Not A Good Day for the Rangers
First, they lose Brandon Prust, as the former Rangers tough guy signed a 4-year, $10 million contract with the Montreal Canadiens.
...$2.5 million per?!?!?!?! That's almost as bad as trading Ryan McDonagh for Scott Gomez. Good for Prust to take advantage of a terrible organization and an even better job by the Rangers not overpaying.
...sad to see Prust go though. He will be sorely missed in the locker room.
So how will the Rangers replace Prust? Apparently with Aaron Asham (2-years at $1 million per) and Mike Haley.
...i absolutely hate the Asham move. I thought the Rangers were all about character guys, not idiots who do this...
...having said that I am a fan of Haley, who I thought gave the Islanders a huge spark back in 2011 when he did this...
Haley had 15g, 10 in 51 games for Bridgeport last year.
...i hope he beats out Asham for a spot on the fourth line.
...would much rather the Rangers have gotten Konopka, who signed with the Wild, to replace Prust.
The Rangers did, however, re-sign a few players as Stu Bickel is coming back for two-years at $750,000 per and Kris Newbury signed a two-year, two-way contract.
...no surprise with Bickel being re-signed.
...with the Rangers losing Mitchell to the Avalanche this will be a huge camp for Newbury.
And finally the Rangers lost minor leaguers Chad Johnson (Phoenix) and Jonathan Audy-Marchessault (Columbus)
...while JAM put up nice numbers with CT Whale, he's another small player who probably can't get it done at the NHLL level.
...there was no future for Johnson with the Rangers.
Still plenty of time to bring in some much needed scoring and power play help, but for me Day 1 of free agency was a big disappointment for the Rangers.
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Can someone find me one incident other than the Schenn incident that suggests that Asham is any dirtier than guys like Rupp or Prust. Let not forget Prust's blatant elbow that he got a game for. To this point how anyone who has only been suspended or fined once in his entire career can be considered dirty is beyond me. Living in the Pittsburgh market I've seen more of asham than most and he's physical, but not dirty. Hes the kind of player that every player wants as a teammate. He's relentless in his defense of his team. The bullshit that happened in the Ottawa series doesn't happen with Asham on the ice. Too many times Prust and Rupp let guys off the hook. Asham won't. I haven't heard a single teammate of his say anything bad about his attitude in the room either.
That video of Haley reminded me a lot of something that Mr. Avery might have done. This guy could become a quick fan favorite if he makes he team! Just imagine him skating down and challenging tubby, how awesome would that be!!
Asham in place of Prust isn't great but it's fine. Sather is making the most out of the cap space and I don't dislike what I'm seeing.I really like Prust as a Ranger. It sucks! But when it's time it's time.
@TheNYRBlog eh it's bottom level stuff. I am not mad nor excited. Moot day. Happy Prust got a payday and we didn't overpay.
@GregSirico You're right, but when Prust turns into Asham it's not a good day for your team.
Horrible day for NYR. Losing Prust is huge. Didn't he win the Steven McDonald award in 2011 ? Tough to lose him but I do not blame him. 4 yrs = 10M where NYR signed him to 2 yrs 1.6M..
As a Haley myself- sharing Mike Haley's last name - I am very amused. He is a vicious fighter....
Agree with everyone - sad to see Prust move on but definately good for him getting paid. He put his fists face and body on the line every night for us and I wish we could have kept him on. Asham - he's going to have to earn a ton of Tort's respect or he'll just be picking the splinters out of his ass from sitting on the bench every game. That said if he takes suspensions for protecting Gaborik coming back from a second surgery - it might just make other teams think twice. Drop the puck already thus us killing me!
I'm calling this now, just wait, Sather has an ace up his sleeve:
This player had 54 points (19 g 35 asst.) last season, 8 of those 19 goals were PP goals, he was the 3rd leading scorer on his team, he's also available for a 1 year contract for only $3 Million.
Can anyone guess who???
I know I will feel a hell of a lot better tomorrow if we can bring in Doan... I think he would be a great fit with this team and a great presence in the locker room as well.
@njules33 Doan would be a great pick up for this team, though, he says he is waiting until after July 9th to see if the team will be staying in Phoenix. If the Coyotes stay in Phoenix, so does Doan.
Yeah the Asham really had me scratching my head--he is an energy guy but more of a thug in my opinion---nothing like prust who will wears his heart on his sleeve---a few ott. sens I thought would be good picks much better than these two.......well its only day one so hope we see something a bit better.
