The Athletic Hockey Show - Are the Rangers done making moves?

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

With the NHL holiday trade freeze coming into effect Thursday at 11:59pm ET, Rangers beat writer Arthur Staple joins Hailey Salvian and Sean Gentille to discuss the Blueshirts’ latest trade, moving former No. 2 overall pick Kaapo Kakko to Seattle after he was a healthy scratch in the Rangers most recent loss vs. Nashville. Hailey and Sean also take a look at two other trades made on Wednesday, with the Penguins reacquiring Pierre-Oliver Joseph from St. Louis and the Canadiens getting Alexandre Carrier from Nashville for defenseman Justin Barron, before they look at possible future trades involving teams fighting for playoff spots in 2025.Hosts: Hailey Salvian and Sean GentilleWith: Arthur StapleExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff Domet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another Thursday edition of the Athletic Hockey Show. It's Haley Salvean and Sean Gentilly here with you again this week. We have some news to break down on this Thursday. Capo Caco traded by the Rangers to the Seattle Cracken, Arthur Staples, who covers the Rangers, the Islanders, New York Hockey for the Athletic is going to join us on the show to break down that trade and the meltdown that's happening

in Manhattan. A few other trades yesterday, Alex Carrier, to the Montreal Canadiens, P.O. Joseph, leaving his brother and heading back to Pittsburgh. We'll talk about that later on in the show as well. But first, let's bring in, Sean. Christmas came early, if you will. We have news. Was I asking for a Capo-Caco trade? Is that what was on my list? I was asking for a little treat, a little gift from the podcast universe. Because once again, not many games on the Wednesday night schedule. It was looking a little bleak. We got something to talk about.

Well, I guess maybe it wasn't a gift because it was like, how do we line up the show without just talking about the Rangers or the Sabres? We've got a Rangers show, but it's topical. It's not just us piling on. Even though we might be, there's news with the Rangers. Don't cry because it's cack over. Smile because it cack happened. That's what I said.

You're welcome. Wasn't that great? I can sense people applauding for that one. Sean's going to start selling bumper stickers in an Etsy shop in Seattle. It's perfect. I'm glad. I'm glad that, I'm glad that, uh, that we finally got, this needed to end. Sure. The caco, the caco Rangers marriage, like, will it work there, will it not?

Uh, I think it had reached its expiration date. That was my first thought when I saw that last night. I'm like, okay. Like, we can move on to whatever the next crisis is for, for the Rangers. Mm-hmm. I think. But yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a bizarre trade. It's a bizarre trade because it feels like they sold for 60 cents on the dollar, even though Capo caco isn't, he's certainly not, not what anyone thought. I'm sure Arthur will talk about that extensively.

It's like, really, Will, Will Borgon in a poo-poo platter of draft picks? Like this is what you're getting back? I don't know. Yeah. And I think the circumstances around the trade too, and I'm sure we or fans will read into it. I don't know how much we should. But the deal comes after Kako had been healthy scratched

by another Rangers coach. It's not just Gerard Gallant anymore or David Quinn. And just two days after he publicly, expressed frustration about being healthy scratched and in a more macro sense, like what's been happening with the Rangers. He said, I know you've got to do something as the coach when you're losing games, but it's easy to pick the young guy and put him out. He also said, no one's playing great right now. I haven't been on the ice too much when they score a goal. I've not been the worst. I kind of love that. My initial thought was like,

Did they trade him because he said that? But I think that's just a larger part of what's happening. And I think Peter Baugh had written in his story last night about the trade that this is something that the two sides had been talking about since the weekend. And that his comments did not have to do with the trade according to a league source. That's from Peter Baugh, who also covers the Rangers in New York hockey for the athletics. So maybe don't read it to that as like soap opera and fun as it could be to imagine Chris Jury seeing him say that and calling up the Crackett and saying here like just give us whatever. It definitely benefits Chris Jury and the New York Rangers to put that out there. Like assuming and I'm not assuming that it's not true either, but they need people to know that like, okay, this guy didn't just force his way out.

I think that's important. I think that's an important point to make that there wasn't, you know, this wasn't a case. of a guy complaining and and getting what he wanted to some extent. Right. It wasn't like you can complain your way off the Rangers. Off this, off this,

off this sinking shit. Yeah. Yeah. And so, we should say, wasn't Christmas, wasn't a gift from, from podcast universe. It's just the holiday roster freeze.

