Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals are finally Stanley Cup champions, but this shouldn’t change the New York Rangers plans.
Yes, seeing Alex Ovechkin lift the Stanley Cup before Henrik Lundqvist hurts.
The pure joy and happiness that the “Great 8” had can only make you wonder how the “King” would react should the Blueshirts reach the promised land. You would think pretty close to Ovechkin’s.
LOOK WHAT @OVI8 GOT! ? #ALLCAPS #STANLEYCUP pic.twitter.com/SbkhwIAUm4
— Washington Capitals (@Capitals) June 8, 2018
But underneath all of that hurt, one thing must remain the same…the plan. All because Washington has won something that the Rangers have been chasing since 1994 doesn’t mean the Rangers need to change the goal they set out in early February.
Sometimes teams and owners let what goes on around the league change their own plans. We’ve seen it in baseball with the Yankees and Red Sox. One of the reasons Boston went out and signed J.D. Martinez was because of the Yankees’ acquisition of Giancarlo Stanton. James Dolan has been known in the past to get like that, but general manager Jeff Gorton must remind him that it isn’t the smartest move.
One thing that has been obvious over the last few years is the Rangers lack of a superstar talent up front. Yes, Lundqvist has been the backbone of this team for years, but it has become obvious that they are not winning a Cup with just him alone. They thought that would be Rick Nash, but that plan failed miserably.
How the Rangers will acquire that talent has to be through the draft. Yes, John Tavares is a free agent, but signing him only can only hurt the team. This year marks the second year in a row that the Rangers will have a pick in the top-10 if the draft. They have seven picks in the first three rounds which will allow for them to find that talent early in the draft. It’d be foolish for the Rangers to do anything else than actually use those picks.
Coming into to next season, the Rangers will also have a new coach behind the bench. Now yes the Rangers made it the Stanley Cup Final with a new coach in Alain Vigneault in 2013-14, but this team is in a different position than that one. First off David Quinn will be a rookie head coach. His adjustment to the NHL will be much different compared to Vigneault’s who was just adjusting to a different team. Quinn will then have to adjust his system to the NHL level, that won’t be easy.
The Rangers had their chance to finally get over the hump several times. They came up short in 2013-14 and 2014-15, and some may argue that their window win closed in 2015-16. But, ultimately they failed. They went all in for a four year period, adding veteran pieces that failed. Now is the time to fully embrace this rebuild.
There is plenty of young talent on this team that has the potential to become great. By the end of this offseason, there will be more. Mortgaging the future yet again because your rival won before you did can’t be the way to go. It won’t be the way to go.
So if seeing Washington made you change your mind about this rebuild, it’s time to go back to accepting it. Because changing the plan currently in place will only set the Rangers up to fail, again.
