[John and I have been exchanging emails for a few weeks now regarding these ideas. Please take a minute (or two) and take this survey for him. -Jordan]

In UNDER 2 MINUTES, we're looking into the possibility of involving the Coyotes' fan base to keep the Coyotes in Glendale (assuming the current ownership talks fall through. If you're interested, PLEASE TAKE THIS SURVEY.

The survey only takes 2 minutes and will help us tremendously in moving forward.

This is a process that we (other hockey fans from Phoenix, Dallas, New York, and elsewhere) are looking into as a possible not-for-profit for of ownership for the Coyotes. It will need a ton of fan support to work. If you're interested, feel free to e-mail me at johnkatsos (at) yahoo (dot) com.

[Note by 8kpower, 07/26/11 8:11 AM PDT Great write up and a fun read. We had some scheduling problems this morning, so enjoy this to break up the day! ]

I’ve been wanting to post this for awhile, but was waiting for the right time. I finally decided it was time, especially in the dog days of summer with no hockey (and only Cally’s arbitration left, really).

I became a Rangers fan when I was six years old and my sister forced me to watch the Rangers every night during the 91-92 season. Great season to start watching since we had 50 wins in 80 GP. Ever since, I can remember important moments in my life based on what happened to the Rangers that season. ’94, when we won the cup, was the same year my grandmother passed away. The day I graduated middle school, Gretzky had his hat trick against the Flyers in the ’97 Eastern Conference finals. I started high school a month before we gave Mess a 4-minute standing ovation the night of his first regular season game back from Vancouver. A month after 9/11 I remember holding a lady’s hand during the introductions because she burst into tears when Mess came out wearing the firefighter helmet. Her husband was in Tower 2 when it had collapsed.

Join me after the jump for more. 

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I put out this post last year and get some responses so I'm putting it up again this year. Would anyone like to come down to Washington, DC for the Friday February 25th game against the Caps? I live down here in DC (and have for a few years now) and every time the Rangers are in town, we always have about 1/4 of the Verizon filled by Rangers fans. I'd like to get some organization to this so, if you're interested, voice it in the reply thread and maybe we can get a section of tickets of Rangers fans and then go drinking before/after the game.

Also, DC has a bad rap among New Yorkers. It's a great town to party in and the Verizon Center is a great place to watch a game (despite the fact that the food is terrible). Let me know if you're interested.

A minor trade yesterday between the Rangers and Blue Jackets was reported on TSN and Yahoo! Dane Byers was sent from the Rangers in exchange for forward Chad Kolarik. Kolarik, 24, plays RW and looks like he'll be in Hartford for the time being. Not a major move but maybe this is Glen setting the stage for something bigger. Fun factoid, though, Kolarik shares his home town - Abington, PA - with my favorite Ranger of all-time. Name that Ranger.

I don't know how many people read Bill Simmons, but he's one of my favorite sports writers and probably one of the most popular guys on ESPN. This particular article is about a variety of theories he's been "chewing on". The final one is:  What's wrong with James Dolan? Though much of it revolves around his management of the Knicks, everything he says equally applies to the carelessness he's brought to the Rangers.   
What's wrong with James Dolan?

ESPN published the list of arenas nationwide in every sport and their local health violations. Our beloved MSG had a whopping 61% of its vendors receive health code violations, more than 30% worse than any other arena in the area. For those who won't look at the article, the next two worst are the new Yankee Stadium and CitiField. Nassau Coliseum had no health violations last year and the Prudential Center only had 6% of its vendors receive violations. Personally, this is why I bring my own food to the game - that and it's expensive

Yet another reason to hate the Dolans as owners. 

Just a thought here, but does it seem like every team in the Eastern Conference has gotten markedly stronger or maintained their already strong team. The teams at the top (New Jersey, Washington, Pittsburgh, Buffalo) have kept their major assets and some got even better (Pittsburgh). Of the teams at our level last season (Philadelphia, Ottawa, Boston, Montreal and Atlanta), only Boston has been relatively quiet. Of the teams below us, Tampa Bay is the only that has made some great moves, dumping salary and getting a high-end player in Simon Gagne. 

So here's my worry: are the Rangers going to get completely crowded out next year? We have a potentially very strong defense (but not true defensive forwards) and a great goaltender. We have a coach who preaches high-powered offense, but we have no high-powered offensive weapons (besides Gabby). Plus, we've got some bloated contracts for mediocre performers (Redden, Drury, Roszy) that cramp our salary cap. We are by no means a bad team, but we're also not a great team capable of winning in one of the toughest divisions in hockey. 