I guess. I don't like, that takes it. The holiday roster free takes effect tonight. That's Thursday at 11.59 p.m. Eastern. So we did see a couple of other trades last night. Of course, Capocaco was the big one. The Montreal Canadiens acquired defensemen Alexandra Carrier from the Nashville Predators for defender Justin Barron and the penguins, as we mentioned off the top. They're bringing back P.O. Joseph from the St. Louis Blues where he

signed in the summer after he wasn't tendered by the penguins, I believe. For a few considerations. And I don't think we actually mentioned the full deal. It's Capo Caco to the Cracken in an exchange for Will Borgon, a defender, and a 2025 third round pick and a 2025 sixth round pick. That ends a pretty fraught Rangers career for Capo caco. 61 goals, 131 points in 330 games. As you said, it's a weird trade, something that needed to end, probably for both sides. He didn't live up to the full expectation with the Rangers. Rangers didn't also foster his development super well either.

We can get into that trade and the Rangers with Arthur Staples and a few moments on the show here. But first, let's talk about the other two deals, not as big, not as sexy. The Habs trade for Carrier kind of makes sense for. for Montreal. It's not kind of. It just does. There had been times during the season that they were playing five left shot defenders on their blue line. Carrier is a natural right shot D. They were hoping that Barron could shore up that right side, but he wasn't really able to find that kind of consistency they needed from him on a nightly basis. He wasn't even in the lineup every

single night. That's helpful. That's from ARP and Basu, who wrote about this trade last night, our HAB's writer, whereas Carrier comes in, 20 minute per night guy for the Preds, third on the team in TOI. The Preds obviously haven't been great, but that's at the very least an NHL player who can play a natural rights ID position. So for that, seems like a pretty easy. Yep, tidy work. Good job. I think it, yeah, I think you said it. I think it adds a competent NHL player to the mix,

which Montreal still needs to focus on, focus on doing, right? Like, Arpin has another, has another story up where he's like, let's make sure the Canadians don't turn into the Sabres. That's kind of the, that's the crux of it. And I think,

I think adding someone like Carrier is, is helpful to that end. And Justin Barron, who's the player who went back to Nashville, He's a first round pick a few years ago. So there is like some amount of upside with him. Like maybe he does end up turning into a second pair defenseman. But I think so much of his value moving forward, if you believe in it, is tied into being a power play relevant guy, right?

And there's no path to that for him in Montreal because of Lane Hudson and because of, you know, guys that are ahead of him on the depth chart. So he was a much of a fit for Montreal. I think Carrier makes a whole lot more sense, like you said, even if just from a positional standpoint on the on the right side there. So it's not it's not the sexiest deal. It's not the most interesting one. It's not the most impactful one. But I think it does make sense to some extent for both for both sides.

Because in Nashville, what? You add a higher upside player to a team that, you know, is circling the drain right now. So in a vacuum, I don't hate that. I don't hate that for them either. So it makes sense. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see where he slots in. Like, will he play with Caden Gully?

Will he play with Lane Hudson? Will it just be like Mike Matheson? I'll be curious to see what Marta St. Louis does there with the D-Pairs on the habs. The other trade, I guess, is it a trade? The Penguins just brought back Pio Joseph. It is a trade. It's for future. considerations.

What do you make of this? I saw that. I saw that and was just like, oh, Pio Joseph's coming back. Thoughts? Thoughts. My thought is that

Kyle Dubus primarily did a solid for Doug Armstrong, who's a guy that he's had dealings with in the past. Traded for Kevin Hayes, obviously. Got two second round picks for

Kevin Hayes. Shortly there, After sent one of those second round picks back to St. Louis and Doug Armstrong. So Doug Armstrong could have the necessary, uh, the, the, the necessary equipment to, to sign the two oilers to, uh, to offer sheets, right? So we've seen, we, we know those guys have a relationship. They've worked together closely in the past and Doug Armstrong needed to cut some salary cap. I, I think that's a big part of it. But also if you're Pittsburgh, they need blue line help. Yeah. And they, in, in, in,

P.O. Joseph, again, he's not, not anything to get overly excited about, but can he be a competent, you know, third liner or third pair guy? Yeah, yeah, I think so. And moving forward, depending on what happens here, this is another thing you probably should note, you know, this is a team that's in the playoff hunt at the moment, but who knows where they'll be in February? Who knows where they'll be at the trade deadline? Marcus Patterson, left side defense, defenseman would be one of the hottest. commodities on the trade market, right? So if you're looking down the line, you know, and you think that it's a possibility that pending UFA first or second pair of defense and Marcus Pedersen has moved at the deadline, they now have another option to slide into his spot in the lineup. So I think it's a it's a trade that it makes sense for both sides. I think you said this about the carry a trade, Haley. It's like it's a tidy bit of business.

