I wanted to write a Rangers column for the past few weeks to update some of the stuff that’s gone on in this offseason, but none of the issues with the team or the league have really been worthy of a full column. So call this Quick Hits or Rough Cuts or Ice Chips or Renney Clumps or something like that. Basically I just wanted to weigh in briefly on some scattered issues. Like …

Eric Lindros

Here’s the perfect metaphor to sum up the Lindros Era. I thought the end and summation of his career as a Ranger warranted its own column, so I jotted down some notes, formulated an outline, cleared an evening to sit down at the computer and write the column, and then got distracted and decided to play Super Techmo-Bowl on my SNES emulator instead.

Meh.

Read through my archives and you’ll see that I gave Eric a pretty fair deal during his Rangers tenure. I supported the trade three years ago, I was extremely impressed with the way he handled the media and attention in New York, and I think he did a lot to silence his critics and keep all his supposed baggage in check. That said, I think his overall accomplishments are just like my column that never happened: sounded like a good idea in your head, worthy of a few scribbles, but when it comes time to doing the actual work it turns out that it wasn’t worth the effort. I wish Eric Lindros all the luck in the world, but for their investment the Rangers got little in return, he proved incapable of leading another team to the promised land (never mind the playoffs), and once again another potential savior teases us fans for a few seasons before ultimately breaking our hearts.

The New York Rangers — NHL franchise or the chubby bridesmaid at your cousin's wedding? You decide.

The Draft

Pretty good, I thought. I’ve already addressed the outrage over selecting Alvaro Montoya in my previous column, but to sum up: get a grip. You always draft the best player available, and Montoya was the best player available. The only other intriguing player still around the six spot was the big Finn, Lauri Tukonen, and the Rangers rectified their Finnlessness with the Korpikowski pick at #16. Besides, there’s a little known rule that you can’t have more than two Finns on the same team, otherwise their Finnish magic cancels each other out and they start to argue with each other like Chinese fighting fish. Plus I refuse to root for a team that has two guys named Lauri on their roster. It’s bad enough that our best young player is a bleach blonde named “Ballet.”

Anyway, rest of the draft went OK, I think. Darin Oliver led Northern Michigan in scoring as a freshman, and comes from the same university as former Rangers Tom Laidlaw and Steve Weeks — bet you didn’t think I was capable of that kind of research, huh? Bruce Graham is a monstrous forward with upside, first-round potential available in the second, and he provides some much-needed muscle in case Jamie Lundmark decides to hit on Lindsey Lohan one night at Spa. Dane Byers has a resume that says good energy guy, though he looks like the type that might spend too much time listening to Floyd albums at Mike Dunham's house. Brandon Dubinsky, undersized but very talented, is described as playing an agitating game, which is important because the Rangers are an agitating franchise. After that they drafted some foreign guys with unpronounceable names, all of which I’m sure will go on to become solid depth players in the Czech Elite League someday.

Unfunny jokes aside, I want even the most cynical Slats-hating Rangers fan to check out the “In the System” page on their website — ignoring, of course, that R J Umburger is still listed there — and count off the number of viable prospects that the organization is holding right now. No, there are no Ovechkin's or Malkin's or even Parise's on the list, but for the first time that I can remember it feels like the Rangers have a solid core of diverse and wacky hockey players, all of various size, background, and talent, that could one-day come together in a Corbin Bernsen Tom Berenger Charlie Sheen type way. A big goofy Ivy League forward, two dopey Russian defensemen, a handful of Finns, a flashy Czech winger with bleach-blonde hair, a little guy named Nigel, and the best Cuban-American goalie in the history of Cuban-American goalies — what's not to love? Let’s go Rangers, 2010!

Coach Renney

This did happen, right? It’s official? Remember in the past when the Rangers would introduce a new coach with a big press conference and a parade around MSG and about a half-dozen guarantees to make the playoffs? Now I think they’ve downsized to just a sketchy message by Don Maloney on John Dellapina’s answering machine. I guess this means that Tom Renney can white-out the word “Interim” from all his business cards. Whatever. At least I don’t have to spell out the name “Quenneville” for the next 2-3 years.

