At the All-Star Break, the New York Rangers continue to sit at number 1 in the standings (at least by points percentage), and have shown no signs of slowing down. That's a far cry from where they were way back in October during my first update, where a slow start had people questioning a lot about the team. Now the only question is whether the team can still avoid the dreaded 'regression,' dropping like other teams of the past. As usual, Rob already covered that again with the shot metrics, so I'm just filling in the rest, with the season data on scoring chances.

Typically with these summaries, I start with the goaltending and then bombard the rest of the post with more tables. I just posted a lot of the data recently with the chance types, so for a change of pace, this time I'm going to instead bombard the post with pretty pictures charts. Here's one such chart:

This will look familiar to a select few of you, as it is an update of one I posted a month ago. This shows the 10 game ratio of each of the important shot ratios, goals, Fenwick, Corsi, and scoring chances (all even strength data). For the most part, shots and scoring chances have been tied fairly closely all season, an indication that 'shot quality' is still not really a driving force for their domination in goals. That credit still goes to Henrik Lundqvist and Martin Biron. Even with the goaltending, it's important to get the better of the shots over the course of the year, as the correlation between goals or shots and scoring chances is quite high the later you get in the year. That 52.6% they're at now is perfectly acceptable for that goal, and where they need to remain.

After the jump, more charts!

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The midpoint in the season is always a good time to start reviewing what has happened and start looking towards the last half and the season the playoff push. We'll start that review looking at the types of chances each player has been on ice for, as we've looked at in the previous individual chance update . As I do with the regular summaries, I'll start with the goaltenders, which serves as a team summary.

Data (which does not include this past weekend) after the jump.

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Shooting trends for this team have become quite the heated topic lately. Previous posts from Rob L. have painted the picture of a team playing above it's skill level. My last post on the topic showed a team still a bit too reliant on its goaltending. Even some of the advanced stat guys are starting to make some noise about the Rangers, like Rob Vollman did with this tweet several days ago:

Now that Minnesota has plunged as us fancy-stats guys predicted maybe you'll pay attention to this: the NY Rangers are next.

If you're wondering about those past predictions, you can find stories here, and here, among other places. Like the '09 Avalanche, and '10 Stars before them, the '11 Wild are a poor possession team riding hot goaltending to a fast start, and then the bottom fell out. Not suprisingly, those fans all brought up similar counter arguments before the collapses. 'We have a system." "You can't measure a team's heart." "We limit shot quality." "Stats don't capture everything." If you've been reading the comments here lately, you've seen similar counter arguments. So why are we different? We're a better team, and I'm going to show you why.

The standard go to arguments against sustained success point to two things, Fenwick with the score Tied, and PDO. For refreshers on both: Fenwick is simply the ratio of even strength shots directed at the net for a team compared to its opponents. PDO is the total of even strength save percentage and even strength shooting percentage. For this article, in both cases, I will be using the stats under 'close' conditions. That is defined as any 1-goal game state during the first two periods, and tied game states in the 3rd. While this actually paints a darker picture for the Rangers compared to Fenwick tied, it helps expand the sample size, which is important when looking at only a half-season's worth of data.

After the jump, a comparison of all 4 teams.

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It's been a while since the last individual update, so the New Year seems like as good a time as any for the next one. For previous updates, I gave you the game by game totals, but 20 games is a lot to list, so this time around I'll just give the totals. Those curious enough to see the game logs can find it at my blog like data dump site. We saw in my shots update that the chances did trend above break even for a period of time, but they've come back down now.

*Data does not include the Winter Classic

Scoring chances for the season are still below 50%, much like the season shot totals that Rob L showed. What that tells is that contrary to some arguments, there's no noticeable difference in the shot quality being prevented by the defense, or created by the offense. Another way we can check that is by type of chance. (5v5 data only)

The New York Rangers have gotten a few more breakaways (thank you Marian Gaborik), but overall there's no discernible difference in the types allowed, and the percentage of transition chances of the two groups (43.6% for, 43.4% against) is virtually identical. The main separator, which also accounts for their record, is once again the goaltending of Henrik Lundqvist and Martin Biron. After stopping 88% of even strength chances against last year, the duo has maintained that clip through 36 games this year.

After the jump, the individual data.

