Goodnight To The Boogeyman

As you've heard, the Rangers lost one of their own this weekend when Derek Boogaard passed away at his apartment in Minneapolis. He was just 28 years old.

After writing and re-writing this, there is simply no proper way for me to eulogize Boogey. To wax poetic would be disingenuous. The last words I wrote about Derek Boogaard were harsh, calling him a "lumbering loser." And I stand by them because he was, but that doesn't make the loss any less tragic.

Events like these are harsh slaps back to reality for when we get too myopic over this game we love. There was far more to the man than what we saw on Broadway this year, and far more even than the few lines in his obit about his charitable work imply. To see the depth of his impact just go over to the Hockey Wilderness and you can see how the massive man affected a massive number of people.

As for myself, I have just one good memory of the man and it wasn't a direct interaction: I remember Sean Avery being Sean Avery during warmups and yapping across the red line on at least three occasions. You could see just when Avery went too far. The opposing player got mad and then, like magic, the Boogeyman appeared and slid between the two. He didn't say anything. He didn't push Avery back. He didn't shove the opposing player. He just stood there on the red line with a little smirk, looking anywhere but at either of the agitated parties. It was hilarious.

Sincerest best wishes to his families, those by blood and those by puck. RIP Boogeyman.

The NYR Facts Of Life: #94 Derek Boogaard

For each player who suited up in a Blueshirt this season we will take the good, we will take the bad and take them both and see what we have. And this time around we started with the high numbers and are up to #94, Derek Boogaard.

#94's #s: 22 games, 1 goal, 1 assist, Even, 45 PIM.

Take the good: Boogaard snapped a 234 game goalless streak with a wide open, wobbling slapshot that beat Michal Neuvirth short side back in November. But he wasn't being paid $1.625 million this season to score, he was paid to be a pugilist and Hockeyfights has his fighting record at 4-2-1.

Take the bad: Not a single bout that Boogaard took part in was for any other reason but to justify his paycheck. He didn't defend his teammates, he didn't try to spark them or to spark the crowd. He averaged 4:32 of ice time as a pathetic sideshow who couldn't skate. He took a big punch from Matt Carkner in the beginning of December and was never heard from again. Brandon Prust - a top grinder and penalty killer - just had to undergo surgery on his shoulder having been forced into the enforcer role by Boogey's absence.

Take them both and then we have: A waste of a Ranger jersey and another failed free agent signing by Glen Sather. The era of the goon was long gone before Glen gave Boogey his deal and we have three more seasons of this lumbering loser.

The Donald Vs. The Boogeyman

The Rangers will play their 36th game of the season on Thursday when they face the Tampa Bay Lightning and the news has broken that Derek Boogaard will not play. Boogey's status is unknown as, in addition to the shoulder strain that he has been out with, he is suffering from headaches - one of the tell-tale signs of a concussion. It would not be the first time he missed time because of a brain injury; Boogaard missed the preseason and first few games of the '09-10 campaign in Minnesota as well.

If you did not see it, both shoulder and head injuries pretty clearly happened in the quick ass kicking handed to Boogaard by Matt Carkner earlier this month.

I posed the question on Twitter last week: which was the worse signing, Boogaard or Donald Brashear.

The circumstances of the Donald Brashear signing can not be brought into the conversation, as that would easily tilt it towards the old man. The guy nearly killed the Rangers' Blair Betts, a hit that essentially won the playoff series for the Caps as it knocked the penalty killer (and fan favourite!) out. And then Glen Sather had the nerve to bring him into the Blueshirt locker room. Despicable.

But that was before he pulled on a Ranger sweater so what needs to be considered in the argument is everything that he did while wearing a Blueshirt. The Brashear contract was two years, $1.4m per. At the time the GM said, "We think that Brashear gives you a couple of other things. He is quicker (then Colton Orr), he can get under the puck a little faster and under the style of game we are going to play we think he will be more effective for us."

Well, he wasn't.

Brashear played 36 games total as a Ranger, missing 17 of the team's 53 matches due to injuries before being benched for good ahead of his banishment to Hartford in February. He is now in the Quebec senior league, apparently rediscovering his scoring touch but as a Ranger Brash had no goals despite 18 shots, collected one assist, was -9 and had 73 PIM on nine fights. He went 3-4-2 in those battles, according to Hockeyfights.com. Not one of those fights were in the defense of a teammate, in retaliation of something the opposition did or at a time when the team needed the energy boost.