And it's not it's not anything all that interesting. But I think when you look at what both sides gained out of it, it makes some sense. And Pio Joseph did play pretty well down the stretch last season when he was paired with Chris LaTang. So maybe there's a world in which those two go back together and that can kind of help Pio Joseph. And he looked fine in St. Louis on the third pair. He peaked. He was supposed to be a dept guy. He did that fine enough.

And maybe they can slot him in with Chris LaTang and they can play competent. hockey in their own zone like they did at the end of the 2023 24 season but I feel like the Pedersen thing is going to be the most interesting part to track he is weak to week with a lower body injury right now which could sideline him into the new year um obviously Matt grislic he's gone um or sorry he's signed from Boston this summer he didn't go to Boston this summer um he's been underwhelming Ryan Graves that's been bad So, like, there's an, there's an opening for P.O. Joseph to come in and, like, play meaningful, important minutes for the penguins. Again, he played well down the stretch last year. So, like, maybe this could give the penguins, like, a legitimate top four pairing that remains to be seen.

Yes. But, like, it's more interesting than it, I think it may be. I agree. I agree with that. Tweet of, like, oh. It gets Ryan Graves out of the lineup. And that in and of itself is a win for Pittsburgh. There results with him out of the equation have been,

have been a whole lot better. Yeah. So now if you're Pittsburgh, you're looking at some combo of P.O. Joseph, Owen Pickering, who's a recent first round pick who's been pretty good since they called him up kind of surprisingly a couple months ago in Grizzlick, who's played some half decent hockey after looking like he was completely

cooked at the start of the season. So yeah, definitely more underwhelming at the start of the year. Incredibly bad. And also, let's not work. He hasn't, he hasn't been, he hasn't been,

Kiel McCar either over the last, over the last couple weeks either. He's, he's been competent. So it does give them another option. It strengthens them a little bit moving forward when, with, with Pedersen out of the lineup.

But to me, this is, P.O. Joseph has a short-term replacement for Marcus Patterson. And also potentially P.O. Joseph, So if it has like a medium term replacement for Marcus Patterson, it gives them the option to still shop him if that's something that they're in a position to do whenever the deadline rolls around. I want to move on and take a break before we bring in Arthur, but like very quickly, because we should say Marcus Pederson is number four on our Chris Johnson's big board. Rangy, reliable, nothing flashy about his game, proven he can handle 20 plus minutes per night. That's from CJ.

I don't like the word rangy. Like lanky. That's how I would describe Marcus Patterson. Anyway. Long arms. Yeah. I guess the thing is it's going to be interesting to see how Dubus balances this because we've long assumed. We've had to assume because he won't just come out and say it.

But like they're kind of, I guess he did say it. They're balancing wanting to be a relevant hockey team with. like not mortgaging the future and like being better in the future. So I'm going to be curious to see what he does. And I think what he does with Marcus Pedersen could be very telling at the trade deadline in several, several weeks from now is this is a pending unrestricted free agent, but also your team is in a playoff spot right now. So do you want to open up a hole in your top 4D? Like do you want to lose a 20 plus minute, solid, rangey, reliable defender when your team is in a playoff spot or do you need to get the assets for that? That's going to tell us a lot about

what Kyle Dubis sees and wants to do with this roster. There's a lot of hockey left to be played between December and the trade deadline. And I think the penguins are going to benefit from that because once the deadline rolls around, they're either still going to be in, you know, some kind of playoff push, which to me, that the answers, there's your answer, right? Like you're not, you're just not going to sell on a team with Sydney Crosby that's in playoff position in 2025. It's just not going to happen. But if they fall out, then, you know. But this also came out two days ago and the penguins are in a playoff position.

Not to reach too much into big boards in December because a lot, like you said, there's a lot of hockey, but. They're a profoundly mediocre team. And they're playing, they're, they're having a good 10-game stretch here. They're just as capable of having a. terrible 10 game stretch and then, you know, we're talking about selling everything that isn't nailed down again. So we'll see. To quote, to quote Mike Tomlin. My point is, I'm not saying don't sell Marcus Pedersen. I'm just saying he is going to be very interesting in what happens with him and what happens with the

penguins over the next few weeks. I'm not breaking any ground here. I think he's like, he's in, in a lot of ways, Marcus Pedersen is like, Marcus Pedersen and what happens to him is like, for sure. It's like a bell leather for other things that are going on within the Penguins organization and other things that could potentially come down the line for sure. All right. Let's get to Arthur Staples. Yeah. We're going to talk more about the Capocco trade because that is the big one. It's not Pio Joseph and a future Marcus Pedersen trade that we concocted here. Imaginary Marcus Pedersen trade, yes. We don't know anything about actually. We're going to talk to Arthur about Capocaco and a little bit more about what's going on with the New York Rangers that's coming up next on the athletic hockey show.

