Thoughts on 2024 UFA

[BrooksBurner]

5 minutes ago, Sharpshooter said:

Really, fuck Larry Brooks for this. Drury is one of the most tight-lipped GMs in the league. I'm sure he's fuming. Brooks has always been a shit starter and a pot stirrer. A far cry from a Mollie Walker type who does actual reporting. He's just here for 'hot' takes and to get clicks.

[Sharpshooter]

1 minute ago, BrooksBurner said:

[Br4d]

The Trouba leak had to be a planned leak.

 

At a guess the Rangers always knew this was going to be a drawn out process and they approached Trouba early to begin the process.

 

By the time they actually make a move Trouba will have had a month or more to come to grips with it and sort out the alternatives.  This probably makes the process more likely to conclude successfully as the Troubas will have had the extra time to sort out what is undoubtedly going to be a very complicated '24-'25 season for them.

 

 

[LindG1000]

3 minutes ago, Br4d said:

The Trouba leak had to be a planned leak.

 

At a guess the Rangers always knew this was going to be a drawn out process and they approached Trouba early to begin the process.

 

By the time they actually make a move Trouba will have had a month or more to come to grips with it and sort out the alternatives.  This probably makes the process more likely to conclude successfully as the Troubas will have had the extra time to sort out what is undoubtedly going to be a very complicated '24-'25 season for them.

 

I tend to assume the most simple explanation is the actual one. Brooks fucked this up. No sense in finding the copium in it

[Br4d]

Just now, LindG1000 said:

I tend to assume the most simple explanation is the actual one. Brooks fucked this up. No sense in finding the copiun in it

 

Drury wouldn't have told Brooks unless he wanted the leak to happen.  It's easy to give Brooks something on background with the instruction not to print it yet.

 

That's the simplest explanation.  It doesn't require stupidity or malice, just a process that maybe did not go 100% to expectations.

[Pete]

2 minutes ago, Br4d said:

Drury wouldn't have told Brooks unless he wanted the leak to happen. 

Who said Drury told Brooks?

[Pete]

8 minutes ago, LindG1000 said:

I tend to assume the most simple explanation is the actual one. Brooks fucked this up. No sense in finding the copium in it

Right. Leaking the trade has absolutely zero benefit to the Rangers. Drury tries to run a tight ship. He's not intentionally leaking anything. 

 

Someone opened their mouth, Larry wanted the scoop, and then Overhardt went to work. 

 

And I get Larry is doing his job, but there are unintended consequences. The organization is now fucked and Trouba is alienated. 

Edited July 5 by Pete

[Br4d]

6 minutes ago, Pete said:

Who said Drury told Brooks?

 

"[Larry Brooks] If Trouba does not approve a trade to Detroit that is believed in place, he will ultimately be sent somewhere else, perhaps by waivers. The decision has been made."

 

That had to come from Drury.

[Pete]

13 minutes ago, Br4d said:

 

"[Larry Brooks] If Trouba does not approve a trade to Detroit that is believed in place, he will ultimately be sent somewhere else, perhaps by waivers. The decision has been made."

 

That had to come from Drury.

It had to come directly from Drury himself and not from a leaky source within the org?

[Br4d]

Just now, Pete said:

It had to come directly from Drury himself and not from a leaky source within the org?

 

It had to come from Drury.  Anybody else leaking that would likely have been fired after the fact and it's not like Drury held a meeting to tell everybody else in the chain of command what was going to happen.

[Pete]

5 minutes ago, Br4d said:

 

It had to come from Drury.  Anybody else leaking that would likely have been fired after the fact and it's not like Drury held a meeting to tell everybody else in the chain of command what was going to happen.

How do you know any of this for fact?

 

What's the benefit to Drury to go completely out of character and personally tell Brooks of all people what he was doing when what he was doing was negotiating with a team without having Trouba's list?

 

And then going back to Brooks to tell him that that deal was never on the table...

 

That makes less than zero sense. 

