356 - Knicks appreciation - Yankee warning signs - Rangers optimism

I have a potpourri of sports talk for you today!.  Some Knicks appreciation, some Yankees mid season talk and warning signs, and some nice NY Rangers talk.  Optimism for the Rangers?  It can't be   :-)

I start with the New York Knicks - reliving the parade energy, the iconic OG Anunoby tip-in, and the moments that made this playoff run feel like it belongs in franchise history. I discuss the way Karl Anthony Towns helps win games even when his stat line looks “quiet,” and why Jalen Brunson’s shot-making becomes the heartbeat of the title run. Since it's now the off-season, I discuss the salary cap, the second apron, and why it can force contenders to make painful choices. I talk through the Knicks’ decisions, why re-signing Jose Alvarado matters, and why the uncertainty around Mitchell Robinson and Landry Shamet hits so hard. If you’ve ever wondered how a team can win it all and still feel fragile weeks later, the 2nd apron rules explain a lot.

From there, it’s straight talk on the New York Yankees. A good record in a weak American League isn’t the same as being built for October, and we break down the holes we can’t ignore: the bottom of the lineup, bullpen reliability, and what has to change before anyone starts talking World Series. 

I close with a much-needed dose of optimism for the New York Rangers, including the big swing for goal scorer Pavel Dorofeyev. and the excitement around top-5 draft pick Alberts Smith. I also touch on recent trades sending Edstrom and Berard out of NY.

Subscribe for more New York sports talk, share this with a fellow fan, and leave a rating and review. What’s the one move you want your team to make next?

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Transcript

Welcome And The Three Topics

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome to Jersey Guys For Home for the Yanks, the Giants, the Knicks, the Rangers, and the Ruckers Croglitz. I'm your host, Don. Thanks for listening. Today I'm going to be talking about a poker of items. The New York Knicks, a little look back on the Knicks run and championship. The New York Yankees, kind of an overview of how they're doing, and New York Rangers talk the Rangers with a little optimism with some recent updates. So let's go ahead and get started. All right,

Knicks Championship Pride And Parade

SPEAKER_00 0:39

all right, all right. So we got a little bit of everything today on Jersey Guy Sports. Want to talk a little bit about the Knicks? Want to talk a little bit about the Yanks and a little bit about the New York Rangers. It's been a little time since I talked about the Rangers, but we're going to get started with our world champion, NBA champion, New York Knicks, baby. And you really need to look back on the Knicks run with some pride if you are a New York Knicks NBA fan. Because how long has it been for the Knicks? 53 years, and that is a long, long, long, long wait. And it was worth every year, every minute, every excruciating defeat. That championship, my God, it put uh such a uh such a band-aid on on all the suffering and the pain. And if you got to watch or be part of the parade in New York, what a wonderful, wonderful moment. One of the better parades I've ever seen. The mayor of New York made a tremendous, incredible speech. I thought he did such a great job. He was clearly a big Knicks fan and just really drove home all the exciting moments and was an inspiring, inspiring speech to fight, despite what the owner said afterwards. It was an incredible speech. Everyone should be very proud of the Knicks. And looking back on it, every time I think about it, I get even more excited. And I'm watching every clip on YouTube, everything that's posted on X as far as clips and the big moments. And if you're a Knicks fan, you sit back and you think with pride on just what an incredible, incredible run this was. And not only the big moments in the finals, but how incredibly dominant they were after they were down 2-1 to Atlanta in the first round from that point on, just going, you know, 15-1. And just an incredible, incredible, incredible run for the New York Knicks, you know, to finish out and win the NBA championship. There are some forever games that I think Knicks fans will just have etched in their mind forever. I mean, it'll be etched there forever. And it's like that with lots of sports. And as I think back on various Yankees championships, and of course the big 1994 New York Ranger Championship and Giants Super Bowls, there are things that you will never, ever, ever forget. And it's the same with the New York Knicks, right? The OG Ananobi tip-in obviously was a defining iconic moment, you know, for in Knicks history. You know, the whole game, the 29-point comeback, that was capped, you know, by OG's tip-in. Iconic, incredible, unbelievable. Brunson's miraculous performance in the winning game five, 45 points to put San Antonio away. Incredible, incredible. And so many other moments that you just will will be etched like stone into the memories of New York Knicks fans who have suffered for 53 years and now can just swell with pride, go buy your gear, right? You know, show out, you know, respect, you know, for New York Knicks. And and boy, it's got to be a good feeling. So many Brunson moments. OG was spectacular besides the tipping. He just played such great basketball throughout the playoffs. And Carl Anthony Towns in particular, playing as well as he played in the playoffs, is almost overlooked at this point. He was an incredibly important, you know, person on the Knicks, and probably after Brunson, the most important Kick, and maybe, you know, outside of a few games, even more important, the way that he played got so unnoticed, and it wasn't, you know, it didn't always show up in the scorebook. And you look at the stat line and you say, ah, he only had 18 points or 15 points or 22 points. You know, when Brunson had more, but Cat would only take, you know, six shots, eight shots. You know, he was very efficient, always makes all his free throws, got better and better at defense. Amazingly, he became a great defender. He outplayed Wemby, even though Wemby had more points. He played better overall than Wemby. He was certainly more clutched than Wemby. In all the big comeback games, he was a big, big, big part of the comebacks. Carl Anthony Towns showed up. And if you are a cat fan like I am, I'm telling you, you should be really, really proud of the Knicks and for him. And hopefully he gets some love from New York City because he was a huge part of the first New York Knicks championship in 53 years.

