February 2, 2010
Driving To The Net
Sather Successfully Improves Rangers

by Timo Seppa

Few general managers in the NHL are under as much scrutiny by fans and the media as Glen Sather of the New York Rangers. Heck, some yahoo out there is even organizing a “Fire Sather” rally outside Madison Square Garden before the Sabres game on March 7th. Once upon a time on Broadway, Slats’ cache––as architect of the great Edmonton Oilers’ championship teams of the 80’s––gave him a modicum of respect coming in the door at “The World’s Most Famous Arena” (Which is actually pretty good for New York; ask Joe Torre). Picking up a general manager savvy enough to have built a dynasty in a small market initially fueled hopes––cautious hopes––of a Big Apple revival, but after immediate and repeated failures, those hopes disappeared in a proverbial New York minute, along with said cache and respect. Fast forward to the present, and most diehard Rangers’ fans haven’t forgiven or forgotten Sather’s part (assist: Neil Smith) in the seven year long postseason drought from 1997-08 to 2003-04––a mind-boggling drought, given New York’s pre-salary cap financial advantages––and view the team’s recent playoff overachievements as serendipitous happenstance, occurring in spite of the roster mess Slats has created. Regardless of those limited postseason successes, no pom-pom waving fan or sane analyst out there would consider the Rangers as anything but a fringe playoff team, either in 2009-10 or beyond – and that’s assuming continued good health for team cornerstones Henrik Lundqvist and Marian Gaborik.

On a day when Toronto’s Brian Burke––perhaps the only GM more scrutinized than Sather––pulled off one big deal and one mega-deal, old Slats fared quite well for himself, too, thank you. Well, almost.

Reports emerged late Sunday night that Sather had been successful in swinging a trade for solid but declining scorer C Olli Jokinen and tough guy LW Brandon Prust of Calgary in exchange for defense-averse RW Ales Kotalik and virtually talentless C Christopher Higgins – a coup for the Rangers’ GM both in terms of talent picked up as well as bad contracts shed. But what looked like a done deal around the time that Marian Gaborik was notching his hat trick against Colorado soon became uncertain, with the deal going into limbo for the next 24 hours-plus. Rumors abounded of underrated rookie defenseman Matt Gilroy’s potential inclusion in the deal instead of Higgins (oddly, both sides apparently valued Higgins more highly than Gilroy – an indictment on each general manager’s judgment) as well as talk of Kotalik possibly exercising a limited no-trade clause to stay away from Calgary (What, he wanted to stay in Torts’ doghouse, a perpetual healthy scratch?). Stranger yet, with the trade hanging in the balance, Calgary’s brain trust––GM Darryl Sutter and head coach Brent Sutter––bizarrely allowed both Jokinen and Prust to play in a 3-0 loss to Philadelphia on Monday night; can you imagine the embarrassment if even a minor injury was suffered by either player, putting the deal in jeopardy? But all’s well that ends well enough: Sutter and Sather finally pulled the trigger on the original Gilroy-free deal as Monday night turned into Tuesday, which absolutely helps the offense-starved Rangers:

Legend:

OGVT: Offensive GVT

DGVT: Defensive GVT

SGVT: Shootout GVT

TGVT: Total GVT (Goals Versus Threshold)

Players going to Calgary Flames from New York Rangers

Name	      Pos GP  G  A  P  +/- OGVT  DGVT SGVT TGVT  Contract
Ales Kotalik  RW  45  8  14 22 -18  1.0  -0.4 -0.2  0.4  $3.00M through 2011-12
Chris Higgins C	  54  6   8 14  -8 -1.1   1.5 -0.2  0.2  $2.25M through 2009-10

Rumored, but not traded from the New York Rangers

Name	      Pos GP  G  A  P  +/- OGVT  DGVT SGVT TGVT  Contract
Matt Gilroy   D	  50  4	 5  9	+4  0.4	  2.7  0.0  3.2	 $1.4M in 09-10; 
                                                         $2.1M in 10-11