Edited July 5 by Pete

[BrooksBurner]

38 minutes ago, Br4d said:

The Trouba leak had to be a planned leak.

 

At a guess the Rangers always knew this was going to be a drawn out process and they approached Trouba early to begin the process.

 

By the time they actually make a move Trouba will have had a month or more to come to grips with it and sort out the alternatives.  This probably makes the process more likely to conclude successfully as the Troubas will have had the extra time to sort out what is undoubtedly going to be a very complicated '24-'25 season for them.

 

 

I agree. Add to it that Drury would have known about Trouba’s family and personal situation, and his presumed reluctance to want to leave because of it. I don’t think I can come up with a good reason to have asked Trouba for his NTC list early other than to put a firestorm of media pressure on him to make him

uncomfortable. To try to unload the contract prior to free agency so he could have money to spend? He didn’t need to do that. He could have went in knowing at minimum he would free up 4 from a buyout as a contingency plan, or unload the contract via trade to a non-listed team on a normally scheduled list received on 7/1. On top of that, he also has the waiver play. Knowing whether it was a buyout vs trade w/ retention vs waiver claim didn’t really matter as it pertained to signing a free agent. At worst, he would have had an extra 4. Now we are hearing “well Drury didn’t want to impact future years of the cap to sign anyone for more than one year”. OK, so what was the purpose of requesting Trouba’s NTC list early, or getting rid of him at all? What did they need cap space for if they weren’t going to give out any multi-year contracts? How many good players signed for one year?

 

The only thing I am left with here is Drury had or has something else cooking. Or he’s actually just not very good, evidenced by one singular good offseason move in his career, replacing Strome with Trocheck. The rest has been filled with absolute garbage. Goodrow, Nemeth, trading Buch for junk, etc.

Edited July 5 by BrooksBurner

[Jdog99]

My understanding is there was a trade in place with the wings, but yzerman needed to pull the trigger by the time free agency opened since it would determine whether or not he was gonna go out and sign someone (like gus).

 

So drury goes to the agent and asks for the NTC teams early, but needs to reveal the trade on the table to get compliance.

 

Knowing its the red wings, the agent/trouba put them on the NTC, squashing the deal. Drury probably tried to pressure that he'd move Trouba regardless, but nothing else appealing is available.

Edited July 5 by Jdog99

[Pete]

13 minutes ago, Jdog99 said:

My understanding is there was a trade in place with the wings, but yzerman needed to pull the trigger by the time free agency opened since it would determine whether or not he was gonna go out and sign someone (like gus).

 

So drury goes to the agent and asks for the NTC teams early, but needs to reveal the trade on the table to get compliance.

 

Knowing its the red wings, the agent/trouba put them on the NTC, squashing the deal. Drury probably tried to pressure that he'd move Trouba regardless, but nothing else appealing is available.

This makes more sense than what's being suggested here. 

 

Are we really supposed to believe that Drury, in a completely uncharacteristic move, personally leaked a trade to Brooks for reasons that don't make sense and the justification is "because he's an idiot"?

 

Nah. He didn't leak anything. 

 

It's more believable that Overhardt leaked it. 

[BrooksBurner]

26 minutes ago, Jdog99 said:

My understanding is there was a trade in place with the wings, but yzerman needed to pull the trigger by the time free agency opened since it would determine whether or not he was gonna go out and sign someone (like gus).

 

So drury goes to the agent and asks for the NTC teams early, but needs to reveal the trade on the table to get compliance.

 

Knowing its the red wings, the agent/trouba put them on the NTC, squashing the deal. Drury probably tried to pressure that he'd move Trouba regardless, but nothing else appealing is available.

I get why Detroit would want to expedite it. This doesn’t answer what Drury’s plans were though. Why would he create a pressure cooker situation on his end to help the Red Wings’ offseason plan? It was ultimately his decision to apply the pressure, and he created the situation. The question remains why?