All right, we are back on the show. You don't want to hear about what Sean and I have to say. So we're going to bring in a little bit more of an expert on New York hockey. That's Arthur Staple. Just a little bit. He might know more about the Rangers than we do. It's Arthur Staple. I disagree.

What are you just? You're speaking through me here. I know way more than Arthur. It's probably true. Yeah. What's up, Arthur? Hi, gang. How are we doing?

Good. I am very glad that there's more things happening than I thought. Like two days ago, I was like, what are we going to talk about? Now we have things. Now we have Arthur. This works for me. I'm doing great. On the Ranger Beat, there's always something to talk about within the last month.

So whatever you want to throw at me, we've had it all. No, none of those, just anything else. Not everything, only certain things. Yeah. Wins, cohesion, organizational flow. None of that, but we got the rest. So whatever you get. All right.

Well, we can get to that in a bit, but let's just start with the trade that Sean and I already mentioned here. Capo Caco to the Seattle Cracken. The Rangers get Will Borgon, third round pick, six round pick. what does this trade mean for the New York Rangers, Arthur, like kind of both in the micro and the macro sense, like the now end, maybe more existentially. What does this mean for the New York Rangers? For now, I think it's the end of a pretty rocky run for Capo

since he was the second overall pick and whatever it was, six years ago, five years ago now. I think, as we noted, he's been healthy scratched by all three of the coaches he's had here. Probably understandable that it happened early in his career under David Quinn. Game six of the Eastern Conference final in 2022, and then a couple of times last season, and now most recently, less than a week ago here under Peter Lavillette, who had a lot of candidates to scratch. Kako voiced his displeasure pretty strongly. and then less than 36 hours later, he's Seattle Cracken.

So I don't know that those last two things are necessarily connected. This was, I think he was probably among the under 28 crowd on the Rangers. He was maybe the most expendable. You know, he's a guy who came in with a well-earned reputation in amateurs in Finland and in the world juniors as a guy who looked like he could be kind of the next-gen, power forward in the NHL. It's big body. He was unafraid to go to the net. And he's still that, but his scoring touch kind of disappeared on him for a while.

He's started to remake himself based on the minutes that he had here as a third line, 200-foot type guy who can still provide offense. I think as far as chances for and against on, when on the ice, he was among the leaders and forwards in terms of suppressing chances. So he knows what to do with the defensive end. on this team doesn't seem to really matter because they give up chances by the bushelful every game. So it was like a drop in the ocean to have that guy out there.

But when the season started for the first 10 games, even when they were going well, the best line was Philippe, Kako, and Will Cooley. And taking that guy off of this roster right now and maybe replacing him with Brett Burrard, who's been a plucky young rookie who's come up in the last few games and played hard, but not really had much of an impact or someone else that they could bring it from the HL. I think it lessens what they need right now. But I think in the big picture, he was probably the one to go.

I think he knew it. He has always been kind of that Euro-candid NHLer where he speaks very plainly about his plight and the situation on the team. He wanted some power play minutes. He was never going to get them with this group here. So now he goes to a team that's pretty light on skill. that plays hard, plays fast. We'll see what he can do in Seattle.

And I think bringing in a guy like Will Borgon, in theory, helps the Rangers because their defense, again, it's been terrible. They don't have a, they traded Jacob Truba, who's kind of their big right shot crease clear. And their play in front of their goalies has been atrocious this year. So maybe he can fix that. But again, if you look big picture, this is a guy who was probably priced out of his future in Seattle being a third pair guy making 2.7. going into UFA, he's going to ask for more for sure because he's still a young guy who can still play decent minutes because he was a top four guy or at least a second pair guy before they brought in Brandon Montser. And he's playing now behind Adam Fox and Braden Schneider. So he's not moving up the ladder here either.

So, you know, big picture, if Taco signs an extension in Seattle and it turns out good and Borgon does not stay with the Rangers because he doesn't want to be a third paired guy, then you've given up the number two overall pick from five years ago for a third and a sixth. So this feels desperate, but frankly, being around this team the last month, desperation is too light a word to describe what's going on here. It's been the most astonishing fall I think I've ever seen of a team, you know, pre-trade deadline before they trade everybody. I mean, I covered plenty of crappy Islanders teams in the 2010s who fell apart for whatever reason as the season went on. But that was, you know, those were teams that were not necessarily designed to be

contenders. I think everybody thought this team is going to be a Stanley Cup contender when the season started and they started 12, 4 and 1, and now we're not even to Christmas and their playoff chances on Dom's model are about 25%, which is completely bonkers to me. The whole thing is wild, really wild. Was there a line of demarcation this year with him? Because I feel like early on it was, you know, you mentioned this. One of the through lines for them was, hey, look what they're getting from the third line. Kako, Heedle, Will Cooley, like. Like you said, that was there. It seemed like it was their most effective combo for a while there.

