From 1990 through 2015, the 1st overall picks I would not trade Marner for, if they were just being drafted today are: Owen Nolan, Roman Hamrlik, Alexandre Daigle, Bryan Berard, Chris Phillips, Patrik Stefan, Rick DiPietro, Marc-Andre Fleury, Erik Johnson, Ryan Nugent Hopkins, Nail Yakupov. That's 11 out of 25 that are decidedly worse, even if they were younger. So 44% bust rate in that span, if the mark for bust is "not as good as Marner."

At those odds with the difference in cap space, I do think the pick is slightly more valuable than Marner, but only slightly. That's why I added a 1st, a #2 defenseman with some Cup rings, and an NHL-ready wing. That way the trade itself favors the Rangers, and even if Lafreniere plays well, the Rangers make the playoffs, win a few rounds, and don't care.

I been wondering when y'all would get here. Isn't that just a natural fit?

Zibanejad, shesterkin, kakko will all need new contracts, and you have $30,000,000 currently tied up in your top four wingers without a stud dman, if I'm moving that pick its for a c or d

He admitted after they were eliminated that he wasn't engaged in game 1. And if you are taking up that much cap to the point where the leafs can't balance the lineup, you can't be handing out moral victories.

There are 4 guys taking up 50% of the cap, all to get shut out 2 out of 5 games. And you're over here saying points aren't everything. You are either ignorant or in serious denial.

Like 9.

In my first attempt at this, I traded Trouba and Chytil for Kuznetsov, and put him on the top line with Lemieux and Marner. Kept the current top six forwards together as the middle six. I bought out Staal. Lots of Rangers fans said it was horrible. That was, like, an hour ago. If you agree the team needs a center, how should they do that? What kind of defenseman would you trade 1st overall for? Ekblad? Jones?

Do you want athletes to come out after a loss and say they did their best and it wasn't their fault, or to say the other team did their best, and their team needs to focus better and be more prepared? Was that the first sports interview you watched?

What the hell are you even talking about? I'm talking about how Marner is overpaid.

I would package with strome plus and try to land eichel/barkov assuming they want out and those teams need to deal them. I like marner alot and if panarin wasn't there I'd definitely look at this deal, I just look at jets situation with so much tied up in wingers and look where they are.

Yeah we’d happily deal with the cap implications

Perennial contenders?

Not so much now, and their only good run they had a high performance stastny in the second line c spot, also had byfuglien and trouba. But every year is a search for a c at the deadline, and now they didn't have room for trouba which led to a decimated d. With all their young talent the run competing for a cup should've been longer.

Interesting. So you're saying you won the Trouba trade?

I think pionk had a great year but long term trouba has a better chance as a true top pairing d man that are hard to find wheras pionk is a better fit on pair two, not sure who you implied I thought won it but hope that clears it up.

Its not a bad deal at all for rangers in terms of value, I just look at cup winners through the years and elite number one center and defenseman are front and center and I think rangers can really make run for 21/22 or 22/23 when laf and his entry level contract could be huge in a flat cap/barely going up cap era. Especially if zibanejad keeps going like this and his cap hit could potentially double.