Offseason Begins And Cap Reality

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Quickly moving on to some other news. So, you know, now that the Knicks won, they had their parade and the season's officially over, the NBA moves on, right? They had their draft and the offseason is here and free agency and trades. And, you know, the Knicks made some moves, right? They did re-sign Alvarado, which is good. I think he was a big help in some of the games and someone else to bring the ball up. You know, we have a couple good point guards now in case you know something happens at Brunson or when he has to rest. I I like re signing Alvarado. He's not that expensive, and I think it's a good move. In the draft, they couldn't afford a first rounder because they are so close, the Knicks are, to the second apron. And if you don't know what that is, the NBA has implemented many, many, many, many rules to try to basically ensure dynasties don't happen and that people can't just spend a ton of money, get every great free agent, and then just continue to win, you know, nine championships in a row. And one of the things they implemented is they obviously have a salary cap, you know, and if you go over it, you know, by a certain amount, you're in what's called the first apron and you have all these restrictions placed on you. And if you go over it by an additional amount, you're over what's called the second apron. It's it's an amount of money that you spend, in which case there are really, really restrictive measures placed on you. It restricts who you can trade, it restricts you sending money to other teams. If you end up in that apron for three of five years, you you then get draft picks, move back to the end of the first round. It's extremely restrictive. It almost lets you do next to nothing. So the Knicks ownership does not want to go over that second apron, and the Knicks are very close to that line right now.

