Does Jeff Gorton deserve blind faith?

The misses

Re-signing Brendan Smith- Brendan Smith played well after coming over from the Detroit Red Wings. So, Gorton decided to re-sign him for four years at $17.4 million. This move was suspect from the start because 1) Ryan Graves was a similar player who was in the Rangers system, and could have been a cheaper option but was never even given a sniff at cracking the Rangers’ roster 2) Brendan Smith was maddeningly inconsistent in Detroit, which was why the former first-round pick was made available by Detroit. The contract has backfired tremendously on the Rangers.

The Lias Andersson saga– What, you thought you’d get through an article without reading about Lias Andersson? Look, you can do everything right, and sometimes prospects just don’t work out. It happens. But, here’s why this is such an unmitigated disaster. Andersson was found to be too immature to have a serious future on Broadway. This, despite that every one of the Rangers’ scouts, draft team, and Gorton himself, touted his character as the reason why they chose him seventh overall. Then, enter David Quinn. Quinn didn’t exactly agree with their findings, and chose to bury him on untalented lines–or not play him at all. At the end of the day, either your entire organization was wrong about the kid–or your head coach was. If it’s the former, it’s terrifying that everyone can be so wrong on what they view top 10 talent.

The Ryan McDonagh trade– At the time, the Rangers went for quantity over quality. While in theory, that’s not necessarily terrible, the early returns so far don’t favor Gorton. Libor Hajek and Brett Howden have both struggled to the point where it’s fair to question whether either of them will have long careers in the NHL. The first round pick in the deal became Nils Lundkvist, so maybe this can turn around, but yeesh. Not good.

Shipping off J.T. Miller– Not only did the Rangers not demand the Tampa Bay Lightning’s best prospects in the McDonagh trade, they added J.T. Miller to the deal so they could acquire Vladislav Namestnikov. Tampa rightfully sold high on Namestnikov, who was playing with Steven Stamkos at the time, while the Rangers were frustrated with Miller’s lack of maturity and stalled progress in their minds. They had no intention of re-signing Miller, so they added him to the package. Tampa traded Miller before the start of last season to the Vancouver Canucks, where he put up 72 points. The Rangers traded Namestnikov to Ottawa, who moved him to Colorado last season.

There are some other major moves that are still up in the air.