Was it as just simple as like coolly getting moved around the lineup? Like what happened? What? Because it seemed like he was on track to, you know, really turn into a reliable, you know, a reliable presence on that, on that roster. And it clearly hasn't happened. I think what hurt him is that the top six has been so bad, you know, and those guys are pretty much immovable, you know.

they've been they threw Chris Kreider's name in the in the trade group chat the 31 GM group chat or 32 GM group chat a month ago but you're probably not moving him right now unless you really want to do you think they use do you think that happens in listen what apps because they're all weird that no I don't know I think encrypted apps are are a step beyond some of these GMs I'm not talking about age you have a comment of older gentlemen. But there's some of them who are so private, like so weirdly like I can't let anyone know what I'm cooking. Paranoia does rain, but also these are a lot of ex players who are GMs.

I don't know that they've taken the time since they retired and become GMs to learn all of the ins and outs of encryption. What if it's just Facebook Messenger? I think there's a chance. There's a chance. I think it's just your basic I message. And now you're even assuming that they all are

Apple product users. So I think it's a, there's a lot of green bubbles coming up on this, on this thing. Tulski is, he's using, he's using, uh,

an Android phone. He probably, he's probably using smart to even, he doesn't even pick it up. He's, he's having face to face. He's muted that conversation. Yeah.

So anyways, Arthur. I, I, and just like more generally, not even the season. Who do we, who do we blame for what's become of

Capo Caco, New York Ranger? Like is, is there, where does it, where does it start? Where did, where, like, was there a moment early, early on where, you know, there was, there was the pivot point for him in terms of becoming like a true top six player? Because he's, he's never, it's never, he's never really shown it for any meaningful

amount of time. Yeah. And I think to Arthur, like, we've had this conversation. I think everyone's kind of had this conversation with different prospects and Capocaco's, like a great example of this. Like, he didn't live up to his potential. Like we can acknowledge that. But the Rangers didn't also really foster his development either.

So it's kind of this like, who do we blame and like where do where does he fall on this like sliding scale of like what the hell happened here? Was it his fault? Is it their fault? What's what's going on? I think you can say yes to all of that. You know, the great development debate is always who who's at fault when a. when a highly ranked prospect doesn't pan out, it's the organization.

There's some people that will just default to the organization didn't do right by him. Some people will default to the player. I think it's a combination of things. I just mentioned three different coaches, not necessarily distinct playing styles, but he came in, you know, I think a lot of it,

similar to the kind of the debate that was raging on Alexei Lafranier up until last season, where you come into a team that's emerging out of its rebuild, they've signed big ticket players. They've got some highly skilled guys now who are getting paid, big money, who are veterans who you've put in front of your young guys. And kind of the modern development style is to suck and make sure that your top guys get big minutes through thick and thin.

And sometimes it works. You know, maybe Ottawa and Tim Stutzler are starting to show where they're going to go with this last little stretch. Sometimes it doesn't. everybody who's been a saber for the last 12 plus years. So, you know, you can you can point the finger in a lot of different directions. I think, I think Kako lost a lot of confidence coming over to the NHL because it wasn't, he couldn't just bull his way to the net through a bunch of, you know, underdeveloped 17-year-olds

anymore. And I think as a power forward, that, that takes a long time to develop. You know, I think confidence was a big thing for him early and then once. he got going. You know, I think you think back to the 22 playoff run with the kid line with Lafranier and Heidel and Kako, they were the most exciting trio the Rangers had at times, at least in the win over Carolina, and then in the first couple games against Tampa in the Eastern Conference final, and you go from that to being scratched four games later, I think, you know, sometimes these things get attached to certain guys where he's not a dynamic player. He's not a really fluid skater like Heidel or Lafranier.

He doesn't have the high end individual, create your own stuff, skill like those two guys. He's a, you know, he's, he's kind of a plumber. You know, he's, he's, when he's at his best, he's incredibly good around the net. He doesn't have a terrific scoring touch. I think, you know, if you look at high danger chances and converting them, he's probably low on the list of Ranger forwards over the years. And you can either say, oh, he's unlucky. He's still going to get the chances.