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Hockey sabermetrics are still in their infancy compared to their baseball equivalents. What that means is that every day, hockey sabermetricians are looking for new ways to evaluate what has happened on the ice. One such way is through a new metric introduced by Neil Greenberg via ESPN, called the Clutch Performance Indicator (CPI). A warning: the link unfortunately requires an ESPN Insider subscription. For those without, CPI is defined here:

Similar to "win probability added" in baseball, the Clutch Performance Indicator is derived by looking at the current game situation -- the period in which the goal was scored, the score at the time of the goal and the time remaining -- and determining what percentage chance each team has of winning the contest in that situation. The data for those percentages is based on all previous hockey games for which we have available, complete information. CPI then awards each skater a fraction of a win for each goal he is involved in, in every game he plays.

It's worth noting here that this is a measure of what a player has done in the clutch, but does not represent an ability to be clutch. While the full list not accessible thanks to ESPN's 'wonderful' internal policies, Neil was generous enough to provide me with a couple of key players. We'll look at the list after the jump.

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Fellow Banter author Rob L. has done an excellent job keeping fans updated on the performance of this Rangers team according to shot metrics. As a follow up to his work, I wanted to give a more visual look at those the season has trended thus far. For starters, let's look at last year's team.

The chart (click to enlarge) represents a rolling 10 game average of each of the 4 indicated categories. The data is for even strength only. For instance, between games 50 and 60 last year, the Rangers got only 40% of the goals scored, while between 60 and 70 they were just under 60%. Ordinarily, I would use a 20 game average to smooth the data a bit, but since we have just 30 games for comparison this season, it wouldn't give us very many data points.

Though a bit cluttered, you can see that during the course of the year, the Rangers' shot metrics stayed relatively bunched all season. When Fenwick (Shots For / Shots By Both teams, excluding blocked shots) and Corsi (Fenwick + blocked shots) went up, so did their scoring chances. However, goals% was a lot more volatile. This is because over the course of the season, there is a tremendous amount of luck involved in goal scoring. That luck is captured by looking at PDO.

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The well below average performance from October are a distant memory now, with the team won 9 of 11 games in November. From a scoring chances perspective, the New York Rangers performed more like they did last year, producing 15 scoring chances at even strength and taking 51% of the chances in total. The complete data for the month is shown below:

*Data does not reflect the 5v3 situations

The power play showed their first signs of life this season, producing a record high in scoring chance rates (at least for the modest year plus that I have tracked.) Unfortunately, it also came with a record low is chance prevention on the penalty kill. The +3 on special teams is still a 16 chance improvement over October, which combined with the marked improvement at even strength, helps explain why the team has been able to make a run.

After the jump, the skaters' data.

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At the last update, the New York Rangers were coming off their 7 game, Magellan-inspired road trip.  Over that span, they were outchanced most every night,  and the team sputtered along.  Since then, shots on goal have still been an issue, as Rob updated us on Monday.  However, the scoring chances have trended up, as we see here:

Aside from Ottawa, the Rangers have controlled the even strength scoring chances during each game of the winning streak, and many of the Senators chances that game came while the Rangers were protecting a lead in the 3rd period (hooray score effects!).  Speaking of score effects, with the Rangers trailing for under a minute during the entire streak, for them to come out ahead is an even greater positive.  The other key to the success lately has been to jump on teams early, which you can clearly see from the period breakdown:

A whopping 69% of the even strength chances, and 67% overall in the first period is a good way to manufacture success, especially for a team built on the back of goaltending and defense.

After the jump, the individual breakdowns.

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One month is already in the books for the Rangers, and as I talked about in my summary of the road trip, things have not gone swimmingly.  There I covered most of the individual chances, so this time around we'll look at the on ice chances for each player. Per usual, we'll start with the goaltenders, which really just reflects the team totals:

*Data does not reflect the 5v3 situations

Compared to last year at this time, the team's defense has actually improved slightly, but as we've discussed, the offense isn't where it needs to be yet.   That leads to fairly miserable 46.3% of the chances in their favor for the month.  Ignoring score effects and checking the totals with the score tied makes it worse, with the totals at 45-57 for a 44.1% ratio.   While it is a terrible start to the year, the Sharks game did give a look at how the team could perform, as did last night's Ducks game.

After the jump, the data for all the skaters.

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The struggles of the team throughout the seven game, three country road trip have been well documented.  Needless to say, the scoring chances picture does not paint any rosier a picture.  The New York Rangers as a team last year averaged 16.5 chances per game last season, yet they failed to get more than 15 in any game on the trip.  The game by game totals are as follows:

Clarifying one point on the table that often leads to confusion, the totals are all shown from the point of view of the Rangers.  Thus under PP, the Rangers had 17 PP chances for, and 7 against, while shorthanded they had 5 chances while allowing 31.   A small positive here is they were able to play relatively even at even strength up until the last two games of the trip, where the time on the road may have finally taken its toll.   At least, that's what one can hope the narrative is, as the last two performances were quite poor.