[Br4d]

20 minutes ago, BrooksBurner said:

I get why Detroit would want to expedite it. This doesn’t answer what Drury’s plans were though. Why would he create a pressure cooker situation on his end to help the Red Wings’ offseason plan? It was ultimately his decision to apply the pressure, and he created the situation. The question remains why?

 

Because Trouba had the Red Wings on his NTC and Drury wanted to create incentives for the trade to go through?

 

The sequence feels like:

 

1.  Rangers ask Trouba for his list early.

2. Trouba says no.

3. Rangers try to work a trade with the Red Wings anyway, leaking that Trouba is going somewhere before next season.

4. Trouba says no.

5.  Trouba puts the Red Wings on his NTC when the date arrives.

6.  Red Wings do other things removing the cap space necessary for a Trouba acquisition.

7.  Trouba puts public pressure on the Rangers not to move him based on stuff that just does not matter from a competitive standpoint.

8.  We all wait for the other shoe to fall.

 

Edit: slight modification - Red Wings still have the cap space for a deal.

 

Also Anaheim, Calgary, Buffalo, Columbus, Utah, maybe a few others.

 

The question for Trouba in the end is whether he has any vested interest in steering a trade somewhere or whether he's ok living with what the waiver wire might produce.  I think getting to that point was what all the other machinations were about although the Rangers would have been thrilled to resolve the problem earlier w/o using waivers.

Edited July 5 by Br4d

[BrooksBurner]

1 hour ago, Br4d said:

 

Because Trouba had the Red Wings on his NTC and Drury wanted to create incentives for the trade to go through?

 

The sequence feels like:

 

1.  Rangers ask Trouba for his list early.

2. Trouba says no.

3. Rangers try to work a trade with the Red Wings anyway, leaking that Trouba is going somewhere before next season.

4. Trouba says no.

5.  Trouba puts the Red Wings on his NTC when the date arrives.

6.  Red Wings do other things removing the cap space necessary for a Trouba acquisition.

7.  Trouba puts public pressure on the Rangers not to move him based on stuff that just does not matter from a competitive standpoint.

8.  We all wait for the other shoe to fall.

 

Edit: slight modification - Red Wings still have the cap space for a deal.

 

Also Anaheim, Calgary, Buffalo, Columbus, Utah, maybe a few others.

Ok, but how does this answer what Drury’s plans were with the cap space, that he would take on this level of risk to force a trade to Detroit? The reported deal was $2.5 million of retained, so he’d have been freeing up $5.5 million. That’s only $1.5m more than the buyout savings. It’s close enough that he could have executed the same gameplan in free agency in either scenario. The inability to get a good free agent tells me that being a serious player in free agency wasn’t his plan.

Edited July 5 by BrooksBurner

[Br4d]

4 minutes ago, BrooksBurner said:

Ok, but how does this answer what Drury’s plans were with the cap space, that he would take on this level of risk to force a trade to Detroit? The reported deal was $2.5 million of retained, so he’d have been freeing up $5.5 million. That’s only $1.5m more than the buyout savings. It’s close enough that he could have executed the same gameplan in free agency in either scenario. The inability to get a good free agent tells me that being a serious player in free agency wasn’t his plan.

 

Drury is likely saving up for the negotiations next season.  He's got a lot of work to do to get Igor, Laf and the various other players signed.

 

The sooner he turns multi-year cap hits into single season cap hits the better off he and the Rangers will be going into that process.

 

Trouba was always going to be a problem in the process.  Some of his cap space is going to have to go to the next wave of deals.  Putting off the reckoning until the last year of his deal was never a good option.

[Jdog99]

1 hour ago, BrooksBurner said:

I get why Detroit would want to expedite it. This doesn’t answer what Drury’s plans were though. Why would he create a pressure cooker situation on his end to help the Red Wings’ offseason plan? It was ultimately his decision to apply the pressure, and he created the situation. The question remains why?

 

Presumably Detroit was the only team with significant interest and ready to do a deal with attractive terms. They just needed it done by day one of free agency. So Drury tried his best to pressure, strong arm, but ultimately Troubas camp had the leverage due to the timing.

