GG is the Ranger's winningest coach ever after two seasons. Panarin is the problem on this squad. When your best player disappears in the playoffs it's very hard to recover.
You trade Panarin in part to open up the indisputable LW spot for Lafreniere and get your full season look at him in top 6 and on PP1. The Rangers are critically short at RW and you also have to get the full look at Kakko in that situation. Panarin will not be hard to trade if the Rangers can get him to waive the NMC. It's really important that the Rangers not make the mistake with their young wingers that Ottawa made with Zibanejad. Why do I bring Mika up? At age 21 after 4 seasons in the NHL Zibanejad had 43 goals. At age 21 after 4 seasons in the NHL Kakko has 44 goals. At age 21 after 3 seasons in the NHL Lafreniere has 47 goals. The only Ranger on the roster this year who had more goals than any of those guys at 21 was Patrick Kane.
Gerard Gallant struggles to make in-game or in-series adjustments. It’s a coaches job to see how and why his star player is struggling, and to put him in a position to succeed. He cannot do that and it’s why he’s going to get fired. He had the exact roster he wanted. He was the one that wanted Kane. He got the 6th defenseman he wanted. He got Tarasenko. He couldn’t get it done because he doesn’t actually coach. He has Igor Shesterkin. That’s why he’s the most winningest coach in the first two years. They’re a fringe playoff team without Igor.
Rangers also really need to find a new home for Panarin. He takes up too much cap to disappear in the playoffs when the defenses tighten and play becomes more routinely physical.
I think having a legitimate system will help Panarin out immensely. Gallant’s “system” is letting his players just play, which doesn’t do a player like Panarin any justice.
I would need to see the cross-referenced with the records of other coaches playing backup goaltenders in order to fairly evaluate this. It’s Gallant’s fault that Halak couldn’t stop a beach ball his first six games in net?
We’ve already been through this with Halak. Halak finished the season as a top 32 goalie. If you take Igor off this team, Gallant would’ve coached a league average, fringe playoff team. The issue with Gallant is he doesn’t have a system. He doesn’t make in-game or in-series adjustments. Look at how Carolina can actually possess the puck. It’s led to NJD pulling Schmid out of back to back games, mind you, he’s a goalie that shut the Rangers down. Carolina’s ability to possess the puck is due to the system they play and great coaching from Rod. Gallant is a fine coach for the regular season; he’s a bad coach for the playoffs. His only solution to anything is to “play harder and forecheck harder”. If the Rangers lost that game to the St. Louis Blues, Gallant would’ve been fired and maybe, just maybe the Rangers would be playing hockey still
Jaroslav Halak finished the 2022 Calendar year with a 2-7 Record, a 3.00 GAA, and a PUTRID .880 Save percentage (https://www.espn.com/nhl/player/gamelog/_/id/3116/jaroslav-halak) . You can point to his GOOP [Goals allowed On Outstanding Plays] or his WARANDPEACE or any other meaningless statistic that has more than three initials, but you can not change the ironclad fact that he SINGLE HANDEDLY almost ended the Rangers season before the calendar flip. Igor Shesterkin had to be almost flawless in 2023 for the Rangers to make up that ground and be considered as a legitimate contender. Jack Adams himself could not finish in playoff contention with Jaroslav Halak as his starting goaltender For Christ's sake, the guy had one calendar month out of seven with a winning record, and was asked to replace the starter mid-game ONCE the entire season! This is a much better argument against Gallant, because there is actual empirical evidence to support you position. Gallant also did himself no favors by proclaiming that the Rangers put in a good effort in Game 5 against the Devils, as well as his conduct in the end of the season press conference.
You took 37% of Halak’s games and said “This guy sucks” You’re leaving out an overwhelming majority of his games. That’s not an argument, that’s an agenda. You don’t like the guy, whatever. He was 22nd in GAA and 31st in SV% and finished 10-9 despite getting minimal support in the beginning of the year. There were only 2 games before January 1 in which he gave the Rangers absolutely no chance in — Winnipeg on 10/14 they got shutdown Hellebuyuck and against Chicago, the game where Trouba threw his helmet against the boards because the team wasn’t showing up. Look at the player and stop expecting a backup goalie to compare to the best goalie on the planet right now. Say it with me now, Halak is a fine BACKUP.
Absolutely not. I refuse to wear your rose-colored glasses and accept mediocrity. Again, over the seven months of the FULL SEASON, he had a winning record in ONE of them. In four of seven months he had a SV% of UNDER .88. That's not 37% of the season. That is a consistency of failure.
He finished in the top 32 for save percentage and GAA. What are we doing here? It’s not rose colored glasses, it’s statistical fact that he was fine backup goalie. He put up better GAA than both of Pittsburgh’s goalies. Better GAA than Grubauer, Demko, Bobrovsky, and Skinner. 3 of those goalies are playing in the second round of the playoffs, 2 of which are going to be on teams that advance to the conference finals.
And for what it’s worth, I know you don’t care, but Halak saved 1.1 goals above expected, 26th in the league. That’s an actual stat that NHL teams use to evaluate goaltending. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it isn’t valid. The guy is fine; your expectations for a backup goalie are wild.
He is inconsistent, and unreliable. If you plot his stats across the entire season they are erratic, which tells me that even if every other player on the ice plays to their absolute best ability, you could never fully have faith in him to deliver what is needed to win on any given night. Twelve of his fourteen losses were against non-playoff teams. That is pathetic.