After the jump, you can find the individual performances.

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In case you missed the summary for the game against the Kings, you can find the post here, along with the background on the scoring chance data.  For this game, we start with the individual chances:

After struggling in game 1, Brian Boyle bounced back with a strong effort against the Ducks, having a hand in 4 of the 7 even strength chances for the Rangers, and 6 of 12 overall.  Brandon Dubinsky also had a strong effort, contributing on 3 chances for the second straight game.  He was also the only Ranger to contribute on more than one chance in both games.  On the defensive side, while last year the Getzlaf line ran wild against the Rangers, the defense was able to hold them mostly in check this time around.  Yes, they did contribute, but the trio only amassed two chances at even strength, a credit to the work done by Ryan McDonagh and Dan Girardi.

After the jump, the chance types, and the raw data.

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It's another season, and like last year, I'll be tracking scoring chances for the New York Rangers again.  For the new Banter initiates, here's the definition of what a scoring chance actually is:

A scoring chance is defined as a clear play directed toward the opposing net from a dangerous scoring area – loosely defined as the top of the circle in and inside the faceoff dots, though sometimes slightly more generous than that depending on the amount of immediately-preceding puck movement or screens in front of the net. Blocked shots are generally not included, but missed shots are. A player is awarded a scoring chance anytime he is on the ice and someone from either team has a chance to score. He is awarded a "chance for" if someone on his team has a chance to score and a "chance against" if the opposing team has a chance to score.

The data compilation is made possible by the awesome script provided by Vic Ferrari at Irreverant Oiler Fans and timeonice.com.   This year, the project has expanded from 8 teams tracked to 15, with guys like CJ Richey at In Lou We Trust and Cam Charron at Nucks Misconduct joining the fray. 

Project pimping aside, I have the data for the first game against the Los Angeles Kings, and it's located after the jump.

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The 2011-12 season preview from the guys at Hockey Prospectus was made available in pdf form a few days ago.  As their tagline suggests, the book is essential reading for anyone who reads and believes in the so called 'advanced statistics.'   In exchange for information on the New York Rangers' scoring chances data and general information about the team, editor Timo Seppa was generous enough to provide me with a copy.  With his permission, I'm going to review a few of the many, many tidbits of stats and information the book provides. 

For those unfamiliar with their work, the player evaluations and projections are based on a system they developed named VUKOTA.  As they explain in their introduction:

VUKOTA, fundamentally, is an individual player projection system, not a team system, and thus it projects statistics that can be considered individual, such as goals, assists, save percentage, and GVT. It doesn’t attempt to project statistics such as plus-minus and goaltender wins that are more of a team than a player result.

Because of the aspects of hockey that exist in neither baseball nor basketball, such as variable ice time and special teams, VUKOTA relies more on interpolation and less on exact player comparables. For example, in order to project a player like Kris Letang, VUKOTA will utilize a large pool of historically comparable players—say, all defensemen who played the entire season between ages 23 and 24—and see how they fared the next season, then adjust Letang’ numbers depending on where he fits on that curve. Mathematically, it’s a combination of comparable player selection and multi-variable linear regression.

After the jump, we'll look at a couple of those projections.  

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As a follow up to my post on Monday about individual scoring chances, this article covers the larger picture, totalling the number of chances that each player was on the ice for.  The last update for this came at the end of February, so this adds just the 18 final regular season games.  I did not include the playoff chances, those that feel the need to relive that can find that here.

As a refresher and for those who don't typically follow these stories, here's the definition again:

A scoring chance is defined as a clear play directed toward the opposing net from a dangerous scoring area - loosely defined as the top of the circle in and inside the faceoff dots, though sometimes slightly more generous than that depending on the amount of immediately-preceding puck movement or screens in front of the net. Blocked shots are generally not included, but missed shots are. A player is awarded a scoring chance anytime he is on the ice and someone from either team has a chance to score. He is awarded a "chance for" if someone on his team has a chance to score and a "chance against" if the opposing team has a chance to score.

The project is made possible courtesy of Vic Ferrari, who gave us the script that keeps this project relatively simple.

All data after the jump.