Players going to New York Rangers from Calgary Flames

		
Name	      Pos  GP  G  A  P  +/- OGVT  DGVT SGVT TGVT  Contract
Olli Jokinen  C    55 11 24 35	 +3  2.3   1.8	1.6  5.8  $5.5M through 2009-10
Brandon Prust C/LW 42  1  4  5	 +6 -1.1   1.0	0.0  0.0  $525,000 through
                                                          2009-10

From the top level, you can see that the Rangers gained 5.8 GVT for 0.6 GVT (partial season values), at only a slightly greater cost for this season, while ridding themselves of Kotalik’s undeserved $3 million for each of 2010-11 and 2011-12. That’s a win for Slats, plain and simple. The inclusion of Gilroy instead of Higgins in the trade would have narrowed the talent gap to 5.8 GVT to 3.6 GVT, decreased Calgary’s cost for this season, and left the Sutters with a talented young defenseman signed for a reasonable $2.1 million for 2010-11. That deal might have even been looked at as a win for the Flames down the road. Overall, it’s odd that Darryl Sutter went out of his way to trade a major asset––24 year old defenseman Dion Phaneuf––for scoring depth at forward in one deal and then traded away scoring depth at forward in another deal. The Phaneuf trade was exactly what the doctor ordered for the Flames––although they could have held out for Tomas Kaberle––as Calgary has one of the lowest GF of any playoff contender. It’s puzzling that the positive effect was diminished by dealing Jokinen for junk.

How much will Jokinen help the Rangers this season? With only Marian Gaborik (15.0 GVT), Brandon Dubinsky (6.2 GVT) and Vinny Prospal (5.3 GVT) providing New York with the level of play you’d expect from legitimate top six forwards, the veteran Finn will significantly improve New York’s scoring. What might be a relatively measly 11 goals, 24 assists, 35 points on another team puts Jokinen squarely in third place among Blue Shirts’ skaters for all those stats. The Rangers likely hope that the overall effect is greater than that, by boosting the quality of Gaborik’s linemates. The 31 year old journeyman is also an outstanding shootout performer (5 for 9, 55.6% this season and 14 for 35, 40.0% career), which makes up for one of Kotalik’s few positives historically. And if you were wondering, Jokinen is an average faceoff man (49.3%).

The trade is one step, but there’s still plenty of work to be done to get the Rangers to a higher level than “fringe playoff contender”. While it’s nice to have taken care of the contractual mistakes of Scott Gomez and Ales Kotalik, there are some even bigger millstones left for Sather to rid himself of: namely Wade Redden, Chris Drury and Michal Rozsival. The trio is responsible for tying up a whopping $22 million in 2009-10 (the cap hit is slightly lower, but they still account for roughly a third of available cap space), $18.5 million in 2010-11, $14.5 million in 2011-12, $5 million in 2012-13 (Redden only) and $5 million in 2013-14 (Redden only). Think about it: a paltry 12 GVT may cost the Rangers $22 million this season. If you said “Yikes!”, that makes at least two of us. While just about every team has its bad contracts, not many teams have this many, this bad. It will take significant creativity for Sather to clear the remaining stinkers off the books, leaving enough cap space to sign the next wave of––hopefully legit––stars.

While the path traveled has been far less than ideal––frankly not giving much confidence in a better managed future for the Broadway Blues––you can’t argue that the last handful of Slats’ player moves has been a significant net positive for the Rangers. It’s a long road to hoe, but who knows? Pigs may fly, and Glen Sather and Jim Dolan may have their hands on the Stanley Cup some day relatively soon at Madison Square Garden, maybe circa 2012-13. For now, give the man his due. Hold off on that Fire Sather rally for a bit, will youse?

I can’t believe I just said that.

Timo Seppa runs the statistical hockey site Ice Hockey Metrics. Follow Timo on Twitter at @timoseppa.

Timo Seppa is an author of Hockey Prospectus. You can contact Timo by clicking here or click here to see Timo's other articles.