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"Blueline Blast"

NJ • 29 Years Old • Male

Oh-so-trendy: Let's Blame Sather!

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say something that many of you will find to be absolutely ludicrous: Glen Sather has done a fantastic job since 07.

Yes, THAT Sather. I will go as far to say that Sather made only two glaring post-lockout mistakes: signing TWO free agent centers in the summer of 07 and inking Redden.

In the 07 offseason, Sather probably should have re-signed Michael Nylander and made a play to grab ONE of the free agent centers instead of two. This way, the Rangers would still have a top 6 pivot to play with Jaromir Jagr if they failed to make a splash in free agency. Nylander and Jagr had killer offensive chemistry and there is little doubt it would have continued in 07-08. Who knows, had it went down this way we may still be watching Jagr on Broadway.

The following offseason, he should have overpaid Rozsival and went after a cheaper option that could play a little offense on the backline instead of overpaying BOTH Rozsival and Redden.

After that, how can you blame him for anything else he's done post-lockout? Jagr, Brendan Shanahan, Sean Avery and Martin Straka were all forwards that were getting a lot of ice time and by most accounts were playing their last season for New York in 07-08. Somehow Sather would have to find a way to replace these forwards - no easy task.

But Sather got to work. He traded Fedor Tyutin and Christian Backman for Nik Zherdev and Dan Fritsche to acquire a talented scoring winger. He signed Markus Naslund at a relatively cheap clip for 2 years. He fired Tom Renney (too late but much earlier than i expected) and replaced him with the best coach out there, John Tortorella. He traded a maligned defensemen and two undersized RFA's to be, Kalinin/Dawes/Prucha for an upgrade on the backline (Derek Morris), and managed to add size up front by getting Nik Antropov for a 2nd rounder - not to mention the 2nd he just received as compensation for the Alexei Cherepanov death, all thanks to his presentation at the gm's meeting. And he added Sean Avery at half-price.

Look - the Rangers are by no means a contender, but looking back I can say that those were some good moves. Do they cancel out his ineptitude prior to the lockout? No, but Sather deserves to stick around despite what happens this season.

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