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I covered the Rangers' even strength shooting back in the pre-Brad Richards era, but most fans will tell you not all shots are created equal.  That's why I took on the project of tracking scoring chances for the team this year.  By monitoring and recording the shots that come from the dangerous scoring areas, it will help give us some more insight into the team's offense.  For those that don't remember or have simply blocked it out of memory, here's the standard definition being used by the group of trackers:

A scoring chance is defined as a clear play directed toward the opposing net from a dangerous scoring area - loosely defined as the top of the circle in and inside the faceoff dots, though sometimes slightly more generous than that depending on the amount of immediately-preceding puck movement or screens in front of the net. Blocked shots are generally not included, but missed shots are. A player is awarded a scoring chance anytime he is on the ice and someone from either team has a chance to score. He is awarded a "chance for" if someone on his team has a chance to score and a "chance against" if the opposing team has a chance to score.

The project is made possible courtesy of Vic Ferrari, who gave us the script that keeps this project relatively simple.  You can also find a very crude map of the area here, which included a breakdown of scoring areas I did not use during the regular season.

After the jump, we'll look at the data for this past season, and discuss what to look for in the upcoming season.

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Derek Stepan's rookie season began with a bang, recording a hat trick against the Buffalo Sabres and instantly winning over the hearts and minds of Rangers' fans for the season.  He finished his rookie campaign with 21 goals and 45 points, tied for the 15th best rookie season in Rangers' history, and 4th best for someone 20 and younger.  To no surprise, expectations are running amok for Derek's future.  That future begins with his second season in the league, and as anyone will tell you, that season is one ripe with risk.

The 'sophomore slump' is a popular narrative.  A rookie comes in and sets the world on fire, and then can't replicate the results.  As the story goes, teams adjust to the player, players don't work hard enough to improve, etc.  What actually happens in most cases is one of two things.  A young player may get added responsibilities that he doesn't handle well (Michael Del Zotto anyone?).  Alternatively, and more commonly, the clock strikes twelve on a players' luck (I'm sorry to say, but Petr Prucha wasn't really a 23% shooter).

How at risk is Stepan to go through the sophomore slump?  We'll look at that after the jump.

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This is the week of reckoning for the contract of Brandon Dubinsky, with his arbitration hearing scheduled for this Thursday, July 21st.  There is an equally important arbitration hearing for the Rangers the following week, as Ryan Callahan's hearing comes the following Thursday.  I already looked at the expected value of Brandon Dubinsky, and determined that a reasonable deal for him would be $4.28m for 4 years.  Using similar methods, we'll determine what can be expected as Callahan moves through the prime of his career.

Just like last time, I ran a search on hockey-reference.com, searching for the combined seasons of all players who played at least 200 games, post lockout.  This time the age range is from 23 to 25, representing Ryan's last three seasons.  The list of 74 players is once again headed by Alex Ovechkin (304 points), down through Darrell Powe of Philadelphia.  Then I narrowed the list to all those within 0.1 points of Callahan's point per game mark over that stretch (0.57). 

The list of those players is after the jump.

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We're just one week away now from the first of the three arbitration hearings scheduled for the New York Rangers, that of Brandon Dubinsky.  Last year at this time, I looked at the progression of Dubinsky's career, and came to the conclusion that with some more shots on goal and more consistency, he could develop into a solid first liner.  He certainly showed both of those qualities this year, but the question still exists among the fan base on whether he can reach that next level.  To get a clearer picture, I decided to take a look at some comparable players, and see if we can estimate his value going forward.

To start off, I ran a search through hockey-reference.com, searching for the combined seasons of all players who played at least 200 games, between ages 22 and 24, post-lockout.  That list produces 59 players, ranging in points from Alex Ovechkin (331) to Ryan Hollweg (12).  From that list, I narrowed it down to all of those within 0.1 of Dubinsky's point per game average (0.61).  That list gives 22 players.

The details of these players can be found after the jump.

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Yesterday, Joe covered the upside to the signing of Brad Richards in detail.  We've signed a player that is top 10 in the league in assists per game since the lockout, and the cap hit is a somewhat friendly $6.667m.  Unfortunately, there is a downside to be worried about, and so we're going to breakdown each one of them here.

1. Even Strength Play

It's easy to do a quick google search of Brad Richards and find he's a -72 for his career, and -16 over the last 4 years.  It's not much harder to find some reasons why.