All this is to say, what are our expectations? Is it to win a Cup? Or just make the playoffs? Basically I've come to believe that this team is being built only to make the playoffs. That has been Sather's philosophy since taking over. That's fine for ownership as playoff games are what actually make the Rangers profitable (according to MSG's internal financial data both the Knicks and the Rangers lose money - not break even - if they only play regular season games). One playoff series usually generates enough income so that the Rangers actually turn a profit. Beyond that is great, but just not within the reach of this club. 

But as a fan, I don't want to just make the playoffs. I want the Rangers to win the Stanley Cup. We all still cherish our memories from 1994 with good reason. No team has ever won a Stanley Cup since realignment ranked lower than 4th (though many have made the Cup Finals). So shouldn't the team's goal be to be good enough to win the division? Is that so far out of our reach within the next 2-5 years? 

I'm looking to start a discussion because even I understand the other side, that making the playoffs in and of itself is awesome and worth it. Maybe. Convince me. Or agree with me that the Cup is worth having a bad season or two (i.e. selling off big names like Gabby and Prospal to get loads of draft picks/ prospects).

After their win tonight against the Devils, the Rangers are within a breath of a playoff spot. But could it be more than a breath? Could we be closer than we look to a playoff spot? 

The Rangers have 9 games left. Only three are against teams with more points (2 vs. Philly, 1 vs. Buffalo). And we are within 5 points of Philly in the standings (at last glance). The two teams between the Rangers and a playoff spot are Boston and Atlanta. Boston plays 9 games, of which 6 are against teams with more points; Atlanta has 8 games left, 5 of which are against teams with more points than them. 

Now, for as long as I can remember, the Rangers always seem to get screwed by the scheduling gods. This year, though, they seem to have smiled upon us. A game in hand against one of our rivals for a spot and twice as many "easy" teams. This obviously doesn't account for the fact that certain teams with fewer points are on hot streaks and other better teams might be resting players for the playoffs (Pittsburgh, Washington), but that doesn't happen nearly as often in hockey as it does in football. This also isn't to say that missing the playoffs is necessarily a bad thing. I think the organization could use a bit of a wake up call. BUT, God do I love playoff hockey.

All I'm saying is, we've got a shot. And we would likely play Washington in the first round - the same team that we came within a period of upsetting last year.

So I'm reading through the Post today and come across this. All I could think of is "Wow, that sucks." Then I thought, "I wonder if this is on the Banter?" and when I didn't see it, I further wondered, "Maybe this guy reads the Banter?" Dude, if you are reading this, I am so sorry. That sucks. I hope it works out for you with someone else. She's probably an Islanders or Devils fan at heart. 

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After the Rangers recent poor run, I decided to do a little experiment. I believe that Sabremetrics have really improved baseball scouting and I’ve always thought that hockey needed something similar. As an MBA student, I’ve learned various statistical modeling techniques and how to do regression analyses and the like: basically, if you give me a lot of numbers, I can see what is linked with what. So I got to thinking: what makes a team good? Obviously we all have our ideas: from good defense to strong powerplay to youth to experience. We each have an opinion. But if we could get some existing stats and see if they correlated to how many points a team had? That would be pretty cool.

So I’ve done just that.

I got all of the stats that NHL.com, SI.com, and ESPN.com had online from all of the years since the lockout and plugged them into a program through Excel called StatTools. I then ran some regression analyses on number of points and their correlations to various statistics (note: if you’re also stats inclined, I can forward you the file with the actual analysis to check the work out. The file is big and most people don’t care about the method, just about the results).

I chose number of points because it summed up wins and OT losses and both determine whether a team makes the playoffs, not just wins. Then, I compared just about every team stat I could find to see what correlated the best. Once I got the top 5, I coupled those 5 with each other and with others to see what I could get as the highest correlation to points; basically, I wanted the two things that, in combination, were the highest predictor of total points.

The two most important factors were: the ratio of goals for-goals against 5-on-5 and the winning percentage of teams in games in which they did not score the first goal. This seems remarkably obvious right? Score more goals than the other team and win when you’re behind. But it reveals something much more than that.

First, it means that special teams just don’t matter that much. The correlation between powerplay percentage, penalty kill percentage and both together is very small. When watching a game, this might not seem logical because it always seems like powerplays and penalty kills happen at important moments. In individual games that might be true but over the course of a full season, it’s just not that important. 5-on-5 is the bread and butter, followed by a team’s emotional wear-with-all to come back from being down. Similarly, the number of penalties a team takes make almost no difference, nor do the number of fights, hits, or shots.