[Pete]

11 minutes ago, Jdog99 said:

 

Presumably Detroit was the only team with significant interest and ready to do a deal with attractive terms. They just needed it done by day one of free agency. So Drury tried his best to pressure, strong arm, but ultimately Troubas camp had the leverage due to the timing.

Right, and you can see how the domino's fell after that where we weren't going to be able to give Kane $6M without bonus unless Trouba was going, so he took his it from Detroit with bonus Incorporated. 

 

There weren't many impact players who only signed for one season, and it was painfully clear nobody was getting term from the Rangers for a significant AAV. They probably would have given Stammer $10M for one season if he'd have taken that.

 

Drury was only signing one year deals. Now you can judge that on its own merit, but again he has a lot to pay for next summer. At the end of the day, pretty evident that Drury didn't personally leak this nor does not spending the way other teams spent signal no confidence in the team. 

 

When you look at the fact that he wasn't going more than a year, then got handcuffed by cap space, then got handcuffed by a player who put it out to the media that they would not report if they were traded, he went to what was likely plan D with Riley Smith.

 

Or are we going down the rabbit hole of "Drury such a bad GM that he sabotaged himself by uncharacteristically leaking a story that could only hurt him.", which seems far-fetched. 

Edited July 5 by Pete

[RangersIn7]

1 minute ago, Pete said:

Right, and you can see how the domino's fell after that where we weren't going to be able to give Kane $6M without bonus unless Trouba was going, so he took his it from Detroit with bonus Incorporated. 

 

There weren't many impact players who only signed for one season, and it was painfully clear nobody was getting term from the Rangers no matter what the AAV was. Drury was only signing one year deals. Now you can judge that on its own merit, but again he has a lot to pay for next summer. 

 

At the end of the day, pretty evident that Drury didn't personally leak this nor does not spending the way other teams spent signal no confidence in the team. 

 

When you look at the fact that he wasn't going more than a year, then got handcuffed by cap space, then got handcuffed by a player who put it out to the media that they would not report if they were traded, he went to what was likely plan D with Riley Smith.

 

Or are we going down the rabbit hole of "Drury such a bad GM that he sabotaged himself by uncharacteristically leaking a story that could only hurt him.", which seems far-fetched. 

There’s absolutely zero incentive for Drury or anyone in the Rangers camp to leak it. It could only lead to bad things. Nothing to gain from them doing so.

The only Rangers sourced leak I could see would be some minor/junior staff member getting a hold of it somehow and leaking it, but that seems unlikely. And I don’t think Brooks would run with that unless he got confirmation elsewhere.

That “elsewhere” could only be 2 places- The Rangers, which is unimaginable, or Trouba’s camp, which is possible.

 

Whats more likely is that Drury started making calls and shopping Trouba, rumblings got to Trouba and his agent, Drury asked for that list early, they declined… and then Trouba’s agent leaked it. 

Trouba is the only party involved who benefits from the story leaking. 

 

 

 

[Pete]

2 minutes ago, RangersIn7 said:

There’s absolutely zero incentive for Drury or anyone in the Rangers camp to leak it. It could only lead to bad things. Nothing to gain from them doing so.

The only Rangers sourced leak I could see would be some minor/junior staff member getting a hold of it somehow and leaking it, but that seems unlikely. And I don’t think Brooks would run with that unless he got confirmation elsewhere.

That “elsewhere” could only be 2 places- The Rangers, which is unimaginable, or Trouba’s camp, which is possible.

 

Whats more likely is that Drury started making calls and shopping Trouba, rumblings got to Trouba and his agent, Drury asked for that list early, they declined… and then Trouba’s agent leaked it. 

Trouba is the only party involved who benefits from the story leaking. 

 

 

 

Logic beats fantasy.  

[BrooksBurner]

1 hour ago, Br4d said:

 

Drury is likely saving up for the negotiations next season.  He's got a lot of work to do to get Igor, Laf and the various other players signed.