For the behindthenet.ca naive, I'll give a little background here.  Corsi is simply the measure of shots recorded for subtracted from shots recorded against, while a player is on the ice.  It includes all missed nets and blocked shots.  Corsi Rel QoC is a quality of competition metric based on Corsi Rel, or a players' Corsi rate while he's on the ice compared to the rate while he is off the ice.  For a full explanation of the method used, please check out the BTN FAQ.  Corsi QoT is similarly a quality of teammates metric, based on simply the Corsi rates of his teammates.  You can find a full primer on how each is used here.   ZS% is ZoneStart%, the percentage of the time a player starts in the offensive zone compared to the defensive zone.  Adjusted Corsi is the Corsi rate of the player adjusted based on those zone starts, calculated via some excellent work done by JLikens.

Now that everyone is sufficiently confused, we can plainly see that Brad Richard's Corsi has been consistently diminishing now for several years.  This is happening despite weakened competition, and even being thrust back into an offensive role could not stop the trend.  Yes, his teammates have also declined in rapid fashion, but this just tells you that Richards alone is not enough to carry a line forward, even against weaker competition.  He's going to need help on his line, or all the shiny new offense will not make up for what is given up on the other end of the ice.

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Brad RIchards is with the team, Matt Gilroy and Justin Soryal are no longer.  Thus is the summary of free agency transactions to the New York Rangers roster yesterday.  For Glen Sather, this has not been the most active period, but certainly one of the more productive in his tenure. 

Other notable moves around the NHL yesterday:

Tomas Vokoun - Signs with the Washington Capitals for 1 year, $1.5m. 

Ian White - Signs with the Detroit Red Wings for 2 years, $5.75m

Simon Gagne - SIgns with the Los Angeles Kings for 2 years, $7m

and

Tim Connolly - Signs with the Toronto Maple Leafs for 2 years, $9.5m

Consider this your open thread for today's events.  As usual, any breaking news will be covered right here on the Banter.

Brad Richards spent most of the day yesterday fielding phone calls and elaborate video montages of why he should play in each of roughly 50 cities.  Today, according to multiple reports, the former Dallas Stars center has finally decided to take his talents to the Big Apple. The contract he signed is a nine year contract worth $58.5 million.  The deal takes him until he turns, avoiding the 'Kovalchuk'-rule cap restrictions that come with contracts that take a player past 40 years of age.

UPDATE:  Contract details from Gord Miller at TSN:

Richards year by year: $12m, $12m, $9m, $8.5m, $8.5m, $7m, $1m, $1m, $1m.  $10m signing bonus+$2m the salary first year, $8m signing bonus + $4m salary the second

Clearly, the Rangers' front office decided that Brad Richards was indeed worth the risk.  The immediate benefits to this Rangers team are obvious.  Richards has scored at least 20 goals in 9 of his 10 NHL seasons.  He has posted at least 25 power play points in 8 of his 10 seasons.  He will fit an immediate need both in the #1 center slot, and quarterbacking the power play.   He has a Stanley Cup ring and a Conn Smythe trophy to his credit, from his days with current Rangers' coach John Tortorella.

The contract does not come without its share of weight, however.  The Rangers, unfair or not, have a reputation for signing big contracts to aging players who do not live up to their contracts.  Richards will be [unrealistically] expected to put up 80-90 points every season.  He'll be expected to help take the team past the first round of the playoffs every year.  Only time will tell if Brad Richards can overcome those obstacles, but clearly by signing here, he must feel he can.

The Rangers (finally) have their #1 center.  Exclaim your joy (or frustration) here.

According to multiple sources, the New York Rangers have come to terms with UFA Michael Rupp on a 3 year deal worth $4.5 million.  The 31 year old forward has spent the last two seasons with the Pittsburgh Penguins, where he had 22 goals in 36 points in 162 games.  Rupp made $850k last year.

From our own Dig Deep, who was nice enough to 'dig' up some more:

Rupp is a big guy, 50.6% on the faceoff dot last year. Good locker room guy. Will stick up for his teammates...

Continue your open discussion here.

After looking at the Rangers' even strength shooting again, the natural progression is to follow that up with a look at their power play shooting.  That starts by once again looking at the league wide statistics in the category (statistics as always courtesy of behindthenet.ca):

At even strength, we saw that shots on goal clearly favored the forwards, who had roughly 2.5 times more per 60 minutes than the defensemen.  On the powerplay, that changes dramatically, with the separation between forwards and defensemen at less than 1 shot per 60.  Considering the smaller sample of power play minutes (more than seven times less), we should expect the rates to have more volatility to them, however the shot rates are fairly stable over the last 3 years.  Instead, we see that volatility appear in the shooting percentages from year to year, especially among the centers and defensemen.

