On Thursday the New York Knicks celebrated their NBA Championship with a parade that went through the Canyon of Heroes, something Neil Smith once traversed with the New York Rangers back in 1994.
That was the last time the Blueshirts won a Stanley Cup, and if you happened to listen to Smith's recent comments about the team, it is hard to believe that they will be doing any winning like that anytime soon. Smith was the architect of the Blueshirts' last championship squad, and although the game has changed a lot, his comments are still worth talking about.
Smith "doesn't understand the whole thing that they've started"
Smith recently appeared as a guest on a podcast hosted by longtime Rangers reporter Jim Cerny, and touched on a number of things related to the current state of the organization. One of the biggest things he takes issue with is the way they are going about the process in terms of what they are calling it, and he feels the lack of set direction is wrong.
Smith lamented, "If you tear something down, you can’t retool it, you’ve got to rebuild it. That’s semantics. But if that’s the direction they’re going then they’ve got to do it properly. They can’t do it half-assed. They can’t do it where ‘We’re going to do it but we’ve got to keep the fans happy.’ No! The worst thing you can do is do half of one and half of the other. It will not work. And they’ve got to decide how they’re going to do this.”
Smith's point about retool vs rebuild is a valid one, and something that I think about a lot. I feel the distinction is essentially a marketing tool, because the team isn't going to go out of their way to say they are going to be bad, because they need to sell tickets and have people show up. They've missed the playoffs in back to back years, and telegraphing that they could miss a third year in a row would be a disaster.
While I think the Rangers have a chance to be better this season, assuming that key players remain healthy, they have a lot of work to do if they are going to build a roster than can win a playoff round or two.
Smith gets to it later in the interview, but with some time removed since the moves have been made, it is easy to see how the Rangers actions haven't been in complete alignment, and how they essentially have been stopping and starting for no clear reason.
Such moves include bringing players like Vladislav Gavrikov into the organization just last summer, and now the team is in a place where they already have moved out key players with some likely to depart in the next few weeks.
Final thoughts
I implore you to check out the full interview at Forever Blueshirts, as Smith touches on some important topics such as the trading of Artemi Panarin, the re-acquisition of J.T. Miller, the hiring of Mike Sullivan and much more. Smith was the President and General Manager of the Rangers from 1989 to 2000, and during his tenure the team went 396-349-217-3, with the major highlight being the 1994 Cup win.
He's never been afraid to speak his mind about the team, and I think it is notable that he took the time to be as pointed and direct in his criticism about the team. It is possible that the Rangers' general lack of direction, coming at a time in which the Knicks won a title, will result in some additional scrutiny.
Chris Drury is going to have his work cut out for him this summer, and if the Rangers don't show tangible signs of improvement, things could get very ugly. The scenes and sounds of Thursday's Knicks parade will be hard to forget, and you can imagine Rangers fans will look at that and wonder when their day will come too.
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