Jay Pandolfo, and others), we stupidly believed it was true. It wasn’t. If you’d asked before that article was printed how we felt about Rafalski, we would certainly have said we’d wouldn’t be too upset to see him go. But since that article was printed, we’d be lying if we didn’t say we don’t feel slighted. A lot of players say they’ll sign for less, then don’t. But factor in the history of the Devils, and in light of the money and fame sacrificed by some of the organization’s biggest and most important players, and you’ve got a recipe for some bitter, bitter fans.

Raffie’s a great pick-up for Detriot, and an improvement on Schneider. We think the Wings fans will love him, and we think he’ll be a good player to bridge the gap between the classic Lidstrom and the youngish rest of the d-corps. But as far as we are concerned, we say thanks for the Cups, the memories, and thanks for helping youngsters Martin and Greene hone their games. We wish Raffie good luck in Detroit but will most likely never forgive him the slight of saying he’ll sign and then leaving for more money than he’s worth.

Scott Gomez
When we first heard the rumor this morning that Gomer was going to the Rangers, Boomer said, “Doesn’t he realize he has to stand there in that asinine sweater and salute the stupid fans? God, the money’s got to be good if you’re going to do that.” Now, we never honestly expected for the Devils to re-sign him, but we hoped he’d have learned something from Bobby Holik and at least gone somewhere other than New York. This is so staggeringly repulsive, such a blatant “f**k you” to the Devils organization, that Gomer is now more officially “Dead To Us” than any NHLer has ever been.

We realize that we’re approaching this as fans, and we can’t expect the players to feel the same way about rivalries as we do, but this rivalry is so intense our GM and star player both admitted beating the Rangers in the playoffs in 2006 was worth not winning the Cup. And now Gomer’s going to be wearing the Rangers logo. It’s so intensely dispiriting to know that players Gomez has historically had a ton of respect for (Bobby Holik, Marty, Johnny Mac, Stevens, Pando, etc.) don’t have enough influence over him to convince him winning with honor is more important than pocketing some extra change and getting some face time in the corner pictures of the Post’s sports page. And winning with the Rangers after winning 2 Cups with the Devils is not winning with honor. And we can only hope he enjoys playing in a market where the fans and media will actually get on him for his inconsistency, spotty work ethic and defensive weakness, as opposed to playing in Jersey where we all just shrugged and said, “Yeah, that’s Gomer for you.”

Summary

While we’re truly sorry to see two lifetime Devils gave up the chance to retire having only worn one sweater, we’re also thankful that Lou didn’t give into the pressure to sign two players for more than they’re probably worth. We may change our tune depending on what happens with Zach Parise, Paul Martin and, well, the rest of the off-season, but for right now, we’re wallowing in bitter self-pity which is also tinged with a hint of “Well, at least our GM isn’t overspending on second-tier players.”

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