The season certainly started wildly for both the Rangers and Islanders. The Isles cleaned house with their coach. The Rangers moved on from the Jagr years and made some savvy trades. The Isles signed Doug Weight, who nobody seemed to think was any good anymore. The Rangers faithful thought Aaron Voros was actually good for a couple of weeks. The Isles thought DP had two working knees . . .
Scott Gallof, NY Rangers Blogger:
Well it sure has been a while since we did one of these back and forth blogs. How are things going over in Islanders’ land? You guys are so far underneath the standings it’s hard to see all the way down there sometimes.
How’s that goalie situation working out for you? I was trying to find some stats on your #1 draft pick from 2000, but then I saw he only played 5 games this season… and lost 4 of them. Tell ole DP to keep his chin up, at least he is doing his part in keeping physical therapists in the Long Island area a steady stream of work. It’s important to help the economy as much as you can. Though, even those who make a good living scamming the welfare and disability loop holes have to just stand in awe watching a guy collect 4.5 million dollars for sitting on stationary bike all season.
As for the 205th pick from the very same 2000 draft, ole Henrik is doing pretty well. He’s getting his first all-star nod and in his last game he had a 33 save shutout; his second for the season and his 21st win. Got to just love irony huh, B.D.?
Btw, for that little bundle of joy that is on the way, I bought a baby sized Rangers’ jersey and matching Sippy cup. Just cause her old man has deplorable taste in hockey teams, doesn’t mean my future niece needs to suffer.
B.D. Gallof, NY Islanders Blogger:
Et tu, brother of mine? First off, the wife has already warned me that we will need to keep her away from "Creepy Uncle Scott"!
Furthermore, let me just remind you it was your favorite Isles blogger who let everyone know that this year was not going to exactly be a playoff kind of year. When a GM let’s people around the team know the word “REBUILD”, you can pretty much guarantee that the team will tank the following season. Add in a freshmen coach whose primary job is to develop kids, add a couple over-the-hill or nearabout vets, and you got a team that the Isles simply hope will be competitive even if they struggle.
Ok, and yes, now add Rick DiPietro, last year’s all star who clearly wasn’t ready to go, and you have a recipe for disaster. Yet, until December, Joey MacDonald, who is now a name everyone remembers, helped this team sniff a possible .500.
Sure Henrik is doing well for himself. But let us talk about some first round choices from our Ranger friends like Manny Malhotra, Hugh Jessiman, Pavel Brendl, Dan Blackburn, Al Montoya, and I can go on and on. Let us leave it that drafts are difficult animals and yes, the Rangers got a good guy later than early, or else you’d still be playing Kevin “It went thru my legs, damnit!” Weekes. There are simply no guarantees and you have to depend on the entire draft class, there are simply no sure things maybe unless you are dating Elizabeth Cuthbert.
Oh, and despite most Isles fans not sitting well with DP’s ridiculous 15 year contract, one thing is clear…4.5 is still a bargain as the King Henrik wears Prada at 6.5 per and upward.
But, Scotty, old buddy, old pal…speaking of high prices. How is Scott Gomez doing as he plays a seven year 51 million contract? Gomez Pyle is on his way to a wowing 52 points. Well, that’s got to be money well spent, eh, sparky?
Oh, and let us add Wade Redden, the 3rd (or even 4th) best defensemen free agent available this summer who Glen Sather chomped on a cigar and declared: “I got to get me some of that!” PUFF PUFF PUFF! And lo and behold, Wade “I Sucked in Ottawa and now in NY” Redden is signed for . . .
Wait for it.
Wait for it.
BOOM!
6 years at 39 million.
So, there is 90 million dollars with a total of 13 years.
So 67.5 with 15 with Rick DiPietro might not be the wisest decision. But at least we made that commitment before Sather and Chuckie Dolan blew up the price tags since.
Scott Gallof, NY Rangers blogger:
Well I’m no fan of the Sather, but with all his free spending lunacy even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to sign an injury prone goaltender for 15 years, even for 4.5 million. How many goaltenders play 15 seasons!?!? Is Gomez, Drury, Redden, etc. etc. overpaid? I don’t think any realistic Ranger fan would say otherwise. I’m not going to sit here and defend Wade Redden’s contract, because basically… I can’t. But, I can say that Scott Gomez, Chris Drury and Wade Redden actually come to the ice rink, dress and play 60 minutes of hockey day in and day out. Maybe they make way more than they should, at least they play. Can’t say so much for your “franchise” player, can we?
How is it every year a “rebuilding” year? Is that how you all rationalize the steaming pile of dung that wafts on the ice in the aftermath of each and every season? Let’s be honest oh misguided brother of mine, the Islanders have been in a perpetual rebuilding phase since 1993. So you can whip out that excuse for any ole season pretty much since Glen Healy played goaltender.