 

The sooner he turns multi-year cap hits into single season cap hits the better off he and the Rangers will be going into that process.

 

Trouba was always going to be a problem in the process.  Some of his cap space is going to have to go to the next wave of deals.  Putting off the reckoning until the last year of his deal was never a good option.

 

I don't see a reason for Drury to permanently sour the team's relationship with Trouba this summer in order to free up cap space next summer. He could have kept him and moved him much easier next summer to accomplish that goal. The only reason to strong arm now is if he had something in mind to use the cap savings on immediately. I haven't seen an explanation for what that something was.

 

1 hour ago, Jdog99 said:

 

Presumably Detroit was the only team with significant interest and ready to do a deal with attractive terms. They just needed it done by day one of free agency. So Drury tried his best to pressure, strong arm, but ultimately Troubas camp had the leverage due to the timing.

 

I get why Detroit wanted it done by the start of free agency. They had their own plans. And I get they may have been the only interested team right this minute, but this doesn't answer my question. The question is why did Drury feel he had to strong arm shove Trouba out the window at all this summer? It clearly wasn't for a free agent. A trade was not required to be active in free agency, because a buyout achieved nearly the same effect.

 

As things currently stand, the risk-benefit analysis on how Drury has handled this is flat out horrific. It's so bad that it leads me to believe that there is something bigger going on. I'm not sure what.

Edited July 5 by BrooksBurner

[Jdog99]

2 minutes ago, BrooksBurner said:

 

I don't see a reason for Drury to permanently sour the team's relationship with Trouba this summer in order to free up cap space next summer. He could have kept him and moved him much easier next summer to accomplish that goal. The only reason to strong arm now is if he had something in mind to use the cap savings on immediately. I haven't seen an explanation for what that something was.

 

 

I get why Detroit wanted it done by the start of free agency. They had their own plans. And I get they may have been the only interested team right this minute, but this doesn't answer my question. The question is why did Drury feel he had to strong arm shove Trouba out the window at all this summer? It clearly wasn't for a free agent. A trade was not required to be active in free agency, because a buyout achieved nearly the same effect.

 

As things currently stand, the risk-benefit analysis on how Drury has handled this is flat out horrific. It's so bad that it leads me to believe that there is something bigger going on. I'm not sure what.

 

I think the cap charge for each of the next 2 seasons would've been 4m with a buyout vs the 2.5 retention reported in a detroit trade. And it did seem like the intention was to make another signing like kane if they could get the detroit deal done.

[BrooksBurner]

1 hour ago, RangersIn7 said:

There’s absolutely zero incentive for Drury or anyone in the Rangers camp to leak it. It could only lead to bad things. Nothing to gain from them doing so.

The only Rangers sourced leak I could see would be some minor/junior staff member getting a hold of it somehow and leaking it, but that seems unlikely. And I don’t think Brooks would run with that unless he got confirmation elsewhere.

That “elsewhere” could only be 2 places- The Rangers, which is unimaginable, or Trouba’s camp, which is possible.

 

Whats more likely is that Drury started making calls and shopping Trouba, rumblings got to Trouba and his agent, Drury asked for that list early, they declined… and then Trouba’s agent leaked it. 

Trouba is the only party involved who benefits from the story leaking. 

 

 

 

 

I don't agree. Maybe Drury had already committed to a buy out at minimum (reason TBD), and Detroit's proposed deal saved him a little more money and avoidance of the dead cap for a couple of years after the contract expires. In that case, he's going to go full court press to pressure Trouba, and if it doesn't work, who cares? He already knows he's getting rid of him anyway. We have to wait to find this out.

 

I'm not sure how Trouba benefits from the leak. Have you seen the amount of hate he and his wife have received? Are you saying he's oblivious to the public fan perception that he stinks and they want him gone? Leaking it makes him a hated man. That's something the other side (Drury) benefits from.

Edited July 5 by BrooksBurner