But then you have to say after a few years, maybe that's just not his skill set. Yeah, you got, you got to say this. guys played 330 in hl games right yeah he's gonna be he's gonna be at best a 20 goal score if he gets power play one time 25 goal score he'll be he'll be a guy he'll pop for you for a little while and then he'll just be a solid guy who kills some penalties too you know he has the potential still to be a 19 20 minute a nine guy just because he can he could perform on both special teams he's never really gotten a chance to do that here for whatever reason And so, you know, I think the change of scenery was something that he welcomed.

You know, he's at the end of his bridge deal now. I don't think he's going to get much more than a couple of years. We'll see how maybe, you know, I'm sure he'll just finish out the season before Seattle wants to commit to him if they want to commit to him. But, you know, now I think it's kind of the pivot point for him where will he be another 10 years in the league and become a regular 20, 25 goal guy who can kind of work his way up the lineup and stay there or will he still kind of be mired in that third line no special teams type role and you know i think in a year or two uh like i said if will borgon is no longer a ranger

and copos is on a 20 goal pace for seattle and helps them get in the playoffs and the rangers are sinking down the standings not going to look so good on uh on the garden to yeah well that's now something for the seattle crackin to try to figure out with Capocaco. I want to go back to something that you'd said before we got into, or deeper into the trade conversation, Arthur, and it's just like the mess that has happened in Manhattan this year.

Sean McIndoo did like a really interesting piece, actually, just trying to find precedent for what's happening. President's trophy winners have missed the playoffs in the past. It's not unheard of, but it is very rare. it's also even more rare for this kind of meltdown to be happening. That's two trades now for the Rangers.

If we're thinking of Truba and Kako in the last couple weeks, Chris Kreider's number one on trade on big board trade boards. You're saying he's in the GM group chats. The name's being plopped in. Like what is going on with the Rangers? Maybe we don't have time to get into all that. I'll try to, I'll try to sum it up, but, you know, it started in the summer.

And you can say that Chris Jury, with the full blessing of James Dole and the owner, who is known to be maybe sometimes an impatient person, especially given the years of the letter that he was pretty patient and they rebuilt and restocked and did all that stuff. And now that they've been good the last few years, I think there's an impatience to finally get to a final, to win a Stanley Cup. So that bled into, let's create some cap space because the summer is a lot easier to change the roster around. They play hardball with Berkeley Goodrow, ask him to, you know, didn't even ask him to waive is no trade. They just said, you're going on waivers.

They didn't handle it in the most elegant manner calling him up, I think 15 minutes before 2 o'clock or whatever, whenever the summer waiver wires comes out with a prearranged deal for him to be picked up by San Jose. So they push out a guy who they brought in, Jury's first move, when he became GM, was to trade for Goodrow's rights and sign him to the six-year deal that I think everybody knew was way too long and way too expensive for a fourth-line guy. But, you know, he saw in the playoffs last year, this is a guy who gets hot at the right time, and he can certainly help. And I think he helped a lot in the room, too. So that's number one. Within a week of that, there's rumors coming out that they want to move Jacob Truba,

conversations between Chris jury and Truba's agent go nowhere because Truba's wife has a year left on her residency in a New York hospital. And he's the captain and he doesn't feel like it's his time to move because he's earned his right to kind of dictate his spot. Yeah. Which is fair. Right. You've got you've got all that going into the season, which, you know, they're not, they do have a lot of guys who've been there a long time and a lot of guys who are fan favorites and who are well liked in the room and the organization, but they're not the reason that Truba was the captain as a guy who was relatively new in the last few years. There's a reason that they brought in Barclay Goodrow and put an A on him.

It's, they don't have a lot of, like, grab guys by the throat and pull him along. So it's starting to fracture a little bit. Truba clearly is bothered by the fact that he knows this is his last year. He's not performing the way that he needs to on the ice. He's not leading the team. There's no pushback within the room.