Robinson And Shamet Decisions Loom

SPEAKER_00 7:18

So they have a lot of decisions to make in the next couple weeks, and some of them are gonna be painful for Knicks fans because while they did re-sign Alvarado, they have not re-signed Mitchell Robinson and Landry Shaman yet, who were big parts of the Knicks run. And I left them out of my analysis because I want to talk specifically about them here. You know, both would be and might be huge losses for the New York Knicks, particularly Mitchell Robinson, because when Kat was out, you know what Robinson can bring to the team. And yes, we all laugh and know how bad his free throws are and the hack of Mitch. And that was certainly a detriment to us in some games. But besides that, you know, the ability to play elite defense under the rim against anybody, and play elite defense out on the perimeter. There are very, very, very few big guys like Mitch who can be really good inside, dominate rebounding, and you know Mitchell Robinson offensively, defensively dominates rebounds. His numbers, number of rebounds per minutes played are staggering, just off the charts, right? So the ability to do that paired with his ability to be athletic enough to get out on the perimeter and guard swingmen and point guards and of course centers, you know, and try to prevent them from, you know, taking three-point shots and stuff, is I wouldn't say it's unparalleled, but it is rarefied air. And I don't want to make this too big or hyperbole, but Mitchell Robinson was a special kind, is a special kind of defensive player. And I don't want to start talking about him in the past tense, but it seems unlikely that the New York Knicks are going to retain him again because they do not want to go over the second apron. And that, you know, would be a huge loss for Knicks fans. He's we drafted Robinson back in 2018. He's one of our own. It's it would be a tough loss, both from a sort of New York Knicks pride perspective, you know, a fan favorite perspective, but just from an on the court perspective. When Cat comes out next year, without Robinson to come in, you know, we're gonna have Hawk Porti out there, we're gonna need to somehow try to replace him. And I don't know what's out there that we could possibly replace him with, especially with the Knicks so close to that second apron. Because again, the Knicks are very restrictive in what they can pay for, who they can deal, all this kind of stuff. So you should read about it. I'm not gonna go over all the rules of the first apron and second, second apron, but it is eye-opening if you don't know the details of it. You know, you can Google it, and it's there's a lot of stuff the Knicks can't do with the being in the first apron, and a whole lot more they won't be able to do if they go over that second apron. So this is tough stuff. And Landry Shaman was quite valuable in so many playoff games and in the regular season, too. Now, losing a shooter like him is huge, though I think it's possible, you know, to potentially come close to replacing some of his value, even though I loved him. He was way better defensively than people really gave him credit for. And boy, was he clutch with some big shots in big spots. And he went on a heater and one stretch of the playoffs where he made, what was it, 12 of 13 three-pointers on one stretch? Just incredible stuff. So by no means am I saying it's gonna be easy to replace Shamit, because it won't. But, you know, I think we can find some shooters in certain spots. I don't know how we would replace Mitchell Robinson's production. It just seems nearly we're definitely not gonna be able to replace his rebound because he was a unicorn when it came to rebounding. And I'm sorry, almost I would take him almost if you're just concerned about rebounds only, he might be the singular person in the whole league, I would take to get rebounds, right? It's just he was that good. Shamit is a great shooter, but there are great shooters you can find, and we're gonna have to see what the Knicks do to replace him. And in that thing, in the NBA draft, the Knicks couldn't afford a first rounder, as I just mentioned, because they're so close to the second apron. But they did select in the second round number 39 overall and number 47 overall. The 39 overall pick was somebody named Jack Kyle, and he's a guard. I think he's about 6'3, he's out of Germany. We're gonna have to see how good he is. And then they took an interesting pick at number 47 that everybody seems to like, and his name is Tyler Nickel. And he's a wing, a tall wing, out of Vanderbilt. And he apparently is a sniper, a 40% three-point shooter, kind of a 6'7 guard swing man out of Vanderbilt. Um and when we're talking about starting to try to replace someone like Landry Shaman, if we can't re sign him, maybe this is one of the bench pieces that that does that. Certainly, you know, Deuce McBride, if he kind of you know can get his shot back together. He really struggled in the playoff shooting. You know, there's a three-point shooter that might be able to, you know, pick up some of the slack. But it's amazing for someone like Landrew Shaman, who wasn't even on a guaranteed contract at the beginning of the year, to suddenly being being talked about as I'm talking about him now. How are we gonna replace this guy that we didn't even really give a full contract to at the beginning of the year? That is how much better he got throughout the year. And boy, he was one of my favorite players. Every time he came in the game, I smiled. You know, it was just you knew what you were getting out of him. He was consistent, he played better defense than he was giving credit for, and boy, we're gonna have to see. Anyway, that the Knicks made some all those moves and the draft, and and we're gonna have to see what further moves they make and what the GM can do to kind of stay under that hard limit that Dolan has imposed, staying under the second apron. But if you're a Knicks fan, bask in the glory. Enjoy every single clip you can see, every single recap. There's a bunch of stuff out there on the internet about you know all the big shots in the last series and just shots of the crowd on the Madison Square Garden games and all kinds of different, you know, recaps and Brunson highlights. Soak in as much as you can. I'm sure you have if you're a Knicks fan, but great stuff. Good job, New York Knicks. Go, New York, go, New York, go, New York, go. And that's gonna do it for my Knicks piece of this podcast. And

