The New York Rangers are looking for an identity and are faced with many questions
Daily confrontation: David Pagnotta was asked about the New York Rangers and their early season struggles. They will not rebuild if things do not go well, but they can undergo a reorganization in their search for their identity. What direction will they ultimately take?
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Colby Cohen: “And I want to stay with you on the subway, and I hope, I hope Johnny’s watching, because I want to talk to you about the New York Rangers and the problem they have. You know, we spent a lot of time this morning talking about Brennan Othmann and why the New York Rangers aren’t just going to let this guy go. I mean it, which makes sense to me. Why are you going to let him walk out the door? possibly go somewhere else and have success.” achieve, and then you look like a fool unless there’s a big name coming the other way?
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But I look at Will Culley, for example, and I look at (Alexis) Laferniere’s on the wing, and I think about their goal-scoring struggles. It’s like, what’s Chris Drury going to do because you didn’t bring in Mike Sullivan to make a good team? You paid him a lot of money. Now you have to give him the weapons to go out there and be a competitive team. And right now, they just can’t score enough to really compete at a high enough level.
Pagnotta: “Yes, no, I agree with you. The struggle there is real. And it is, it is, they just don’t know what they are, look, this is used all the time now, but they don’t know their identity. They’re trying to find out what their identity really is. Everyone uses that term now, but in their case it’s completely valid. They, they, they are on the move.
And you know, with a guy like (Artemi) Panarin, who’s a UFA at the end of the year, whatever direction this team ultimately goes, they’ve got to make an internal decision about what they want to do with them. Do you go out and try to hold them and add extra pieces? Can you this season? Or do you move it, do you bring in young assets, do you bring in additional pieces? And this will be a little later in the season anyway.
But try, try to reinvent it right away, like this isn’t a team that’s going to have a quasi-rebuild like they did a number of years ago where they kind of emulated it. In the end, Lafreniere was awarded first place overall, and then decided to continue adding.
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Like this is a team that has to be in a position that they’ve gotten into, it’s a reshuffle. So, depending on how this season goes, will (Mika) Zibanejad be able to perform even more this season? Is Panarin? Are there any more pieces on this club? How are the guys in front of him doing? Will he be able to save them under certain circumstances?
This is a team that, like you said, struggles to score. Can other pieces of this club step up to push them forward a bit? Can they have a consistent discussion about the playoff battle?
And if not, then, yes. Chris Drury has some serious questions that need to be answered. Are you going to go back to chasing big fish in a different way, and trying to make major hockey-like, blockbuster-like moves by taking out key pieces to bring in additional key pieces or other key pieces?
It’s a tough situation for the Rangers because you’re right, they brought in Mike Sullivan to help move this team forward. Like with that property, it’s just barking at them, filling the building, getting into contention, putting us back into contender status and pushing for first place, you know, in the Metro. It’s a big task.
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They don’t know what they are, I don’t like them, I don’t, I don’t think management knows exactly what they have either. So there are a lot of different internal struggles that they have to do when it comes to visualizing exactly what path they want to take before they start taking steps. Like they’ve got some on paper, some pieces there, guys, but it’s not gelling yet.
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