It’s amusing how you state first round picks are not a guarantee, and I would certainly agree with that statement, especially after looking at the Rangers’ picks for the past decade. If you truly believed first round picks are not a guarantee then why is the entire organization now completely hinged on drafting John Tavares as their future messiah?
“Just wait until we get John Tavares!! You’ll see! You’ll see…” seems to be the mantra coming from the Islanders faithful.
Wait, does John Tavares happen to play goal as well? Maybe Tavares can green light that Lighthouse Project too. Or, at the very least write a new jingle for it.
B.D. Gallof, NY Islanders Blogger:
Well you got me there, sport. You are right on. The Isles will not be saved by one 1st round draft choice. Oh, and despite the mantras for Tavares acting like he’s the second coming of Crosby or such, don’t believe the hype. Too many laymen hype kids to the nines, and then watch them fail to the overblown expectations. He’s just an excellent blue chipper, as is Hedman on D.
After all, none other than huckster and snake oil salesman Mike Milbury believed that hype and tripe, smoking the hockey god bong as to “change everything” and we ate savage disappointments. Then stuck with this blithering idiot for even longer, he changed gears, sucking up “safe” pick after “safe” pick…not a one became anything we needed either.
Throughout all this he ignored the very thing that would have turned us around: cultivate draft picks and prospects in a deep farm system.
An old friend of yours is now helping tank Phoenix (along with the Great One)…evidently he has one good stop between tanking teams…Don Maloney is the one you can thank for digging the NY Rangers out of a hole. While Glen Sather was whipping out the wallet for burn-burners like Eric Lindros, Pavel Bure, and Bobby Holik, good old Don was whipping the farm into shape so that you could develop some draft picks instead of trading them. That farm is what has mixed with your vets and high priced commodities that perpetually disappoint, and keep you afloat to lose early in the playoffs.
So, yes, we Isles fans are sucking down another year, but at least that farm is being attended to, even if the motley screw that is assembled on the NHL ice looks a hospital ward. Even if Ricky’s knees look like the floats that hover between the periods at the Coliseum.
Scott Gallof, NY Rangers Blogger:
Well as a great man once said, “The world needs ditch diggers too.” Some team has to be in the rear of the pack; it might as well be you guys. The Rangers may very well make another 2nd round exit, though who knows what pre-deadline wheelin’ and dealin’ may be done.
Say what you will about Sather tossing out money like a degenerate gambler in a seedy Atlantic City dive playing roulette, he can still make a nifty deal every now and then. Just look how he plucked that Russian phenom Nikolai Zherdev from Columbus.
I don’t think any Rangers’ fan is thinking this current squad is going to go win a cup, but playoff experience is a coveted commodity for a team’s youth, like Callahan, Dubinsky, Prucha and of course Marc Staal. I noticed when you listed off the Rangers’ top draft picks up above you seemed to skip over Staal, who has been a hell of a draft pick.
Then again what would you know… you’re the same dipstick that thought the kid from “A Christmas Story” was the same kid from “Captain Ron”, despite the latter being filmed almost ten years later!
Yes B.D., the movie studios took Peter Billingsley who would have been 21 by the time Captain Ron came out, but instead they froze him in Carbonite to preserve him so they would have a blonde geeky kid for whatever movie they might want to put out, you provincial putz!
B.D. Gallof, NY Islanders Blogger:
Aww, hell. Come on...the two geeks look the same to me. Maybe he was the Aryan version of Webster?
Meanwhile all this comes from the same imbecile who was convinced that Carl Weathers played the Matt “Guitar” Murphy in the Blues Brothers? Seriously?
This from the dipstick who thought “Slow Ride” was not by Foghat. No. But…Billy Squire????
This from the kid who had Def Leppard posters all over his room, eventually graduating to Judas Priest, singing along to “Breaking the Law”, thinking it was about teenage rebellion instead of Rob Halford talking about his crazy nights in the Blue Oyster?
Yessireee, you are one to talk.
Ahh, yes, the same denim-wearing sleezball who then turned to the NY Rangers. You rebel you.
You can talk all you want about your team and how wonderful it is that your overpaid million dollar men “show up to play”. Gomez will light it up for 52 points, which is about the same Bill Guerin in on route to at millions upon millions less. And, yes, you guys are doing better. Got me there. But one day that will change sparky. Just recall that bandwagon your braced-face was grinning on as the Rangers just broke out from beyond the pale as the Isles dynasty faded in the early 90s. We’ll have our comeuppance brother of mine. If you think things are going to stay like this . . .
Well, as a very now out-of-the-closet hero of yours once sang: “You have another thing coming!”
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