It's not all on Truba, but they're just, they don't respond, even though they start off great because the goaltending is good and they've got the guys who they've got. Management is still searching for answers. And once they hit a rough patch out in Western Canada and the bad loss to Edmonton was kind of the breaking point, that group chat message goes out, Truba's names in it, Criter's names in it. You've got the captain again. you've got the longest tenured guy, most popular guy among fans, probably because Chris Carter has been here so long and done so much. And now the room is completely moribund. Like, nothing can rouse them. And they keep digging deeper and deeper. And they don't really have Peter Lobilette, you throw in his decline in all the places he's been in his second and third

year, which he doesn't even really get beyond a third year, even no matter how good the first year is and maybe his inability to adapt to a changing environment and changing situations. So everybody is doubling down on the misery of the GM says, like, well, now the guys are showing me who they are and we definitely need to blow it up and change. How do you do that in November and December without detonating the season? So they dig deeper and deeper. You know, it's kind of this vicious cycle of if you're a player, even a player, even a player who's making millions of dollars and you know you performed at a high level if your own bosses

are saying hey we want to get rid of you even though you've got 55 games left doesn't bring a lot of incentive to the table to perform at your highest level unless you really want to showcase yourself for somebody else so it's um it's a lot of it's a lot of blame it's all self-inflicted nobody has done this to the rangers they didn't get hit with like a rash of terrible injuries or or they didn't fire a coach where they brought in somebody new and everybody was all out of sorts or take out the most popular guy in the room and get rid of him for nothing, you know, for nothing. You know, it's, it's been, it's been organizational. And that's the part that I think is, is the most confounding, I think, to the fans.

Because, you know, people were comparing them the 94 team last year. Right. With how good you were. I mean, that was, that was going to be my. next question like what part of what's gone on this year is surprised you most because I feel like if you look at the list of things like some of this stuff was maybe kind of predictable maybe not to the extent that we've seen it and then some of it seems like it came out of left field so what's gone on over the last couple months that's left you like you know with your mouth open you know

that metaphorically I guess the complete malaise around the team just how quickly it enveloped them It wasn't, the vibes were definitely off from the start of the season because of what happened last summer. And, you know, there's, the garden is, is a rough place to work. They've gotten rid of a lot of people, support staff that, that Chris Drury got rid of, which is his right. But I think a lot of the people, you know, Glenn Sather was a guy who was not only an okay general manager and president for his long tenure there, but he knew how to manage up. He knew how to handle James Dolan and that, you know, dealing with your owner as a team president is part of the gig. John Davidson, same thing. You know, been around the garden a long time, knew how to deal with James Dolan, maybe how to keep him at bay from his more rash impulses, shall we say.

And those guys are gone. A few other people who could serve as buffers have been gone for a few years now. So it's really just Dolan and jury. and they are very much aligned and how they want to operate, but it's a little bit, it's a little bit kind of chaotic. And, you know, you can keep that at bay from your room. I think, you know, McIndo's piece is great to point that out. But I think when you look at some of those teams,

if you ever were to talk to guys who were on those teams or around those teams that had those big declines, it's not because they all forgot how to play hockey. There's always extenuating circumstances. And I think the main extenuating circumstances, the garden is a tough place to work. And they've made it tougher over the last couple of years. And it's starting to seep into the room. It's, I think fans don't want to hear it because players are special.

They're supposed to be special. That's how they got to where they are. But they're also humans. And they can, they'll respond to their environment the way that the rest of us do when our workplace is a crappy environment. And now here we are. It sounds kind of mundane to say like, well, they just don't enjoy going to work. But, you know, I think that's.

somehow a part of it and it's become worse and worse and worse because the season is such a grind, especially this time of year. You don't see a lot of people. This is why teams don't make the playoffs when they're four or five points out this time of year because it's hard to dig out of it. It's a long season. And they've made it

way worse on themselves. Oh, the malaise. Seasonal effective disorder has struck the garden, baby. Me and the Rangers, sad that it's dark at 3 p.m. I'm just kidding. Thanks for doing this, Arthur.

We didn't even get time to talk about the Islanders. Yeah, you can just, there's always, there's always read the last next kid. You can read about the Islanders on the athletic.com. I guess it's the New York Times.com now. Is it time for the Islanders to move on from Lou Lamarillo? Question mark.

That's from Arthur Staple this morning. It's a good read. I recommend it. We're having great times here in New York with all of our hockey teams. Everything is awesome Guys you got the next man Guess what The New York Sirens

Very good hockey club They won again last night There we go If you a fan Have Rangers Malays Go to a sirens game You'll be fine It's way more fun

Better vibes You could hang up with Greg Wasinski He was there last night Oh wow What an honor All right Thanks Arthur Thanks guys.

All right. Thank you to Arthur Staple for coming on and breaking that down. I'm glad that he was the first one outside of our intro to talk about what a mess it is. Like I didn't have to say, hey, it's been a bit of a mess over there. What's going on? I'm glad she did that for me. Also, it didn't even have to directly ask the James Dolan question. So we saved this some time at the end because that was definitely coming.