After letting Brash's replacement Jody Shelley go to the rival Flyers, Sather ignored prolific tough guy (and faceoff wiz) Zenon Konopka for the heaviest of the heavyweights, Derek Boogaard. He handed him a four year deal worth a total of $6.5 million ($1.625 cap hit per year according to CapGeek). This time Sather said, "Derek is obviously the biggest and the toughest. We need that. Too many times last year I saw guys scraping snow into Henrik's face, and I didn't like it. I don't think we'll be seeing that anymore."

Except we have.

Like Brashear, Boogaard has yet to fight in a spot when he was needed and he has done nothing to discourage opposing teams from hitting Hank. Also plagued with injuries, Boogaard has played 22 of the 35 games to date. He has had a goal (on just four shots) and an assist, was even (+/-), 45 PIM on seven fighting majors. Hockeyfights has him at 4-2-1 but perhaps his finest moment was not in a game, but prior to one - when he slid between Avery and Carcillo.

Now we can't definitively say that Boogaard has been a bust. His tenure is not at an end, or at least not that we know of (concussions are nothing to mess around with). But the debate can be raised: which was the worse signing, Boogaard or Donald Brashear?

The Derek Debate

The Rangers certainly know how to get people talking about them, despite the absence of a winning team and this afternoon's signing of Derek Boogaard certainly does it. It opens the floodgates with questions:

"Is this worse than the Brashear signing last year?"

"If you were going to give this much money away, why not re-sign Jody Shelley?"

"Does Glen Sather realize that it is 2010?"

"How soon until Boogaard gets Kasparaitis'd to the KHL?"

"Where will Boogaard go down in the ranks of Ranger goons? With Roman Ndur (thanks Jim!)? Shane Churla? Rudy Poeschek? Nick Fotiu?"

"Do you think you can skate better than Boogaard?"

Frankly, there are no answers just yet. It would be alright that Boogaard hasn't scored a goal in four years if he was a big fighter but he had just nine fight majors last season - not enough to rank in the top 40 tough guys in the league. Sure he went 8-1-1 according to Hockey Fights but who cares? The guy plays three out of every four games, skates just over six minutes per game and adds nothing offensively. Sounds just about right for someone getting a four-year contract worth $1.65 million per. Right?

It is astounding how Sather can be so good at trading players and so very, very stupid when it comes to signing them.

Why The Hell Not?

If you may recall, last year some fans got together and set up a grassroots Vote For Rory campaign to get Rory Fitzpatrick, a stay-at-home defenseman on Vancouver, into the All Star Game. They nearly succeeded, which was fun, but of course the league did their best to play it down because they actually take the meaningless, corporate midseason exhibition seriously. That's why they put it in Atlanta this year. Right? Whatever.

Well, as you can see, this season there is a Vote for Boogey to get Minnesota Wild tough guy Derek Boogaard into the game. I think its a fantastic idea, voted for him myself and even may buy a t-shirt! After all, as someone in the East, I don't get to see enough Western hockey to make a fair judgement on the skill players (Hey Bettman and the Board of Governors, you better fix the scheduling for next season!!). So why not vote for a guy who I get to see regularly on HockeyFights.com?

To the best of my memory, the last tough guy who made it to the All Star Game was Bob Probert but he didn't fight. The NHL media guide doesn't have year-by-year box scores but points out that the top three in PIM in the game's history are Gordie Howe (Mr. Hockey leads with 25 minutes), Gus Mortson (who?) and Harry Howell (former Rangers great). Mortson, apparently played in the 40s and 50s for the Leafs and the Hawks. Howell played in the 50s and 60s and Howe played, well, forever. But the common theme is that all played when the Original Six teams legitimately hated each other, so of course there were some battles. Now everyone is afraid to get hurt while playing against golfing buddies and rich corporate sponsors.

So let's bring back a lil edge to the game and get the Boogey Man in! Vote early, and vote often. Also, a little aggravating sidenote - if you look at the write-in list for the East, you can vote for most anyone, aside from Sean Avery. Amazing how he pisses off the league and they 'accidentally' leave him off the ballot. The NHL administration is really a vindictive, bitter bunch who are entirely out of touch with the fans. Its quite pathetic. So screw them and Vote For Boogey!