Locking Up Core

Coincidentally, or not so, the Rangers and Giants locked up 2 big pieces of their respective cores by extending Ryan McDonagh and Victor Cruz for 6 more years apiece.   While this has been sop for the Giants since the days of George Young - and sometimes even to the extreme (matching SF's Hampton deal, giving Corey Widmer a second contract) - it represents the totality of the sea change the Rangers have made in the past few years with regards to their young players.    Remember Tyutin for Zherdev or Korpikoski for Lisin?   Yikes!

Now the Giants have won 4 championships using this recipe.   The Yankees even more, and it doesn't apply to basketball as much because of their crazy cap rules and cap prisons and what have you.   In the NBA core kids - unless they are superstars right out of the gate - are trade chips waiting to be moved. That's all they are.   But in hockey, like in football and baseball. keeping a core together is not only defensible but mandatory if you have any intention at all of being consistent winners.

There are two things you need to do if you want to keep a winning core together, first is draft and scout well, second is manage your cap.   The Giants were at the mercy of their cap, which George Young refused to sort of recognize and blew up `94 Giants to show as a demonstration of disdain.   Ernie was in the same hell, early, but once Kevin Abrams joined the Giants, things seemed to right themselves.   Guys like Osi started getting locked up early.   By the time Jerry Reese took over it was a smooth running operation with the ability to patiently wait out the resolution of holdouts like they did today with Victor Cruz, who is a game changing playmaker.

Btw, one of the big rules of the keeping your young core together game is to refuse to part with them unless draft picks or prospects you valued but couldn't pick are coming back.    For instance, the Giants are going to have a decision to make on Linval Joseph pretty soon.  To make it easier, they drafted Hankins in April, so perhaps the decision has already been made, but they will get a comp pick for Linval if he signs elsewhere.

In baseball, the only ways to get comp picks is to lose free agents or have early draft picks not sign and go back into the draft pool.   Unfortunately, you can only trade for those FA comp picks and no other picks.   The Yanks are just figuring this out.   Of course, the Red Sox under the old rules, made a habit of flipping guys for first round comps all the time.   Under Hal, the Yanks have only done it with any gusto under the new rules, because it was too scary for Hal under the old way.  And of course, the Yanks never took advantage of the old rules while they could have, but at least they built up their scouting staff.

The Rangers have really figured it out lately.  Remember, they didn't have a cap until the first lockout, so their learning curve has been a little faster than the Giants' curve had been under Young and Ernie.  And the Rangers have changed the way they have done business, even before the second lockout.   They are no longer swapping their successful draft picks for indifferent Euro guys who "need" a change of scenery.   In fact, they have only moved prospects for either prospects they liked better (Lindberg), prospects that are further along (Kristo) or for Rick Nash.   And not long after that they swapped Gaborik for two young former first rounders who could be core, along with Dorsett who certainly has a role to play.

It's unclear what it was that changed the Rangers approach.   I think the elevation of Clark and Gorton can't be overstated.   I think the gold they had found in Hank has been something they wanted to build around.  And I believe Sather realized that Ranger fans would rather watch a young team lose as it's growing together than watch an old team of hired guns aimlessly skating around for bloated paychecks.

Next up for the Giants, lock up Nicks and JPP.   Next up for the Rangers sign Stepan and the other RFA's.   Next up for the Yankees sign a few more draft picks, and don't budge on Judge.    Next up for the Knicks, summer league.  Today they signed Hardaway Jr. and CJ Leslie.   Under different rules they could be future core, but in today's NBA they are just tradable goods.