Reason to be Excited?
Resulting from the exit interviews held today and from a very candid 48 minute Tortorella intervew session Andrew Gross commented on this which should excite Rangers fans not named Mrs Redden:
There seems little doubt that the first player Tortorella wants to “weed out” is Wade Redden, though Tortorella did not say that himself. Just a bit of speculation but when asked specifically about Redden, Tortorella said it wasn’t right or fair to talk about individual players. Yet he essentially talked about most of the other players on the team on an individual basis. And it sounds like Redden was given a loud and clear message in his exit interview. Redden has four seasons left on his six-year, $39 million deal and with Marc Staal due a new contract that may run around $4 million per season, there’s been plenty of speculation that it makes sense for the Rangers to send Redden to Hartford to clear the cap space, though they’d still be paying the salary.
Gross then added this:
We have some really good people here. We have some important decisions to make on some important positions beyond our core.”
This is where I asked about Redden.
“I don’t think it’s proper to speak about individual players,” Tortorella said.
So demoting, or getting rid of Wade Redden seems a very real possibility. Its necessary and is at least on the coaches radar. This needs to be embraced by Sather and Dolan if they want a successful team long term. What do you all think?
Gross has alot of very interesting stuff from the exit interviews
By Dave, April 13, 2010 @ 5:43 pm
Interesting. Now my follow up question here is how much pressure was Torts receiving to play Redden? Just speculation of course.
jurgenno88 Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 5:47 pm
If you’ve read the full link already the problem here may be exactly that – pressure. It seems like the decision makers will be clashing with Torts on this one. Potentially. Hopefully Torts’ strong personality wins this argument.
I do think however that maybe Sather may have seen the 2 years of Redden and will come round to the idea of a demotion…
dbmaven Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 6:04 pm
Given the fact that Redden continued to play (horribly) after his one “benching” – there’s your answer. “A Lot”. The fact that no 7th d-man was provided until Eriksson is further proof.
Who knows – maybe blogs like yours and the articles we write actually do get read by people in positions to make things happen.
jurgenno88 Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
good point! we need to keep ‘fighting the good fight!’
Dave Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
Obviously with nothing made public, all we can do is speculate. But it is fairly obvious that there is a lot of pressure on the coaching staff to make Redden in NY work. Ownership feels the pressure from the media, and who knows, maybe us bloggers too.
Bettman's Nightmare Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Redden’s not an atrocious problem, but he’s not an asset and our need to play an NHL-ready defenseman has kind of forced our hand into granting him playing time. We might have the same issue if we don’t bring any defensemen in for next year, or if our prospects don’t pan out.
Dave Reply:
April 13th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
The thing is that the general consensus amongst those that follow Hartford is that Sauer and Potter are NHL ready.