Yankees Slump And Big Roster Holes

SPEAKER_00 13:42

I want to go ahead and pivot and I want to talk briefly about the New York Yankees. The Yankees are in a little bit of a swoon, and I'm recording this on Saturday afternoon, and I have not watched the Saturday Yankees game yet. The Yanks have now lost a few games in a row, the first two games of the Red Sox series and a game or two before that. And the Yankees are pulling one of their, you know, sleeping through the games moments where they face a decent pitcher and you know they do what they do against good pitchers sometimes. They basically get one hit, three hits, you know, try to swing for the fences, and and they're going through a a little bit here now. And and the Yankees continue to have a good record overall in a very, very weak American league. And they have a lot of holes. And and I don't know how to, you know, I don't want to sound overly negative because some of the feedback I get here, because I talk straight, and I'm just not gonna, you know, butter up every fan that, you know, that is a Yankee fan or a Knicks fan or a Ranger fan or a Giant fan. Straight talk here, right? That's what this podcast is about. And if you're a Yankee fan and you're like me and you've been watching them for years and years and decades, you don't give a shit about the Yankees making the playoffs because yeah, we're spoiled. You're goddamn right we are. We expect them to make the playoffs and they make the playoffs every year. And guess what? This year, they're probably gonna make the playoffs again. Whoop-dee-doo. Whoop-dee-doo. The question is, do they have enough to win the World Series? Can they beat the likes of the Dodgers? You know, can they get out of the American League, weak or not? Do they have enough? Can they beat strong National League teams like the Braves or or other strong National League teams, right? If they make it to the MD, if they make it to the World Series, no way in hell as they're currently constituted. I'm sorry to break it to you guys. No fucking way in hell is this team the way it's currently constituted, winning any World Series. And it's it's really funny listening to all the quote unquote smart people and the announcers and the commenters talk about the Yangst when they go on a little run over this terrible American League and talk about them, you know, like it's it's a given that they're going to just run through the American League and make it to the World Series just because they're better than these dog shit American League teams, right? And they're proving, again, that they had a little bit of a good run and now they're on a little bit of a bad run. If you look at this team, there continue to be holes, and I've spoken about it all year, and and they're still there, right? Our seven, eight, nine hitters, you know, Volpey, Wells, McMahon. Give me a fucking break. You think we're winning a World Series with seven, eight, nine, Volpey, Wells, McMahon in whatever order you want to put them in? Fuck that. There is no friggin' way in hell that you're winning a World Series, you know, with those three dog shit hitters at the bottom of your lineup. What about our bullpen, which is absolute crap? Absolute crap. I mean, Hendrix is okay, but in general, it's absolute crap. You can't count on anyone. And yes, a few of them have had recent good runs, and Bad Narr hasn't blown a save or looked terrible, you know, in a week or two. Yay for him. But this bullpen has largely proved extremely, extremely unreliable. And there is just no way that with this bullpen and with those seven, eight, and nine hitters, and with McMahon at third, and with goddamn Volpe at shortstop, oh my god, he he just he's terrible, that we're gonna win a World Series. And if you guys think, please, you know, everyone has a right to their own opinion. I would say we can agree to disagree if you think this team, you know, as currently constituted, has any chance of winning the World Series. It does

