Big Blue Huddle

Per The Athletic:

Will Filip Chytil be the Rangers' X-factor?

The Rangers need Artemi Panarin playing at his regular season MVP-caliber level. New York will be in good shape offensively if that line featuring Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafrenière can lead the way at five-on-five, in addition to Mika Zibanejad's line scoring at a steady clip.

Those are the obvious keys. Looking beyond that, Filip Chytil emerges as New York's wild card.

Chytil hasn't played since Nov. 2 because of concussion issues. He has, however, been a full-contact practice participant with the Rangers recently. The 24-year-old Czech center broke out as a bona fide top-six player last season with 22 goals and 45 points in 72 games. Those totals were especially impressive considering his limited power-play usage.

He looked electric at the start of this season centering Panarin and Lafrenière. Of course, expectations need to be tempered if he returns as he'll have missed so much time and would likely slot in a third-line role rather than playing with Panarin because of how well Trocheck is performing. But if Chytil is healthy and even 70 percent of the player he was last season, the Rangers will get a massive secondary scoring boost.

Chytil drives play with his smooth skating, above-average frame and highly competitive style. He can be a lethal attacker off the rush. Chytil scored four goals in seven games on the third line when the Rangers played the Hurricanes in 2022. Will he return and play another big part in this rematch?

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Interesting points. It would bump Rempe to the press box and slide Wennberg to centre the 4th line.

Quote from: kartanoman on Today at 09:26:24 AMRound two starts tonight!

What kind of game are the Rangers going to throw at the Canes? Will rust from 12 days between games be a factor?

I'm ready to drop the puck now!

Peace!

I am ready too - really pumped.

Rangers in six.

LGR

Bad luck or selecting dumb people?

Jones - cited with careless operation of a vehicle after he lost control of his Range Rover and ran into a street pole. New Orleans police did not administer a Breathalyzer test because Jones had to be rushed to the hospital, and a blood sample could not be taken because the rookie was in surgery for most of the day. He crashed just after 0600 in the morning and was careless - sounds pretty dumb to me.

JPP - made a decision that was dumber than dumb. When he joined Tampa he put some some decent sack numbers - 12.5 in 2018, which was his best season since before the hand.

Baker - All charges dropped - perhaps we shouldn't rush to judgment on legal matters and let the due process play out. However, with the advent of social media that is increasingly difficult. It's not like he pulled up any major trees post-Giants. Bad selection

Collins - personally, I think it was a bad call not to take a late round flyer on Collins, if I remember he came out with some comments that he'll only play for the cowboys. I would have taken that gamble.

Nice list of injuries but over the course of a decade, I am sure every team will have their sob stories.

Interesting post, though Rich. I enjoyed reading it.

Cancelling Total Access - wow.

They sold this product internationally. It was carried by Sky Sports in the UK for the vast majority of the season.

Be interesting to see how the ball is spread about. There's only one of them and a lot of egos to feed.

No.

The line has a patchwork remake, allow the new coach to see what he can mould together. There are too many depleted areas to spend premium draft capital on the OLine again.

It's been well reported they tried to get #3.

If the seller doesn't want to sell. There's nothing you can do. That's so simple.

If Tommy is the long term answer, we are asking the wrong question.

Agreed, Jeff.

Quote from: MightyGiants on May 01, 2024, 10:40:53 AMConsidering that NYG's failure to protect him contributed to his injury issues, would you blame him for not waiving this part of his contract?

Re-read my post and please don't put words in my mouth. I never said he should. I simply said I'd be shocked if he did.

He squeezed the Giants for every dime in that salary negotiation. I'd be shocked if he took a team friendly approach and waived it.

Quote from: MightyGiants on April 30, 2024, 10:12:24 AMThe Giants had the worst offensive line in the league last year

Jones was pressured more frequently and quickly than any QB

Jones had no receiving threat of note

I am not sure what you define as excuses, but for those of us who try to be fair in our evaluations (we don't use charged language like "excuses"), Jones was put in a terrible situation for a QB to do well.  It's not to suggest that Jones doesn't need to step up his game, but I am not sure any QB could have done well in DJ's situation last year.
 

All the arguments against this exist on this forum. I won't reiterate them.  If you wish to ignore them for one-uppmanship - so be it.

Quote from: Jclayton92 on April 30, 2024, 10:01:08 AMIf we are being honest he responded in 2022 by putting up the same production as Davis Mills, Matt Ryan, and Russell Wilson in what was considered the worst seasons of their career.

Let's just hope the running games and defense can carry him again.

I just don't understand the need to pump Jones up when everyone knows what he us at this point. A middling Qb that refuses to throw the ball deep and now he can't run.

If anything hope he sits on the bench and Lock starts so that we at least get the ball thrown down field and don't have to risk Jones getting injured again and his contract being guaranteed in 2025.

This is the Carolina preseason game all over again. How many times does Jones have to let you down for you to finally realize he's not it? Genuinely curious because we are past half a decade at this point and it's meh.

Yeah, I'm all for being behind him for this year, pieces are in places and broadly everyone is out of excuses (despite the fact that ought to be the case last year).

There are no excuses. He's cut or re-worked at the end of year. If he's Davis Mills productive then we know which way it's gonna be.

And frankly, I reckon the vast majority of this knows which way it goes.

I am convinced that all Giants fans will root for Jones to succeed but the leash is shorter than my forearm, in my opinion.

Edit - the health next year isn't enough. He's proven to stay healthy once. He needs the numbers in his games that don't pad out his performance. He won't have Barkley to run to a 6-1 start - this is all on him. Let's see what he's got

I also think this is a message to fans who are in two groups, for the want of better phrase:

Group A - those who want to move on the message was we know you think we need to move from Jones, we tried.

Group B - those who want to give Jones a weapon and a line etc. We are now out of excuses, he's having a beer in the last chance saloon. If he wants another drink, he sure as hell better produce.

Quote from: MightyGiants on April 29, 2024, 10:06:35 AMI am not going to dispute the possibility that Barkley's production will improve behind the Eagle's better line.  I will say though, that in Schoen's first two seasons, he brought in offensive linemen who were better run blockers than pass blockers.

That's fair. I guess like everything else it will be a wait and see.

For the record, I would not have wanted Barkley at his current price tag so I think the regime were correct to move on.