In a recent study conducted by Phil Kocher, of Dissension Media, on a New York Rangers message board that will remain anonymous for the time being, he meticulously created twenty-five poll threads, one for each of the players who played for a substantial amount of time on the Rangers this season.
The question he asked was simple; should he stay or should he go? This question was asked of everyone. For the most part, the results were what we would generally expect, but who was voted the player that should stay the most may surprise you, as should several others.
Below are the complete results of the survey:
Who Stays
Artem Anisimov: 100% stay/0 % go. (47 voters)
Michael Del Zotto: 98.55% stay/ 1.45 %go. (69 voters)
Brandon Prust: 98% stay/2% go. (50 voters)
Erik Christensen: 97.96% stay/2.04% go. (49 voters)
Jody Shelley: 97.62% stay/2.38% go. (42 voters)
Marc Staal: 96.36% stay/3.64% go. (55 voters)
Marian Gaborik: 95.16% stay/4.84% go. (62 voters)
Brandon Dubinsky: 91.94% stay/8.06% go. (62 voters)
Henrik Lundqvist: 91.67% stay/8.33% go. (72 votes)
Alex Auld: 90% stay/10% go. (40 voters)
Ryan Callahan: 89.58% stay/10.42% go. (48 voters)
Vaclav Prospal: 84.72% stay/15.28% go. (72 voters)
Dan Girardi: 81.82% stay/18.18% go. (66 voters)
Sean Avery: 75.71% stay/24.29% go. (70 voters)
Matt Gilroy: 67.5% stay/32.5 go. (40 voters)
Anders Eriksson: 61.36% stay/38.64% go. (44 voters)
Who Goes
Stephen Valiquette: 98.04% go/1.96% stay. (51 voters)
Wade Redden: 96.30% go/3.70% stay. (81 voters)
Olli Jokinen: 95.29% go/4.71% stay. (85 voters)
Enver Lisin: 86.49% go/13.51% stay. (37 voters)
Chris Drury: 72.09% go/27.91% stay. (43 voters)
Brian Boyle: 71.19% go/28.81% stay. (59 voters)
Michal Rozsival: 60.94% go/29.06% stay. (64 voters)
P.A Parenteau: 60% go/40% stay. (40 voters)
Aaron Voros: 53.85% go/16.15% stay (52 voters)
As hard on Lundqvist as I have been this season, I am still shocked that his rating did not come closer to 100% than it did. Furthermore, I find it laughable that Jody Shelley, Erik Christensen and Brandon Prust have more people wanting them to stay than the team’s franchise goaltender.
Anisimov may have a bright future with this organization, but he will probably be my biggest surprise in these results, as he is the only player to achieve 100% in anything. It was also shocking to see Wade Redden n0t get to 100%, although he did come close.
Not many surprises all around, although I was expecting some of these polls to be more unanimous than what they ended up being. Fans are nearly torn on Voros, with close to a 50/50 split. Quite surprising considering that everyone hated his guts midway through the season.
With the buzz factor, Jokinen’s poll generated the most attention, as he garnered 85 total votes. Meanwhile, not many people cared to click on Enver Lisin’s poll, as he received only 37 total votes. Most of these polls had a good enough sample space to generate the overall attitude towards the Ranger players, even though I wish some of the polls in the 40′s had more voters.
Chad Johnson, Bobby Sanguinetti, Corey Potter, and Corey Locke were not polled, because they did not play enough.
Hats off to Phil for taking the time to conduct these.
In a separate poll conducted by myself a little more than a week ago, I asked fans on this same board who they wanted to be the team’s backup goalie. Even though 90% chose Auld in the previous poll series, the results were a little more broken up, almost contradictory to the above.
Out of 45 voters, 16 wanted Auld to be the backup, 15 chose Chad Johnson, 10 wanted Johan Hedberg to be signed, 3 wanted Martin Biron to be signed, and one person voted “other”.
Needless to say, the Rangers have a lot of work to do in the off-season, and I still am not expecting them to do anything major. Probably just a few small moves here and there. If the Rangers wanted to please their fans, they would look at some of these numbers and act on them, but I am sure that will be highly unlikely.