Rotation Questions And Bullpen Demands

SPEAKER_00 17:43

not. Now, we do have pretty strong starting pitching, although the more I see of it, the more I feel like we got off to a great start, and it's probably a bit overrated. They're all good starting pitchers, but as the season wears on, it's a long baseball season, 162 games. You know, you you end up playing the back of your baseball team. Warren had this great start, all of a sudden you're starting to get hit around a lot. Weathers people were raving at the beginning. Now, like every other pitch is a home run off of him. You know, Cole is not really rounded into form yet. Maybe he'll get all the way back, maybe it'll be soon. He isn't there yet, I'll tell you that. He don't look like like Garrett Hall, right? Rodon, I've never really had as much respect for him as a starting pitcher as others have. And that's ever since he's joined the team. I think he can be good. I have never really seen Rodon ever be great. And so, you know, he's going through some funk. And you know, honestly, do you want Rodon starting a playoff game against, you know, against a good team, against the Braves, against the Dodgers, you know, a critical game? Like, do you have any faith that Rodon is going to get, you know, more than three innings without four innings and and and you know, maybe, you know, give up less than three or four runs? There's no chance because he's just not that good. I mean, I I understand that, you know, his numbers for his career are pretty decent and that he was good on the Tigers, but I just haven't seen it as a Yankee. And I'm sorry, and maybe I'm just looking at him too negatively and not appreciating when he does well, but I I don't count him as some great pitcher, some great starter that we have. So that's at least three of them Warren and Weathers and Rodon. I don't really have a lot of confidence in right now. Certainly Cole, I would expect to bounce back, and we'll see where he ends up so far. Not there yet. Obviously, Schlitter, outstanding, outstanding. Almost every time I see him, he looks better than the last one. Obviously, he got lit up a little bit the last game, but Schlittler is awesome and you know, probably the Cy Young leader at this early stage of the season. So certainly he's great. And Freed, mostly really good, right? He's on the IL and has been for a while, but you know, I think throughout the regular season, you can certainly count on him. Although he's been a proven playoff pitching liability. And he did not pitch well in the playoffs last year. He has not pitched well in the playoffs previously in his career, and so we're gonna have to see. He's kind of an enigma to me. He goes through long stretches of the season where he looks pretty great, and then there's just something about him where I think in these big playoff clutch spots where I don't know, teams just figure out a way to hit him. So we're gonna have to see how great this quote unquote great starting pitching actually ends up being in the end. And and we'll see. There's all this talk about having too much starting pitching. Well, too much average pitching is not too much pitching, it's just a lot of decent to okay pitchers and maybe two great pitchers. We're gonna see. More time is needed. It's the end of June. You know, we're certainly deep enough into the season to make some assessments on how the season's going, but there's a lot more baseball to play. Remember, Clark Schmidt will have by the end of the year, what role he'll have has yet to be determined. I am a person that likes Schmidt more than most of the current starting pitchers. Like I would put him below Schlitter, below Cole, obviously, below Freed in the regular season, probably, but above everyone else. I like him better than Rodon, I like him better than Warren, and I like him better than Weathers for sure. So, you know, to me, he's probably in my mind our fourth best pitcher, but I don't think the Yankees see it that way. He's certainly our most consistent pitcher of any of them. Any of them. He pitches as consistently as anyone uh on the Yankees does. But you know, the problem with the Yankees is uh two or threefold, as I mentioned. Our seven eight nine hitters are fucking dog shit. Our bullpen is in tatters and completely unreliable and absolutely has to be upgraded, you know, as the trade deadline approaches. And we're going to have to see what Mr. Cashman does about improving this bullpen because the last two years it has been just utter dog shit and it has to get better. It has to. He's got to improve it, and we're going to see. And we need some real, real moves. Not just, you know, some guy that's okay. We need people that can strike people out. Like big name, super, you know. We need a, I think we need a closer, and I think we need another, at least two excellent relievers to even have a conversation about the bullpen being good. Not just one great player. I think we need two great relievers. I don't see them coming. Maybe we can manifest it from one of our starters in the minor leagues, Lagrange, or or someone else. We're going to see. Maybe they put one of our starters in the bullpen or two of them. There's a lot of options, but right now it's all just, you know, looking into crystal ball in the future. We don't know where we're going to be. The starters seem to be like regressing a little bit, as I mentioned, but in a weak American league, the Yankees can certainly get through it. I have a lot of concerns, you know, about where we are. We certainly have injuries that are contributing to some of this, even though the Yanks are playing through it well. Judge is still on the IL. Stanton, God help us, is still on the IL for, you know, it's always, always something with him. Grisham, we expect him back, but he's been on the IL a bit. Freed is still on the I. L. He's been on the I. L since the middle of May. So, you know, there's some big names there. You know, Judge and Stanton and Freed, you know, and you throw Grisham in there. You know, that that's that's some talent that that's has not been playing for for quite a

