mjdlight

Rangers fan here. We may share few common interests, but lets keep these jerkfaces out of the playoffs. LGD!

When I was but a wee lad of 10 in the early 90s, I randomly stumbled on to a hockey game on TV. My dad was a big sports fan but never showed any interest in hockey. I instantly fell in love with it, and this one player who seemed to stand out a lot more than everyone else on the ice, Brian Leetch. It was a Rangers game on MSG. The Devils? They were behind a paywall on SportsChannel, inaccessible to me. Things could have turned out quite differently if the Devils were on what used to be called "basic cable" in the early 90s.... That being said, I was never one of those "Devils suck!" Rangers fans. When they beat Det. in 95, I thought, "Good for NJ." It did get a bit rough from 1998 through the first lockout when the Rangers were absolutely putrid and the Devils were at the peak of their powers, but even then, I never did truly hate the Devils. If anything, it was grudging respect for the competence of Lou as compared to the clown car on fire management of the Rangers. My true hate has always been reserved for Philly and Pitts. That's one reason the playoff run this year has been so deeply satisfying.

Hey, don't knock the property tax exemption too hard, it played a pivotal role in the birth of the New Jersey Devils. Had it not been passed, MSG management probably makes good on its threat and moves to the newly built Brendan Byrne Arena, and there's no way in hell they were going to change the name of the team to the New Jersey Rangers.

As a Rangers fan, these people bother me just as much, if not more. If you haven't been through the years and years of Rangers futility, YOU HAVEN'T EARNED ANYTHING. I tell myself the bandwagon jumpers can't enjoy this as much as I can, because I lived through the Dark Days of Quintal, and Gusarov, and Brendl, and Muckler, and Pilon...and God, there are too many to list...

Cmon ye of little faith! What would your prediction in 1980 have been? Red Army 15 USA 0?

Heatley is a bit of a diva though. Paying him 4 million on top of his normal salary and then run the risk of him still demanding a trade and disrupting team chemistry is a big one to take. Murray is completely screwed by the terms of Heatley's contract. I really think he will be moved one way or the other today.

Its up at the Meadowlands.

Its sort of like he's going to be catching up on years' worth of missed games off this season. Pay me now or pay me later, but you will pay, so sayeth the Hockey Gods.

It would depend on how you define "significant." Does that mean star players only? If the Devils have taught the Rangers anything, its that the grunts (Pandolfo, Brylin, etc) are every bit as important to a team's success as the first liners are. Lundqvist, of course, would qualify as significant under either definition. Dubinsky looks like he could be a very solid NHLer. Girardi (technically undrafted, but developed in Hartford) looks like he could be a steady d-man for some time to come. Ditto for Staal. Nigel Dawes has shown flashes of talent and a knack for scoring against the Devils. Callahan looks like he could be a nice agitating 3rd liner, sort of like Avery but without the bush league plays and the Vogue internship. I'd say the Rangers wouldn't have sniffed the playoffs last year without their young, homegrown players. They're still not up to the gold standard of drafting (the Devils of the late 80s to mid 90s), but to simply say that they are the 90s Rangers still (when the best "prospects" were the Ferraro twins and Christian Dube) is a bit of a stretch to me. The team has a much younger NHL roster and a much more productive farm system than those days.

Of course 10 years on not that big of a deal. But at the time (as I said in my post) it pissed me off.

As a Rangers fan, I can understand Brodeur not wanting to shake Avery's hand, and don't have a problem with it, but that really pissed me off back in 97. There was no reason for Stevens and Holik to skip the handshake line after that series.

Wait, did you hear he signed the contract wtih the Oilers, or did the Sabres match it and he signed it with them?

Look at the small market Oilers roar! Such a thing never would have happened in the pre-cap NHL.

The Rangers are under the same hard, revenue linked salary cap as every other team. They were conservative on the FA market for two years in a row, developed some useful, cheap players from within, created cap space, and then used it this year. When the Devils spent to the cap for two years running, there wasn't this hue and cry, was there? I'm not sure what people want -- should the Rangers and the other large market teams play under a smaller cap than everyone else? The fact of the matter is, not all owners are created equal, not all markets are created equal, and therefore, some teams will do better than others. Sabres fans should be irate with their own front office. 5/25 for Briere was a ridiculous offer -- why did they even bother making it? For what its worth, I saw an interview with Reiger where he said he's learned his lesson and won't let his prized players get this close to FA status again. Hopefully they will make reasonable offers to their young stars like Miller, Vanek, etc, and will lock them up well in advance of their UFA status.