Arthur just walked us right up to it, which is like the same. biggest thing from our chat it should scare rangers fans the most is that it's christ jerry and it's james dullen and they're the ones that are making decisions and and uh and without the necessary kind of insulation that you'd like to see between uh between ownership and and decision makers right like because we've seen it from dolin we've seen it from him to some extent with the rangers we've seen it to a disastrous extent with the Knicks. When that guy gets involved, stuff gets ugly in a hurry. So that's like Arthur says that and alarm bells are going off and sirens are flashing. I'm like, this is, this is,

this has the potential to get real ugly and in a real hurry. And on next week's show, you can hear Sean go on a rant about the other sports owners in New York State. Yeah, I'll just I'll just I'll just make my way through the the loser Trice State area yeah of of teams in the in the great state of New York talked about Terry Pagoula yesterday yeah he's one side of the coin we talked to we're talking about James Dolen today he's the other yeah you have you have disengaged disinterested asleep at the wheel ownership on on one side then you have overly involved entitled maniac billionaires at at the other. It's interesting. There are two separate types, two separate types of owners,

I think. And very few of them are good. Yeah. I do think on a more serious note, all jokes aside, I do think my biggest takeaway was like if we are agreeing with Arthur's assessment that a lot of what's gone on in New York has been self-inflicted by management. which and the moves that management is made, which began in the summer, if you're a rangers fan, why would you feel optimistic about management's ability to fix it? And that isn't even considering like the James Dolan effect, right? It's just like if these are the people, the nameless, faceless people who are making the decisions to get us out of this mess, but they're the ones that got us in it, or no like real rhyme or reason, I guess, yeah,

you want to get some cap space. But like what did they, they didn't do anything with it. They just created cap space and then created problems for themselves. Yeah. Like the whole Barclay Goddrow thing, you can,

if you're a fan, you can get behind that if it's like, we're going to go and make a meaningful move. But they're not even going to get to a point where they can make a meaningful move unless there is some kind of rabbit out of a hat thing they can do that will make the Ranger, like a retool on the fly,

Rangers are good again kind of thing. It's just, and I don't know why any fans would feel like that's going to happen based on what they've seen. Yeah. In an even more blunt way to put it as like, what is Chris Jerry done that's good? Where are the moves that he's made that have made the Rangers a demonstrably better team over the last couple years? Like drafting Will Cooley, developing Will Cooley, okay, points for that. But aside from that, like, where are the points on this roster, short term and long term you can look at and say like all right good move it's signing lafranair to like a pretty a pretty good

extension it's making sure that they avoid disaster with shisterkin and then it's what and i think that's a valid question at this point because all the things that arthur said about how miserable the players are and and and all that it goes directly back to the jm's chair like we like and we can sit here i can sit here and talk about what a goofball james dolellan is it it's true but ultimately he's not guy who's making these calls. He's not he's not the guy who's who's pulling the trigger on these decisions. It's Chris Jerry and he is all of all of a sudden piloting a team that has seen its playoff chances dip below 25% according to, according to the last model. That is a disaster. He's it he and he needs to start wearing this stuff. And I think that's kind of what,

what the return on Kako has, uh, that bigger picture for me is, is, is what that means. Yeah. I just kind of got rid of them for not a whole lot. All right. I think that's good enough for today. I think so. That was our mini trade deadline breakdown with Arthur Staple. Our mini holiday edition of the trade deadline. Rosser freeze tonight. Yes. Roster freeze 11.59 p.m. Maybe there'll be three more trades. And the prospect guys can talk about that because maybe it'll be prospect trades. Maybe they'll talk about Carrier. I don't know what they're talking about. I'm sorry. Read the show description before you log on, hoping for Carrier chat. Okay.

Thanks for everyone for listening to this episode of the Athletic Hockey Show. I was joking, but I'm serious. Max Boltman, Corey Promin, Scott Wheeler, and Chris Peters have the prospect series on the next athletic hockey show. That's on Friday. Sean and I will be back on Boxing Day. That's December 26th for our Canadian. listeners because I don't think Boxing Day exists in America. It does.

Sure, it does. But it's celebrated by only those with impeccable taste. Does my family have a boxing party every year? Yes. What's involved? Tell me everything. Pizza, manly. We just sit around and you pizza.

That's nice. Pajamas involved? Like pajama pizza party? Never. Never, not once. I've never in my life worn matching pajamas with any other human being. 38 years old and it will never happen.

It has never and will never happen. Okay. Well, we'll be back on Boxing Day in our matching pajamas. False. And Jeff, the three of us, and Bono, all of us on our Zooms, will wear matching athletic pajamas.

And we're going to break down the top stories of 2024. Until then, have a happy holiday, everyone.