Volpe Recency Bias And Playoff Doubts

SPEAKER_00 23:50

while. Volpe's actually hit a little bit better. And again, exactly what I said was going to happen with Volpe is happening. Because once he has two weeks of good play, everyone just assumes that's him. And they forget the three and a half years of miserable, disgusting hitting. And oh, look at this. He's hitting 258. Well, let's put him in the Hall of Fame. He's at 258 for three weeks. Well, you know what? Forget the last three years of hitting. He's now a good hitter. And when you hear Michael Kay and you read in the, you know, in the online articles about the Yankees, about Volpe, again, it is this mystifying recency bias that you just can't explain when it comes to these long-term writers and announcers of the New York Yankees. I can understand it from fans because it's a very natural phenomenon that everybody knows about recency bias. It's whatever's happened recently, you give a lot more importance to and you sort of forget about somewhat. You know, you give less weight to what's happened in the past and more weight to what's happened recently. It's a human characteristic that everybody does. But in baseball, there's so many games and there's such history that if you do that, you know, you're you're not making good decisions. And for the Yankees to take what Anthony Volpe's done in the last two or three weeks, which has been pretty good hitting, and just say, yeah, that's who he is, and continue to start him at shortstop and have these awful throws. He's got a terrible arm. He cannot ever turn a double play correctly. I can't stand watching him. Whether he he's hitting a little bit better or not, you know, that they're Michael Kay's, you know, talking about his hitting in the last three weeks, like he's a Hall of Fame hitter. He's hit this and he's hit that. And his and his batting average got up to, I think, 260 or something. Fantastic. You know, again, Michael, put him in a hall of fame. Like, I know it's better. And I don't want to not give him credit when he has hit better, because he has, and he and he's had a few big hits. But, you know, recently he's doing the same thing again. Against these good pitchers, he's again, you know, swinging for the fences and striking out a few times a game in the last two or three games. But whether or not he has done well recently or not, you have to know this is a career 220 hitter, right? The fact that he suddenly has a hot week will be remembered and stuck in everyone's mind and stuck in Boone's mind and stuck in Cashman's mind. And then when he goes over the next month and a half, right, six for 52 or something, you know, or three for 71, you know, they won't really remember that. They'll say, oh, you know, you get the new normal Boonisms, right? Oh, you know, he's really had a grinding at bat up there, and his swing looks good, and we like what we saw, you know, as he struck out three times in given game. That will happen, right? They will keep him in there and keep him in there and keep him in there and keep hurting the team, even though he will most certainly 100% regress. Because people are what their baseball card is, right? He's not suddenly some better hitter. This is not some rookie that's getting his first 10 games of the year. Anthony Volpe's played over 500 Major League Baseball games. That's more than half the team, right? He's played way more games than Ben Rice, right? And way more games than others. He's played 500 plus MLB baseball games, right? This is his fourth season. He's had three full seasons plus this year. We know what he is, right? He's not going to suddenly become a 280 hitter. He's not. He's a 220 career hitter. And whether or not he can tweak his swing to maybe add 10 points to his batting average, it's a loss, guys. I think I think the Yankees need to take the loss. They need to move on from him. I don't want to bitch Shimon too much, but the Yankees are still technically in first place, although Tampa Bay is closing in again on them. And the Yankees are probably going to find their way, you know, into the playoffs once again. And their delusion in management will make them think it's because they have a team good enough to win it all. But in reality, the Yankees have lots of holes, and I am not going to relent when it comes to that. So straight talk, guys. I'm sorry. Not going to blow smoke up everyone's ass. The Yankees, winning or losing, have lots of holes to fix.

