Can someone please tell me where the "If we do not win soon then Henrik Lundqvist is going to leave when his contract is up" idea is coming from?
It is being used as the reason why the New York Rangers need to sign Brad Richards this year. For those of you who do not know but Lundqvist is under contract to the Rangers until June 30th 2014.
Man you want to talk about some serious reaching for reasons to sign someone then congrats to the person who came up with this one. You are very much the leader of the Loony Tunes Brigade.
Think I am going to file this with the one where "Glen Sather was hired to make the Rangers lose on purpose" rumor or the "John Tortorella and Jim Schoenfeld will overthrow Glen Sather in a coup" rumor are.
I am sure that even Larry Brooks is going "WTF?" (if you do not know what that stands for please ask an adult) after reading this kind of stuff. Of course this will give the folks at the Ranger offices a good laugh on Monday.
But what scares me is that there are going to be people who take this kind of rumor very seriously and I feel bad for Henrik Lundqvist as you just know some fan is going to go up to him and ask if it is true. Even better is what are the odds that some newspaper in Sweden is going to latch on to this and run with it as a major story?
See that is the problem with rumors as they have ways to take on a life of their own and get out of hand. If Henrik was unhappy with the direction of the franchise then he would not wait until his contract was up; he would ask for a trade.
And a player unhappy being a Ranger is not going to open up a restaurant in Manhattan and pour a lot of his own money into it. A player like Lundqvist does want to win there is no question about that but if he had his doubts then he does not get himself tied up with a 6 year deal.
If Lundqvist was unsure of the direction of the Rangers then he would have never signed a 6 year deal. At 29 can you just imagine the panic in the Ranger universe if Lundqvist was going to enter free agency this season?
Now that would have really been one heck of a story if that was the case. Not one person would be even thinking Brad Richards as the freakout over what to do with Lundqvist would be the big issue.
Now I am pretty sure I am going to regret writing this because I can guarantee that someone someplace is going to take what I am going to say and turn it into the next rumor of the day. I have seen it happen before and it is one of the biggest reasons why I do not deal with rumors.
You want a reason why Lundqvist would want out of the Rangers? Why not try some friction with John Tortorella as there have been several times when coach and player have not appeared to be on the same page.
Now that one you can turn into a reason why Lundqvist would want out from the Rangers since we all have seen Lundqvist's unhappiness when pulled from games at times. John Tortorella is never going to win "best buddy" award with all of his players but if I was a betting man and it came down to a "either he goes or I go" contest then so long John.
Coaches are easy to replace franchise goalies not so easy especially when right now there is nobody even close in the system who could replace Lundqvist. Sorry Marty Biron is at the point of his career where being a back up is his best way to keeping his career going.
And you know come the spring of 2014 whether the Rangers are Stanley Cup contenders or not; there will be a huge debate as to what do with Lundqvist. He will be 32 so you just know that at that point in time there will be a huge debate on whether or not to keep him.
But right now it is a very poor reason to justify signing Brad Richards.
Oh and speaking of rumors, did you hear that the reason why Marian Gaborik had such a poor season was he has not been the same since the space aliens kidnapped him and held him for 24 hours.
(Lundqvist courtesy of the New York Rangers, Avery courtesy of the Associated Press)
No comments:
Post a Comment