Yeah if this isn't a Stanley cup winning team...

We probably lose 7 of the first 10 - and then the panic sets in

Honestly last year was the year to win it which is such a pessimistic outlook especially since it feels like the rebuild literally finished last year. Let’s look, Fox’s massive extension didn’t kick in yet, A great playoff run from Vatrano, Strome, Copp followed by good depth from Motte, Braun, Rooney, Nemeth and Georgiev.. All Gone.. and most signing long term with their new teams. To follow that up, mostly all of the replacements are underwhelming albeit with much less cap space to work with. Halak is a downgrade at backup, Trocheck who preformed slightly worse than Strome and has to build up the chemistry that strome had, Carpenter had an abysmal year and a few others. All and all, I’m optimistic yet fearful. On top of all those things Nils looks to be really solid to finish off the stars Preseason.

Did you just call Braun, Rooney, and Nemeth "good depth"... Nemeth was a liability, and Braun wasn't much better. Jones is suuuch a big upgrade, especially since he looks to be pretty decent defensively, a potential upgrade over Trouba on pp2, and has chemistry with Schneider. Sure, the depth is a bit iffy, our next dmen are Hajek and Robertson, but that can be fixed through a waiver claim or a Braun-like deadline trade.

I see a lot of Rangers fans making this mistake: we can't compare this seasons opening night roster to the post-deadline roster last year. Last years predeadline team saw a period of Goodrow playing on the 1st line, Hunt on the 2nd for over 40 games, Laffy and Kakko rarely got chances in the top 6, and when they did they didn't look amazing. Georgiev sucked for the majority of the season, finishing with a 0.898sv%, WHICH WAS WORSE THAN HALAK BTW, and we started the season with our 3rd pair being Nemeth-Tinordi, which is simply unplayable.

Now, let's compare the pre-deadline starting lineup last year, to this year:

Laf - Zibanejad - Kreider
Panarin - Strome - Kakko
Blais - Chytil - Goodrow
Hunt - Rooney Reaves

Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Tinordi - Nemeth

Kreider - Zibanejad - Kakko
Panarin - Trocheck - Kravtsov
Lafreniere - Chytil - Goodrow
Hunt - Carpenter - Vesey

Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Jones - Schneider

Now, immediately we have to take into account the improvement from guys like Laf, Chytil, Kakko, and Miller, they're all muuch better than they were at the start of last season. Lafreniere looked out of place on the first line, Chytil was mediocre throughout the whole regular season, and Kakko was injured for 39 games.

First line: Kakko on the 1st line looked pretty good last year, and with how bad Laffy played for his first games (to the point of being replaced by Goodrow) means this is most likely an upgrade. Now, Kreider might regress a bit, but Zibanejad had a bit of a downyear scoring wise, and if Kakko can live up to the hype, this is absolutely better than last year.

Second line: Trocheck hasn't yet played a game, yet I think he will turn out to be an upgrade. People forget this, but Strome did not have a good playoffs last year, and his regular season was pretty average. Sure, it was a career year goal scoring wise, and he put up more points than Trocheck, but considering he was playing with Panarin... I like Strome, but he was pretty streaky and never really drove that line, so I'll say this is an improvement. Kravtsov is still a bit of a question mark, but I think he has the tools and the work-ethic to provide a lot of offense to that line.

Third line: this is no question a better 3rd line. Laf and Chytil should both be worlds better than they were last year after how they looked during that playoff run. Goodrow was also solid last year, I'd say he's a bit underrated, even though his contract is questionable. This line will hopefully get a decent bit more icetime than they did last year.

Fourth line: I don't really care how much you trashed Carpenter, he had a solid season. He doesn't put up points, but he's a solid shutdown/pker, which is exactly what Rooney was for us. I don't see this as a downgrade at all. Vesey had a solid preseason, and I have a lot of hope for him. His skill set would probably be better utilized on the 3rd line, but he's not a liability, and is better overall than Reaves. Hunt is, of course, Hunt. People forget how good he is defensively, I think his time on the 2nd line last year distracts fans from the player he really is. His defensive numbers and PK have always been excellent, and he does provide a little bit of offense. Alongside Vesey, he should be pretty good as a 4th line forechecker. Overall, this might not be an upgrade, but it's certainly no downgrade.

Defense: The top 4 is the same, although I'd say it'll be better with a potential Miller breakout year. The 3rd pair is just unequivocally an improvement, Schneider and Jones working well defensively in the preseason while each also providing infinitely more offense than Nemeth and Tinordi combined.

Halak should be good for ~15 wins, Domingue might play a handful of games too, but when you have Igor, goaltending is not a worry at all.

Despite missing Blais, this is a very solid team, much better than the team that lost 5-1 to the Caps during the opener last year. With a few deadline tweaks, it'll be just as good, if not better than the team that took Tampa to 6 in the conference finals.

I'll be back to collect this salt in a month.

I hope you do

Well we’ll see, also I’m not a rangers at all just a crazed hockey fan that can speak pseudo-efficiently on all teams. With that being said the reason I compared the playoff team is simply because the rangers had a ton of cap space to weaponize last year going into the deadline. This year they are tenfold tighter up to the cap. I’m almost certainly convinced that last years team going into the playoffs will be better than this years. Although I’m speaking quite prematurely. Interms of exchanging players for cap. The rangers have almost no bad contracts to exchange with. Maybe a Ryan reaves but after that it’s bleak. And there’s no way Trouba’s contract is moveable not to mention his captaincy would make the team reluctant to move him.

So I mean take that as u may but I find it hard for this team to make any meaningful additions such as a vatrano and a Copp.