Rangers Optimism After A Major Trade

SPEAKER_00 28:22

Moving on, I want to go ahead and talk about the New York Rangers now. So the Rangers, good to talk about the Rangers, right? It's been a long time since I talked about the Rangers, and it feels good to talk about them because I am a huge hockey fan. And the last couple of years have been so depressing, particularly the last year. Oh my God, I can't think of a year that would have been more depressing than the last year. Between, you know, Drury just making terrible, awful moves, dismantling the team, trading away everyone that can score, getting no return, just make making the team so much worse. And then the Rangers losing, and you pile on that the retirement of the announcers you grew up with, and no more Sam Rosen. Even Joe McCelenti, I didn't mind. He was fine. But you know, you take all that as one thing. It's like, oh, we got new announcers, we have this new terrible team. I hate the new commentator. I just, it's been such a bad experience for me as a fan that, you know, I do want to podcast about them, but but I have such a negative connotation recently with the Rangers in my mind. It feels good now to talk about some positive news because there was some. So the Rangers made several moves in the draft and around the draft in the last 48 hours. And and one big trade, right? The Rangers made a big trade for Pavel Doraviev, and he's a dude from the Las Vegas Golden Knights. They dealt away, the Rangers did their first round pick, which was number 26. They kept their number five pick. They dealt away their number 26 first round pick and their number 92 pick, as well as a first round pick in 2028. So not next year, but the year after that. So they essentially traded two first round picks and a third round pick to Las Vegas for Pavel Doraviev. And the Rangers signed Doraviev to a seven-year deal worth an average of $11 million. So they signed him to a long-term contract. He's only 25, you know, so there's no issues with the longevity of the contract. And he is a left winger. He's a forward, by the way, and he's only 25 years old, which is great. He's Las Vegas leading goal scorer two years in a row, right? He's had 35 goals two years in a row. I mean, that's that's great stuff. And 35 goals in 24-25, 37 goals last year, 25-26 season. So that's pretty good, you know, production. It's very good production, you know, from a younger player who's only 25. And he's apparently a sniper. I did not know very much about this guy, I got to tell you, but I've been reading a lot about him. And you know, apparently, you know, in the sort of Panarin mold, he's a sniper. You know, you guys, Panarin, one of the many, many people that our disgusting general manager Drury traded away, you know, for next to pennies. You remember how great a shooter Panarin was. And he could, you know, hit the top, you know, there might be like an opening in the sides of a cup, you know, in the top right corner, and he would hit it, right? Panarin was a sniper. I don't know that, you know, the Rafi is quite the sniper that Panarin was, but apparently Pavel's a really good shot, and and apparently he's a strong goal scorer. He played with much better people on Las Vegas than he's going to be playing with on the Rangers, so it's yet to be seen if he can duplicate that production. But he's a young kid, and this is the kind of move that has eluded the Rangers for years. The Rangers did not really trade much away at all to get him. I mean, trading our number 26 pick this year, even though it's a first rounder, it's kind of a shot in the dark, and the Rangers certainly need to build their farm system, but you know, they have to start getting some players on this team. They traded away all of their scoring, essentially, for next to nothing. We've got dog shit in return from Drury. And so this just kind of went the other way, right? So we a first round pick in 28, our late first round pick this year, and a number 92 pick this year, which is you know, next to nothing. So you add those three up, and it adds up to be a tremendous, tremendous trade for the New York Rangers. You can't say anything negative about it, just a home run trait for the New York Rangers. And for me to say the bat about Drury, you know it's a good trade because I can't stand Drury. I think he's a terrible, awful general manager, you know, and you know I don't have any qualms about talking negatively about GMs. You've heard me yap about Cashman for how many years in a row? Drewery is worse. He has been awful when it comes to trying to construct a team. This was a great trade. Not even a good trade, a great, great trade. In you know, Pavel Duravia, we get a guy that, you know, is a left wing, lefty shooting, sniper. We need forward depth so much. We particularly need centers, of course, but we need forward depth up and down the lineup, and I think this really, really helps. Where he will play and with whom, I guess we're gonna have to see. Obviously, we don't even know who the centers on the team are gonna be because Trochek is probably on the market. We're trying to just get rid of any and all scoring, apparently, you know, with Drury here. Anyone that has any value at all, just get him off the team. I know we're trying to get younger, but you know, we don't have any centers as it is now, you know, and so it's gonna be really, really tough, you know, to lose another center. I don't know what we're gonna get back for Trochek if we trade him, but you know, whether he'll play on the second line, whether he's gonna play on the first line, we're gonna have to see. But apparently, you know, he's a really good scorer, but does not apparently have very good foot speed in that he's not very fast in a straight line. So we're gonna have to see, you know, how that plays out and how that melds with the rest of the team. But kudos to Drury and the Rangers for pulling us off. This is something for Ranger fans to finally, finally be excited about, you know, after just a long, sustained stretch of terrible trades going the other way and dog shit moves by our general manager. So kudos, and I'm looking forward to see how this guy Pavel Dorofieev actually does on the team.

