For any and all Rangers' fans who still cling to the silly belief that acquiring Jack Eichel is the ticket to a future Stanley Cup championship, I hope they had a chance to watch game five of the finals last night between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Montreal Canadiens. The Bolts, behind Conn-Smythe Trophy winner Andrei Vasilevskiy, shutout the Habs 1-0 to capture their second consecutive Cup.
The significance of this achievement cannot be overstated. Consider the following: In the final round, Brayden Point, the NHL leader in postseason goals with 14, didn't score once. Nikita Kucherov, the leading scorer in the postseason, had a grand total of three points, all in game one. Steven Stamkos scored his one and only goal of the series on the power play, also in game one. Alex Killorn, third on the team in playoff scoring, went down with an injury in game one and missed the rest of the series.
And yet this team still managed to hoist the Cup last night. How was that possible? Simple, because for all their world-class talent, the Lightning have some of the best and grittiest foot soldiers in the NHL.
Players like Ross Colton, Blake Coleman, Barclay Goodrow, Pat Maroon, Yanni Gourde, David Savard and Anthony Cirelli are the reasons this team won back-to-back championships. Shit, they're the reason they got past the Islanders in the semifinals. Cirelli was the best player on the ice in games six and seven of that series. He set up Gourde's short-handed tally in game seven, the only goal of the game. It was Coleman's goal in game two of the finals that proved to be the difference. It was Maroon's goal that sent game four into overtime. And it was Goodrow's shot-blocking prowess that allowed Colton's tip in in the second period of game five to stand as the lone goal; that and the clutch goaltending of Vasilevskiy.
For less than what it would cost the Rangers to acquire Eichel, they could easily sign three players like Coleman, Goodrow and Colton. The first two are UFAs; the last is an RFA with matching rights. But since the Lightning are already over the Cap and will have to shed salary during the offseason, it is unlikely they will be able to retain him. A total of $9 million per year for all three should do it.
They could then trade Filip Chytil, Vitali Kravtsov and their number one draft pick to Tampa for Cirelli who is a future star in the making. On defense, they could re-sign Brendon Smith to a one-year deal for $1.5 million and trade Zac Jones and a second-round pick to the St Louis Blues for Vince Dunn, who they would then sign to a three-year deal for $3.5 million per.
Think of the possibilities. Ryan Strome centering Artemi Panarin on the left and Colman on the right; Mika Zibanejad centering Chris Kreider on the left and Colin Blackwell on the right; Cirelli centering Alexis Lafreniere on the left and Kaapo Kakko on the right; and Colton centering Goodrow on the left and Gauthier on right. The defensive pairings would be Jacob Trouba / K'Andre Miller, Adam Fox / Ryan Lindgren, and Smith / Dunn.
Over night, the Rangers would be a deeper, tougher team to play against. Apart from Panarin, not a single player would be at or over the $10 million mark. And best of all, the Rangers would still have the cap space needed to sign their young, budding stars to the contracts they will undoubtedly deserve in 2022 and 2023.
I will keep saying it until the doubters are convinced. To win in the NHL these days you need players that are willing to deliver and take a check. Anybody can score against teams that don't play defense. The real challenge comes when you try to score against teams that defend well, and against those teams, the Rangers struggled mightily last season.
Chris Drury, I'm sure, realizes this. At the press conference to introduce Gerard Gallant, he said, "It’s hard not to watch these playoffs and notice the physicality, the energy, the effort and the intensity it takes to win and to succeed and we’re certainly going to need to play that way to have success in the regular season and in the playoffs."
That's why it's imperative that he resist the urge to go for the glitter and instead grab the grit. It won't be the sexy move, but it will help this franchise, which has now gone 27 years without a Cup, get closer to the Holy Grail.
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