Practically, what does that mean for our Rangers? Well, right now, the Rangers are 7th in the Conference, barely in the playoffs and 16th in the league. Using the equation that the correlation gave me, the Rangers will end up finishing 6th in the conference, well in the playoffs, but 17th in the league – this is a result of the relative strength of the Western Conference.

What do the Rangers therefore need to do to get better? First, stop worrying about special teams. Instead, work in practice on 5-on-5 breakout plays, defending the neutral zone, and breaking through a “hold the line” team like Philly. It also means not being frustrated by giving up the first goal. This is obviously a leadership and teamwork issue: guys have to believe in each other and in themselves. Group vacation for Olympic break?

Questions? E-mail jekatsos@gmail.com

Does anyone have any interest in going to the March 6 game in Washington against the Capitals? I tried this earlier in the year and got a few responses. The Verizon Center is a great place to watch the game, plus DC is a great city for bars, monuments, and grub. They also have group packages at the Verizon center so if there are enough of us we could get a pretty good rate and all sit together and heckle the crap out of the Caps fans. I live in DC and would love to show folks around who are not from here (or go with fans who are from the DC area). The game is at 7pm. E-mail me if you have any interest: jekatsos@gmail.com 

Note by Joe Fortunato: Not much going on in Ranger-land right now so here is a nice story from DCRanger to get you through the morning.

Great article about The Messier Project, in which Mess talks a little about Mike Richter and Jeff Bukeboom and how they inspired his efforts to make a different helmet.

Here's the link for the project.

Seems like a great thing that he's doing. I wonder if the Rangers will give any thought to being the first team to all use the helmet. It would be a great move to making us leaders on this issue and protecting our players.

Any DC Rangers fans interested in making a Rangers section for the three Rangers games in DC this season? Verizon Center is a great place to watch a game, but every time I go for the Rangers games there's about 30 Rangers fans all scattered throughout the building. I figure if we form up in one section, even if its in the nosebleeds, we can show some more teeth. The last pre-season game is at DC on Sunday Sept. 27. I was hoping to figure this out before that.

There has been a lot of venom spewed towards Donald Brashear over the last week or so. Much of it is totally warranted because he is the prototypical NHL thug. A lot of people don't want these kinds of goons in the game at all. The way I see it, though, is that these guys are here to stay, at least for the short term. And, like it or not, they do serve a purpose, namely, intimidation and protection. I think what we all see in Brashear is not his purpose; we all see that vicious hit on Betts (that and the Marty head-whack, which karma-wise probably balances out). But here's the question: after that hit, what happened? Paul Mara made a lame-ass attempt at retribution and they both got penalties. Did you see Colton Orr knocking Mike Green's lights out? No. Why? Because if he had, he knew Brashear would be on his ass.

This all leads up to why I like the Brashear signing (though perhaps not the amount of money): every team needs a goon, but if you're going to have one, get the biggest baddest guy on the block. In the NHL right now, that guy is not Colton Orr or anybody else. It's Donald Brashear. Sather got him locked up (in a strangely savvy move) before they signed Marion "I get injured all the time cause everybody cheap shots me and I'm kind of wuss" Gaborik. So if a team wants to mess with him, they'll have to deal with Brashear and the monster known as Brian Boyle (at 6-7 and 250). 

Also, if you actually look at his PIMs closely, you'll notice something remarkable: Brashear takes fewer PIMs than pretty much any enforcer in the league. Early in his career, he was taking loads of PIMS but now he seems to do more damage to other teams with less damage to his own team because his reputation is solid. Orr on the other hand has to build up his "tough-guy" reputation by accumulating PIMs all over the place (thus his 3rd ranking in PIMs v. Brashear's 39th last season). No matter how much of his potential Orr reaches, he's still putting up 5 points a year whereas Brashear in his prime was putting up 15-20. Long story short, Orr was not the answer because he was providing the needed protection.

I realized that by posting this people are going to slam me, but I thought it needed to mentioned that there are some very redeeming aspects to this signing.

The Rangers just announced the signing of Ales Kotalik. Though he finished last season with Edmonton, the 30-year old Kotalik was with Buffalo Sabres for 8 years before that. This likely means two things. First, the Rangers don't expect Nik Zherdev to come back and wanted a cheaper more reliable for their top line. Second, Chris Drury must have played a factor in the signing. They played for three seasons together in Buffalo, each having some of their most productive years while together. What about a potential first line of Gaborik-Drury-Kotalik? That's potentially a monster force and potentially disastrous.

The terms of the contract have yet to be released.