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i have no problem with what asham did to schenn up there...if schenn hit girardi or mcdonagh like that i would hope somebody would go after him..especially when you're in a series like that against those scumbags...i think haley is extremely tough but probably won't see him up with the team to much, newbury is a mystery to me because he plays great for CT and puts up good numbers and can fight but never sticks with the big team, we'll see what he can do in training camp this year
It doesn't look great, but there might be some silver lining, we always talk about the youth movement and the moves or lack of them might be the rangers confidence in the farm, plus hopefully glen is using this time to target the top guys who are all still out there
@KevinDeLury -- Today would have been a lot different if that went down. I wonder what this off season will bring...
@TheNYRBlog Disagree. The Rangers need scoring and that market is the toughest. That starts tomorrow. They didn't lose anything big--so OK.
It's not that bad. If anything, it was an irrelevant day. Nothing big happened. But overall I think Sather did alright.
Asham is a replacement for Prust. The 2 players are very similar. Both fight, both can kill penalties, both hit and play 4th line roles. The only negative is Prust is more relaible on the PK, but the Rangers have plenty of players (Boyle, AA, Cally, Dubi, Stepan, Kreider) who can kill penalties. Arron adds a little more offense then Prust. And Prust is almost ALWAYS hurt. Prust was a solid player, but they way fans talk about him it's like we just lost Callahan. Asham will literally provide the exact same thing. He might not play on the PK very much but he'll add a little more offense. Asham only 2 years @ 1 million a year vs. Prust @ 4 years, 2.5 a year. That's called saving money. Smart move by Sather.
You say you would much rather have gotten Konopka. So would most. But how do you know they didn't try to sign him? Maybe they tried but he chose the Wild. We don't know.
Haley is an AHL signing. Wouldn't be surprised if he never played for the Rangers. Same for Newbury. But Newbury is a solid depth player to have. Had a great season with the Whale. Same with the 2 AHL players they lost. Those weren't important moves.
Re-signing Bickel (especially) at that price was a no-brainer. He'll do exactly what he did last year for the team. I was hoping they would bring Mitchell back but $1.1m a year is tooooo much.
I think it was a solid day. They didn't overpay to bring back Prust and they didn't overpay to bring in a 3rd or 4th liner. They made minors moves and found a replacement for Prust. There aren't many names this year and they chose to stay back and save their money.
@YesIAm -- if you look at offense numbers for Prust and Asham over the past three seasons, Prust comes out slightly ahead with 55 pts next to Asham's 51. Last year Prust had the edge too albeit with just one point more than Asham, 17-16. So I gotta think you're mistaken when you say Asham brings more offense. He's almost 6 years older than Prust with declining numbers. But you're right that Prust is more reliable on the PK. Fans are not getting the same thing with Asham. You're already losing offense and penalty killing, and Prust's character and locker room presence isn't likely to be matched either. Still, Prust got the money he wanted elsewhere, if the Rangers had paid him that much I would have faulted them.
Did the Rangers actually get worse today? Not a good day, lets see what tomorrow brings...
Asham is a chump. Going to be tough to see him in Ranger blue. How long before he finds himself in the Avery pressbox compliments of Torts?
@TheNYRBlog seems to be starting out that way but...why does Slats sign guys that fans have spent a lifetime hating? Just curious.
@TheNYRBlog it certainly is not. But I wouldn't have matched that offer and asham at $1M isn't a big risk so. We shall see!
@TheNYRBlog for lack of a better term he is the #atlanticdivisionwhore. I'm def not a fan of his
@BobbyBiscuit I agree with what you're saying, but I just hate that they replaced Prust wih Asham. Yuck!
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you have to wonder about some of the scouting around the league (Avs-Mitchell, Habs-Prust) While it's good to see them get good contracts, their value was definetely bloated by the team's overall success. Speaking of scouting, Asham? really? If the season were to start tomorrow, the team is worse off, for sure. Any team with Asham is worse off. It's going to be hard to cheer for him...
Oh, who am I kidding? His first fight I'll be all aboard the Asham express. His first suspension I'll be decrying the inequitable way in which the NHL dispenses justice. F.U. Shanny!
As long as he doesn't wear #8...
@AnnoyingJoe first suspension is first game of the year lol...carry over from hit on schenn i believe
