Rangers Off-Season: What has to be done for a successful offense?

           Offense: “the means or method of attacking or of attempting to score”, that is the definition given by Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Another definition for offense could be: Offense-something the New York Rangers, with exception of Marian Gaborik, have none of. That’s my definition of offense. Last season the Rangers scored a total of 222 goals, tied for 17^th best in the league. The most goals scored on the team was 42, courtesy of Marian Gaborik. The Rangers, who had a great start at the beginning of the season, just couldn’t score on a consistent base. About 1 out of every 10 games the Rangers would score 5+ goals, and most of the time they’d wind-up losing the game. Offense, for some reason, is just not a Rangers strong point. It’s a bit hard for me to figure out why.

          Going into last season’s off-season, the Rangers new they needed a scorer. Soon after trading away Scotty Gomez to Montreal in a 7 player swap, in which the Rangers received Christopher Higgins and a few rookies (including up and coming star Ryan Mcdonagh), the Rangers went out and signed Marian Gaborik. This turned out to be a great “risk” signing by Glen Sather. In the first week of Free Agency, the Rangers had acquired Marian Gaborik, Chris Higgins, Ales Kotalik, and Donald Brashear. At the time one could say the Rangers looked like they had a pretty good offensive team. With Gaborik, Kotalik, and Higgins added to a roster that already consisted of Markus Naslund, Ryan Callahan, Sean Avery, and the belief that the Rangers were bringing back Nikolai Zherdev, that looked like a pretty decent roster. But, days after the signings Markus Naslund would retire, thus subtracting him from the roster. Then, month’s later in August; the Rangers lost Nikolai Zherdev to the KHL, after deciding to walk away from the arbitrator’s award, to Zherdev, of $3.9million. So with those two out of the equation Glen Sather signed veteran center/winger, Vinny Prospal. The Rangers still looked like they had a pretty decent offense, and it looked that way after the first 10 games too. But everything began to go downhill at the start of November, and only got worse as the season progressed. When Glen Sather finally realized that Ales Kotalik and Chris Higgins were complete busts, he sent them both to Calgary for Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust. Jokinen became even more of a bust than Ales Kotalik, but Brandon Prust instantly became a fan favorite. So I guess you could kind of say we won the trade. Neither the Rangers nor the Flames made the playoffs last season, so really it would be an opinion based answer to the question: Who won in that trade? Well, The Rangers keep young stud Brandon Prust, the flames got Choke-inen back, Kotalik was waived to the Flames affiliate team, and Chris Higgins signed with the Panthers. So maybe the trade comes out even-even. But back to reality, what is left for the Rangers to do with their offense?

              Currently, the Rangers have Marian Gaborik, Ryan Callahan, Brandon Dubinsky, Vaclav Prospal, Artem Anisimov, Erik Christensen, Chris Drury, Sean Avery, Brian Boyle, Derek Boogard, and Brandon Prust on offense. That leaves one spot open for either a rookie, or a Free Agent. The Rangers may be looking to bring in Alexander Frolov, Bill Guerin, or Lee Stempniak. But, if the Rangers would like to grow within their organization then players like Mats Zuccarello-Aasen, Dale Weise, Dane Byers, Evgeny Grachev, or Derek Stepan will fill any holes in the NHL roster. The problem is that there is only one spot to fill, and a whole lot of options. The Rangers can either sign someone to play alongside Gaborik, Frolov, Guerin, or Stempniak; or the Rangers could start building from what they have, and bring up one rookie each season to play in the NHL. I know the second option sounds stupid, but that’s because it’s supposed to. With only one spot open, they can only bring up 1 player from the Minors. That’s not going to help them develop. So maybe some moves have to be made. Getting rid of unneeded players could help. But most of them have a No-Trade or No-Movement clause. So really the Rangers are stuck. That’s why it may be a better idea to sign someone to play with Marian Gaborik. Unless players are going to be moved, and three or four spots will be open for rookies, then there is no reason to go through a rebuilding stage.

        The real two options are, free up more spots so that rookies could come up and play in the NHL (rebuilding), or use that last spot to sign a forward to play with Gaborik. Which option do you think is better? Thanks for the read, leave any comments below. Hope you enjoyed.