Draft Pick Alberts Smith And More Moves

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Other moves, the Rangers actually had the number five overall draft pick. They were in the lottery and had a decent chance to actually have the number one pick, but they basically ended up with the worst they possibly could have had, and they took a defenseman. His name is Alberts Smith. A-L-B-E-R-T-S is his first name. So it's not Albert, it's Alberts Smith. Okay. So maybe there's more in one of them. Alberts is a left defenseman who apparently is pretty physical. He apparently can shoot pretty well, but he's one of the most, if not the most, pro-ready picks, apparently, in the entire draft. So I wouldn't go as far as to say there was universal praise for this Rangers pick, but it was pretty steadfast and and pretty I would say the reviews on the Rangers pick were pretty steady everywhere, and almost all of them positive. It's not like this was a very risky pick. I think the reviews on him were quite known and quite universal. So Albert Smith's big big kid, he may see sometime in the NHL this year. I mean, if he does really, really well in training camp, maybe he starts the year with the team. He's that good, apparently, and that NHL ready. But we're gonna have to see. But it's apparently, you know, exciting, and and we're gonna have to see, you know, how he does. Apparently he's a six foot three physical defenseman, you know, that can, you know, shoot well, plays very good position, you know, def defense. And obviously we we need everything on the Rangers. So so you know, unfortunately, we were not able to uh get into position high enough in the draft to get a center or even a forward. So we were stuck drafting a defenseman. It is what it is, but this is one of the most NHL ready defensemen that there is. So I'm looking forward to seeing what he's like. Albert's Smiths. A couple other quick moves, and we're gonna get out of here. Adam Edstrom was traded to Nashville in exchange for apparently the number 148 pick in this draft and some prospect named Massimo Rizzo, who most people think is not really gonna get to the NHL. Apparently he's like mostly a career AHL player projection. So I think we sort of just dumped Edstrom off the team. I'm not really sure. I I think the Rangers are thinking we have a lot of young players and forwards who may have sort of overtaken Edstrom in the pecking order of, you know, Ranger forwards, and that probably, you know, in Ranger minds, thought that they, you know, kind of created a log jam of sort of, I guess you'd call them second-tier players, right? We know certainly don't have a lot of elite talent forwards. We we need every good forward we can. But on that next level down or up and coming level, the Rangers do have a few of them, and particularly at the end of last year, there were some players that sort of showed that they could be part of the Rangers' future, and I think they just didn't want too many people in the way of that, right? They have what's his name? Camellier and Socorro played okay last year and a few others, and we're gonna have to see how it ends up. But it look it seems to me like it's a salary dump because they didn't really get anything, anything, anything back, you know, for him at all. A number 148 pick is, you know, that's gonna get you very little. That's uh essentially uh you know fourth or fifth round pick and someone that projects to be just in the AHL. So Adam Edstrom is traded. They also traded in the same vein, Brett Burard to Montreal. And again, in my mind, it's for exactly the same reason, right? Probably because he's okay, but he's probably in the way of other forwards getting in the way, and they didn't think he's ever going to be good enough to be a significant contributor at the NHL level. I think Edstrom had a chance to be that, but in his time with the Rangers, Edstrom, I think, was just injured too much and never super productive when he was actually in there. Brett Perard, I saw little flashes of stuff, and he was certainly gritty and fast and annoying on defense, but I think overall just not enough contribution to be a you know consistent NHL contributor. So he was traded to Montreal, and the Rangers got back a defenseman. His name is William Trudeau. And if Trudeau is apparently 20, 23 years old, and he's a you know 2021 fourth round pick. Apparently, he's been in the AHL for the last four years. He's a left-handed, you know, defenseman, by the way. So William Trudeau is uh who they got back for Berard is a left-handed young defenseman that has not even made his NHL debut yet. So again, both of these almost seem like just clearing the way for other people. Getting rid of Edstrom, getting rid of Brett Berard. But the other more exciting picks, you know, the number five overall pick, Albert Smith, who looks like a projected, they got to hit on this, man. These fucking draft picks have sucked, sucked. Particularly our first-round draft picks have been disasters over the last 10 years for the New York Rangers. They have to start hitting on these fucking first round picks. So, you know, this Schmitz has better be a good fucking defenseman at number five overall. But still, it's exciting. Looks like he may be. And then obviously, the huge, excellent trade for Jaravia, you know, a star left winger coming to the New York Rangers. So something to look forward to. A little optimism for the New York Rangers. Imagine that. Optimism for a New York Ranger fan. You don't get to say that very much, but I'm going to say it now. So there you go. Go, Rangers.

Wrap Up And Subscribe

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All right. That's going to do it for the podcast. Thank you for listening to Jersey Guy Sports. Please subscribe to the podcast. Please like it. Please rate it well. Tell your friends all about it. I'll be back soon with some more sports talk. Thanks. Have a good day.