Do the Rangers' power play woes translate here?  Find out after the jump.

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The New York Rangers prospect development camp for 2011 will be held this week, from June 27th through July 1st, at the Madison Square Garden Training Center.  The Rangers released the roster tonight, which includes top prospects Christian Thomas, Tim Erixon, and Dylan McIlrath.  The roster also includes every pick from the just drafted 2011 class, highlighted by first rounder Jonathan Miller.  You can read more about some of the highly touted prospects on the Rangers website.

The one name not on the list is Chris Kreider.  As you may recall from last year, in a similar situation to Kreider, Ryan McDonagh was committed to staying in college, but shortly after attending this camp, he signed his entry-level contract.  There will be no such situation with Kreider, who will not be attending the camp, and with that basically eliminating any remaining doubt of what his plans are for 2011-12.

The full roster can be found after the jump.

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The New York Rangers made their now third selection in the 2011 NHL Draft by selecting 18 year old center Michael St. Croix of the Edmonton Oil Kings in the WHL.  St. Croix finished his second full season in the WHL with 75 points in 68 games.  He also led all forward on the Oil Kings with a +28 rating, significantly better than all but one other forward. 

Hockey Prospectus ranks St. Croix as their 26th best prospect, just below popular target and 1st round pick, Nicklas Jensen, and above 14th overall pick Jamieson Oleksiak Here's what Corey Pronman has to say on him:

Michael St. Croix came into the season expecting to dominate offensively, and while he did well, he didn't show the complete upside he's capable of. He's a solid skater, with a very fluid and effective stride who has the agility and edge control to be extremely elusive. St. Croix has plus puck skills and can make defenders miss left and right, but also can make very good distributions if they back off him. He's a well above-average power play weapon and can make a ton of things happen from the left side of the offensive zone. He has a solid shot and is able to score his mid-distances. His physical game is well below-average right now, and it likely will top out at most as a fringe tool. St. Croix does go into the physical areas and drives to the net, but he is relatively ineffective and physically overwhelmed easily to the point it makes more sense for him to stay on the perimeter. His hockey sense is solid to above-average, and offensively his awareness is impressive. He makes lightning-quick decisions—sometimes it even looks like he's rushing it by how quickly he moves the puck. St. Croix's defensive game was bad in the first half, but made some progression in the second half, although I'm not 100% he can stay at the center position.

More after the jump.

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The New York Rangers did not stay quiet while waiting for their 4th round pick to come around, opting to move up to No. 72 in the draft by trading 21 year old C/W Evgeny Grachev to the St. Louis Blues.  Grachev was the 75th overall selection in the 2008 draft.  He played 8 games with the Rangers last year, recording no points and a -3.  He also posted 38 points in 73 games for the Connecticut Whale. 

The team then used the No.72 pick in the draft to select Steven Fogarty, a center from Edina High School in Minnesota.  He is committed to attend the University of Notre Dame next year.

Here's what Minnesota Hockey Prospects has to say on Fogarty:

Plays a physical brand of hockey, grinding it out on the boards and getting dirty in front of the net. Bullies his way around the ice, excelling at playing a power game. Has the ability to finish in tight and pick up his fair share of garbage goals. Has pretty good hands for a big guy and can stick handle with the best of them. passing could use a bit more touch but this is not a glaring weakness. Does not have elite speed but is a mule on his skates.

The report from Kirk Luedeke of Bruins Draft Watch:

Still, there is a lot to like about this playmaking pivot who has a long stride and gets up the ice quickly. He has soft hands and superb vision for finding teammates in open ice. His work ethic is laudable- he wants to play and loves to compete; goes above and beyond to make himself better and put himself into situations that will put him in position to improve. He's raw and needs significant work, but will spend the entire 2011-12 season in the USHL. At 6-1, 195, he's got the physical tools to be a solid NHL prospect and watch for him to go relatively high (3rd-4th rounds) in the draft.

Those reports certainly read like someone  in Gordie Clark's wheelhouse. 

While we could talk alot more about Fogarty (and we will), the news here is that the Rangers traded away Grachev, a former #1 propsect in their system that has since passed on the depth chart by Chris Kreider and Christian Thomas.  Grachev clearly did not show the improvement that the Rangers were hoping for, or the proper motivation.  Grachev is still a very talented player, and the change of scenery may be what kicks him in the butt and gets him to achieve his potential.  You have to question if a third round pick in a relatively weak draft is the best Glen Sather could've done in this situation.

What are your thoughts?