Rangers Are Buyers. Who Would Have Thought?

The Rangers have wisely gone out on Trade Deadline day and spent away prospects like Dawes and Prucha for Derek Morris. Gave away a second round pick and a conditional for Nik Antropov.

Wow. The Rangers carry the torch for the Yankees in baseball offseason. Big stunner.

Are these 2 players going to fix the lack of production that the Rangers currently face? I doubt it. The reason the Rangers "needed" to go out and get these players is because of the fat contracts they currently have with Gomez, Drury and Redden. Trading for 2 average players and selling away future assets to get them isn't going to fix past blunders. This is a lesson learned the hard way by the Capitals. In 2002 the Capitals bought Jagr, bought Lang and tried to buy a stanley cup. Much like the Rangers have been doing. That failed big time, so the Caps rebuilt. Look where the Capitals are now, a division leader (with no one close) and a team fighting for first in the conference with its best days still to come.

The Rangers on the other hand have accrued a team good enough to lose in the first round of the playoffs, keep pushing the salary cap with overpaid underperforming players and secure a draft pick in the bottom 15 of every draft, giving them average prospects, until the team is firesold.

Many teams in the east have gone the way of re-building. Pittsburgh and Washington have rebuilt and are on their way to stanley cups, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and the New York Islanders are currently in stages of the rebuild. The rebuild takes patience and foresight. These teams are building the painful and time consuming way.

The Rangers just don't get it. Stop spending to make the playoffs, start building to win championships.

Rangers trade deadline grade: F-

Pens fan check in on trade deadline eve.

(Sweet jersey there Tampa--image from NHL.com)

I go out of town for the weekend, and come back to CF-Tabaracci running the show on dangleblog-CF/PF. Give Caps fans an inch--just kidding--good to have the caps spin on this blog up and running.

Although the Pens have a big game against the Panthers coming up (good lord, I can't believe I'm typing that) they can't look past tonight's tilt with Tampa. The cliche has been thrown out there daily, but at this point gotta win games at a 2 out of 3 pace for the most part.

Sid is out for the 4th consecutive game...which by the way, the Pens are 4-0 thus far without Crosby this year. TRADE CROSBY FOR A BAG OF PUCKS!!!!11

And in a CFPF sidestory, we should hand out contributing blogger job apps to the BOLTS, because as CF-Tabaracci has pointed out, they are essentially the TB Capguins(a look at the score sheet will show: Eminger, Hall, Halpern, Malone, Melichar, Pettinger, and before tonight Roberts--and I also forgot Heward, Kolzig and Recchi, good call CF-Tabaracci)

As shown in the pic above, the BOLTS have unreal 3rd jerseys, I wouldn't say they are quite up there with 90s StL Blues jerseys...but still pretty hideous.

Go Pens.

Trade fan vs Deadline fan: The countdown is on for the 3 pm(EST) deadline tomorrow that has snuck up on CF-PF bloggers fast.

From the Penguins front, they waived Satan today, and it seems to be a move intended to get his attention. Although he has picked it up recently, he hasn't been gritty, he hasn't been a two-way player(think Kovalchuk only a tad less talented) and he has been an enigma to say the least. His 3.4 mil cap hit will most likely deter anyone from grabbing him, hence why it is most likely a message. I doubt Shero will be upset if he has an extra 3.4 mil of cap space before the deadline is over though...

Other than the big rumors out there, and names being thrown around as "deadline movers," the deadline has been relatively quiet. We will definitely be keeping an eye on what the Florida Panthers do, they definitely have a say in how the EC Playoff picture is going to look in the coming week.s

In general NHL news, VS mentioned that Roberts was released, Backstrom (G for Wild), Avery officially joined the Rangers and that Vanek was coming back.

Also, this being my first chance to chime in on the Whitney trade...I must say thus far Kunitz has impressed me. Losing Whitney hurts, yes. But, it was starting to look like he just may not live up to his expectations year in and year out. Tangradi could turn out to be the centerpiece of the deal...Shero says he is very raw, but definitely has some upside and ability as a power forward, but this all remains to be seen.

PS: Idea...any thoughts on liveblogging games for both teams? Probably not every game, but some of the more important ones, playoffs, etc. My worry is it may cramp the main page, but with links and jumps(things we are working on--be patient)...could work. If CFPF team isn't able to make it down to Verizon(I'm sure Ted would prefer only 1/3 of the blog there) for the game this Sunday, maybe a good time to test run the idea. Feedback greatly appreciated.