Honestly, there isn’t much more to say about this. On the one hand, Renney was the guy that scouted and stocked the organization with all the young players that should form the Rangers of the future. On the other hand, his NHL coaching record is excremental. Maybe there’s some truth to guys turning down the job because of the state of the team or the pressure of New York or having to work with Overlord Sather. I don’t know. We've done worse. After years of staring straight at armageddon and trying to spin it into sunshine and rainbows, I’m basically numb to Overlord Sather's decisions at this point. They could have hired a coaching staff of Paris Hilton, Joel Steinberg, Courtney Love, and a head of lettuce and I probably wouldn’t have batted an eye.

But one thing is certain, Rangers fans. Glen Sather hates you. Speaking of which …

Glen Sather Hates You

He hates you. I mean, he HATES you. Hate in the way that conservatives hate Michael Moore. Hate in the way that Alvaro Montoya hates the six-fingered man that killed his father. Pathological hate. Festering, deep-seeded hate. Soap opera hate. Shakespearean villain hate. The kind of hate where you don’t just want to see someone hurt — you want to see them miserable, suffering, their hearts broken and their spirits crushed. Grinch-type hate. Rowdy Roddy Piper pro wrestling hate. Yankee fans versus Pedro hate. H-A-T-E. Hate.

We’ve booed him, ridiculed him, taunted him, pounded his body with socks stuffed with soap, and left him for dead. Now he's back with a vengence. Seagalian vengence. In just the last month alone he’s …

1. Drafted a goalie when the consensus fanbase practically pleaded with him to not draft a goalie.

2. Ignored every viable coaching candidate and instead promoted the guy that guided the Rangers to a 5-11-4 record down the stretch.

3. Refused to sign any free agents, even though the current roster has many glaring holes, and actually let two useful players (Lindros and Jamie McLennan) depart to other teams.

4. Propped open the door for a potential Mark Messier return.

5. Released that boring S & M tape he made with Cameron Diaz.

That's hate, Rangers fans. If this was a movie, he's grabbing Homo Larry by the throat right now and saying "Rebuild this" before snapping his neck and throwing his body out of section 425. Don't be surprised when he signs Petr Nedved next week. I'm serious. We've pushed this man too far, and now he's pushing back. With a vengence.

The Offseason, So Far

Quite pleasant, thanks for asking. The weather’s been a delight, the Yanks are six games up, “Six Feet Under” has thrown three straight gems so far, the new ATHF DVD comes out in a few weeks, C-level celebrity sex tapes are surfacing daily, an Olsen twin is in rehab, and that rash on my thing is almost all cleared up. This offseason is going great.

Oh. You meant the Rangers offseason.

Well, despite feeling like Glen Sather is sitting in a darkened room, stroking a white cat and plotting my demise, I’m mostly OK with the way the Rangers have handled business so far in the last few months. Conservative, sure, but I'm glad to see that they're not using Jimmy Dolan's filet mignon to fish for chum. I’d like to see them make a run at Jason Allison, and not just because I have some unused concussion jokes from the Lindros Era. I like watching the guy play, I think his game is perfect for Jaromir Jagr, and his lack of skating skill should mesh nicely with the slushy Garden ice. And if he goes down … eff it, this team sucks anyway. Bring on the Sidney Crosby Era. No harm, no foul.

I don’t even think I’d be that annoyed if they signed Ziggy Palffy, the rumor du jour these days, even if Ziggy is made of the same stuff holding Mike Dunham's groin together. Ziggy’s one of the most consistently productive forwards in the league, and at 32 years he's not that old. With him and Jagr the Rangers now have game-breaking talent along the boards and a genuine threat to score at any given moment. Of course, this season they'll both be centered by Mike Green and Layne Ulmer respectively. Welcome to rebuilding.

Ultimately, though, I can't get too excited about anything these days, what with this ongoing threat that I may never watch another professional hockey game again. That’s life under lockout conditions, I guess. Everything has this weird gambling-with-Monopoly-money feel. Pittsburgh can sign the player formerly known as Mark Recchi to some ridiculous contract and it doesn't matter because it's not like they'll ever have to pay him. Inexplicable things happen almost every day in the NHL but no one is sure how to evaluate moves or what the outcome will be or when these moves will be relevent or whether worrying about these things makes any sense or not. Heck, Mike Keenan got fired and then promoted by the same team within a two month span and no one has a single thing to say about it. Welcome to Gary Bettman's NHL. So grab a beer and join me out in on sun-deck. The NHL — back in '94, it was out-STAND-ing.

I’d rant about this further, but I think Joe Thornton just signed with an Ultimate Dodgeball League.

Have a bitchin’ summer, Rangers fans. See ya in a few months. Or weeks. Or years. I dunno.

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