Nice job out of Jess Rubenstein (Prospect Park) and friends as they put together a new online hockey magazine: Hock.ly, that previews the 2013 NHL draft in their first issue.
Go full screen mode to get the full effect.
We created a beer fridge and took it to Europe. There was only one way to open it -- a Canadian passport #IAMCANADIAN
For those of us, me, waiting for the Stealth GM to make a dramatic choice, go outside the box, we were disappointed as the move was predictable. He passed up bold, by not going after Mike Keenan. He will be back in the NHL within two years after his Russian stint. He passed up dramatic, by passing on an anxious and ready Mark Messier, who surely will soon leave the Ranger organization. New Jersey anyone?
Make no mistake Alain Vigneault was the safe choice. Among the pretenders for all the coaching jobs he had the highest winning percentage. He was coach of the year in 2006-07. Two times his Vancouver Canucks team won the President's Trophy, 2010-11 and 2011-12. His 2010-11 team lost to the Bruins in seven for the Stanley Cup. The seventh game was lost at home. So Vigneault has a resume. This year's team was swept in the first round by the sixth seeded Sharks, which means that Vigneault comes to the Big Apple on a downer. So why five years?
He is the Stealth's fifth coach and the previous one lasted four and a half years. What are the odds he makes the end of his term? Win the Cup and he gets a Broadway Parade. Don't win the Cup and he still makes a lot of money, $10 million, and goes on to another job. So we have a safe choice from the man who really is the one that should be fired. Fourteen years and counting on a dismal performance. No other New York team GM would have survived this mediocrity. What is it about the Ranger franchise that tolerates this ineptness? It's called money. The dough is rolling in with the Garden tenants and that is all that matters.
Good luck Alain Vigneault!
Today, Alain Vigneault was introduced as the 35th head coach of the New York Rangers.
The press conference:
"I will use my offensive players more in the offensive zone...it's the right place for them to start and gives them more opportunities for them to have success, and then those other players are put in the right situation, too," Vigneault explained. "My job is to win games, get the most out of our players, so I need to put them in positions to succeed."Clearly this was all music to Sather's ears because as the Rangers GM spoke with reporters on Friday he consistently mentioned that a change in playing style was critical to move the Blueshirts forward as a team.
"I think we needed a change in style," stated Sather. "If you look at the injuries we have had over the years, the number of guys who really were getting the crap kicked out of them in our end because we constantly had to defend our own end...that style was perfect here for a number of years, but I think it started to wear our team out. There's nothing wrong with that style, but it was taking a toll on our hockey club. So it was time to do something to change the style so that we could go further and compete longer."
It has been pointed out that the Stanley Cup looks like the Hubble Space Telescope. Whoever wins it will be flying high.
Despite reports that Tortorella was heading into the last year of his contract in 2013-14, ESPNNewYork.com confirmed via a source close to the coach on Wednesday that he signed an extension during the season. That means that the Rangers will still be on his hook for his salary for the remainder of the contract -- believed to be three years -- even once they name a new coach.
Glen Sather is now conducting a job hunt for his 6th head coach. What is the record for most head coaches hired and fired under a GM anyway? When is this GM going to be held accountable for the failures of his many coaches?
Michael Kay of ESPN New York radio, FM 98.7, is one of the few media personalities, who has consistently been an outspoken critic of New York Rangers GM, Glen Sather. Here at the start of the podcast of his May 29th, ESPN radio show Kay tears into the "Teflon" GM, and asks why hasn't Glen Sather been fired. His sidekick and MSG radio guy, Don La Greca, does his job in carrying water for the MSG organization.
Later on (at the 35:40 mark) they discuss the coaching candidates with Barry Melrose.
You could make points on why this guy (Tortorella) should be fired... His system doesn't seem like it's a smart system, when you have a great goalie. The power play was abysmal this year. They (the Rangers) can't score. They just can't. So I get it...
But when you have a GM, who seems to be Teflon, for lack of a better word. And then he has the gall, the unmitigated gall to pretty much say Stanley Cup or bust when you haven't won anything in your 13 years running the Rangers. Many of those years without the restraints of a salary cap, when you could have got any player you wanted, spent any money you wanted and still didn't go to the playoffs. I think you have to be held accountable as well. That's my problem with his firing... not so much that Tortorella is gone, but that Sather is still there saying what he is saying. And this is a very experienced guy. He's been in hockey forever. He played for the Rangers so he knows what New York is about. For him to use that phraseology about well, you know, we're in it to win the Stanley Cup. And, you know, he (Tortorella) didn't get it done. Well, neither did you and you still have your job. Obviously he can't speak to himself being fired. And Jim Dolan doesn't talk, publicly. I'd like to ask Jim Dolan, why does Glen Sather still have his job?
