Sergei Belski-Imagn ImagesThe Rangers are enjoying a six-day break – if you call being buried in the cellar with no place to go and plenty of useless games to play, "a break."
In plain English, this Blueshirt situation stinks.
In fact, it stinks to high Heaven which leaves hordes of fans wondering what to do with themselves.
The choices are many. You can sit in the corner and sulk or you can deftly study the facts and come to some serious explanation for this whole, ugly mess.
Rich Isaak of Londonderry, New Hampshire, has been rooting for Seventh Avenue Skaters back to the Original Six era. He has studied the season and even can recite the Chris Drury "Re-tool" nonsense backwards. Here's Isaak's review of the Rangers:
"First off, the term 'Re-tool' is something that Drury came up with to fool that "tool" of an owner, James Dolan. This is going to be a full 'rebuild' with another name.
"As for Drury himself, he started this merry-go-round with the classless way he got rid of Barclay Goodrow. Goodrow was clearly more important to the team dynamics than anybody, and especially Drury, realized.
"Drury then undermined his team's Captain, Jacob Trouba, by requesting his 15-team "no trade list" early, in an effort to get rid of Trouba's $8 million cap hit. Incidentally, I'm not suggesting that Drury shouldn't have attempted to move Trouba and his cap hit either. It's the way he went about it.
"Trouba used the terms of his negotiated contract to block the move, citing his wife's medical residency in NY and their 1-year-old child. Drury then sent out the infamous email/text to all of the NHL's GMs that said he was looking to move both Trouba & Kreider, which was immediately leaked to the public.
"The team went into a tailspin from which it never recovered. Drury subsequently forced Trouba to accept a trade to the Ducks, by threatening him with the same treatment he gave Goodrow. (Just another classless move.) Drury apparently learned from his mistakes and worked with Kreider and his agent to find a team that was mutually agreeable to both parties.
"Kreider was traded to Anaheim over the summer. Kreider had a down year last year, mostly due to injury, but still managed to score 22 goals. The Rangers sure could have used those 22 goals this season.
"The thing about Drury's poor handling of these situations would have been obvious to anyone paying attention given the way he treated Ranger prospects in his role as GM of the Hartford Wolfpack. Then again, we know that the owner only really pays attention to the NY Knicks performance and the NY Rangers gate receipts.
"Finally, on to Panarin's next contract. I think it's understandable why Drury wouldn't want to sign a 34-year-old player to a 4 or 5 year contract with a total value that's been estimated to be $50 million. It isn't that Panarin hasn't performed offensively to date either.
"It is just the inevitable march of time that catches up to all athletes. It has been reported that Drury tried to sign Panarin to a contract structured similarly to Anze Kopitar's contract with the Kings and Panarin said nyet.
"My guess is that what Drury really wanted long-term was to sign Panarin to a one-year high dollar contract and then transition him to an "over 35" contract that is also 1 year in length, but allows teams to pay performance bonuses to the player that can be added to the team's next season's cap hit.
"Some of those bonuses could have been the 'easily achievable' kind too. This is exactly the type of contract his friend Patrick Kane has in Detroit. Clearly, Panarin and his agent weren't willing to do that.
"As to Jess's contention that Panarin likely ends up in Florida with his good friend Sergei Bobrovsky, I agree completely. Bill Zito just has to sell him on two things. The first being exactly what Jess noted, leaving a few dollars for his friend Sergei's contract.
"The second being that since Florida has no state income tax, he can sign for less money, reduce his federal tax liability, and end up with the same take home pay that he would have had playing in New York or elsewhere."