E-mail from the Ranger Pundit:
The News has a poll on who to keep and who to dump. Interesting. Two things standout to me. Number one, Avery leads all players as a keeper and for a strange reason 60% want to keep Rozsival. I will soon be posting my thoughts on who I think the Rangers should keep...NY Daily News:
Who should the Rangers keep or dump? -- The Rangers' run ended on a low note, with a second-round playoff defeat at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Looking ahead to next year, the News wants to know which players you'd keep - and which ones you'd dump.
[results below as of 10pm May 8th]
Rozival is a defensive nightmare. I'll never forget the way he killed us taking 3 penalties in a row the last game against the Pens, UNACCEPTABLE!!! On the other hand he has put up solid offensive numbers the last 3 seasons and has had a decent plus minus the previous 2. I wonder what he would do without Jagr, but I WOULD resign Rozival for less than $4 million. If not go after LILES, Jason Smith, and KOLYNIN. Shanny is a keeper on the 4th line and special teams. His leadership is what will keep him here. Straka is just taking up space. It's gonna be adeep draft year, I would trade our 20th pick and Backman to get a solid, mobile, crease clearing d-man.
On the plus side Rozsival is still under 30, he'll be 30 in Sept. So he should have some good 'for him' years left in the tank. But some are saying he'll get $4-6 million. He doesn't seem worth that. I put him in the Tom Poti category of defenseman. I think Poti is getting $3.5M/year with the Caps.
Speaking of defensemen in their prime can you believe that Chris Chelios is still playing good hockey for Detroit at age 46! So that makes Brendan Shanahan a mere lad at 39. I like him, but I think his wheels are shot, as a 4th liner/PP backup, at a Chelios type $800k/yr price I would say keep him.
The whole Czech experiment didn't work here. Straka, Rozsival, Jagr, Malik all had their chance to do it. We've had wimpy Euro hockey for too long. Let's get some good old North Am. smash mouth types. By the way when the Pens got 6'7" Hal Gil at defense for their playoff run they also got an ex-high school quarterback. The Rangers got an ex-high school band member in Christian Backman.