IF Chris Simon is the answer, I’m not sure I can even begin to imagine the question.
But then, if Glen Sather’s goal this offseason was to lower expectations going into training camp that’s now fewer than five weeks away, then the GM has done a pretty good job of it these last 18 weeks.
So let’s see. Simon, just another gunslinger somewhere between four and seven years past his peak who doesn’t appear to fill any single one of the club’s myriad needs, gets $1.5 million, but the Blueshirts somehow haven’t been able to find the way to get Dominic Moore, the 23-year-old center out of Harvard who might be the organization’s most advanced prospect, under contract.
Ales Pisa? What would the Rangers possibly need with a defenseman younger than 30, anyway, and one whose game might actually need developing?
And of course it’s absolutely necessary to grind free agent Jan Hlavac over nickels, never mind that the winger is about the only player extant to play better on Broadway than anywhere else in the NHL.
Forget that. At least the Rangers have gone out and gotten complementary wingers to play with Eric Lindros.
Not to mention having constructed a checking line for Bobby Holik to lead.
And having settled the Mark Messier issue.
If anyone reports to training camp out of shape this year, Sather will tell us about it on the spot and not wait for three months, right?
Lookalikes: Sandy McCarthy and Jose Mesa.
*
The NHL might think it did just fine this summer in essentially eliminating competitive bidding on unrestricted marquee free agents, but there’s something very wrong with a league in which Sergei Fedorov, one of its greatest talents, can’t get a sniff from more than one or two teams.
Maybe it’s true that Brian Leetch was going to stay no matter what, but would it have killed the Bruins to find that out for themselves?
If I’m Neil Smith and I keep hearing that Gary Bettman bashes me to prospective employers because of the Rangers’ 1997 Group II offer sheet to Joe Sakic, my next piece of business is to hire an attorney.
*
No question whatsoever that Anaheim is more formidable with Fedorov and Vinnie Prospal than with Adam Oates and Paul Kariya, but that’ll have nothing to do with the price of beans unless elite GM Bryan Murray can find the price to satisfy unsigned Group II goaltender J.S. Giguere.
We’re told that Giguere, the 26-year-old Conn Smythe winner who forswore salary arbitration after earning $900,000 last year, is seeking a multi-year deal at approximately $7M per that has apparently left GM Murray open-mouthed.
Meanwhile, Dallas doesn’t seem to be making great progress in its effort to sign Group II goaltender Marty Turco, who at 27 also bypassed salary arbitration after establishing an NHL-record 1.72 GAA while playing for $850,000. Figure he’s seeking at least the $5M Jose Theodore wrangled from Montreal last summer.
“Marty’s goal is to be in training camp with the team,” Kurt Overhardt, Turco’s agent, told Slap Shots. “But I wouldn’t necessarily say that I can assure that will be the case.”
*
Then there’s Detroit GM Ken Holland talking about possibly having no choice other than to put Curtis Joseph on waivers, which sounds like the groundwork for a waiver deal to circumvent the goaltender’s no-trade clause.
Can anyone say “grievance?”
Which recalls the time Sather thought he found a loophole by moving Stephane Quintal to Chicago on waivers for Brad Brown and Michal Grosek in 2000. Slap Shots has since learned that deal cost the Blueshirts $500,000 for Quintal to drop his grievance when the opportunity presented itself for the defenseman to return to Montreal.
Sylvain Lefebvre, who remains out of work, seems the perfect candidate to fill Tommy Albelin’s old job in New Jersey, doesn’t he?
*
The sun will most definitely shine on Bethpage this Thursday when the Jennifer Ferraro Foundation stages its first celebrity golf tournament, dinner and auction. Those interested in participating in the event in memory of Chris Ferraro’s wife, Jen, who succumbed to stomach cancer last November, should contact Sara Clarke at 401-339-0403.
Finally, see you in September.