Ok, so this one kinda sorta came out of left field though if you know Glen Sather, it really shouldn't be a surprise...
Gilroy ,24, an undrafted free agent and Long Island native drew interest from nearly every team in the league and received six serious offers before choosing to take the Rangers 2 year, 3.5 million dollar offer.
I personally have seen Matt Gilroy play a grand total of one time - and that was the national championship game against Miami of Ohio. He left one hell of an impression on me and everyone else when he made a hell of a play to set up the game tying goal with less than 30 seconds left which you can see 1:35 into this video.
Poise, awareness and tremendous vision - thats a tough play to make in a regular game, but to have the presence of mind to pull that off in a championship game with the clock dwindling down is special. Most guys would have just closed their eyes and blasted it.
Aside from that, there is no question that he can skate and pass the puck. He killed penalties and Quarterbacked the power play at BU. He was also the captain of the team and has tremendous leadership qualities (cut from the same deck as Chris Drury, another BU alum, in that regard.)
On draft day last year, I preferred John Carlson over Michael Del Zotto because Carlson to me, was an extremely well rounded player who didn't really excell at one single thing but was above average in everything. I'm hoping the Rangers found that with Gilroy.
Perhaps the most comforting thing about this whole deal is that John Tortorella actually pushed for it to happen. Tortorella was able to evaluate Gilroy during a camp for Team USA last year prior to the World Championships and really liked his game. After seeing what Tortorella did for Dan Boyle, its hard not to get excited here.
Whats interesting is look at the types of defensemen we've added the last few years.
Bobby Sanguinetti - can skate, can move the puck
Michael Del Zotto - can skate, can move the puck
Tomas Kundratek- can skate, can move the puck
Matt Gilroy...
You get the picture.
This was after adding two guys in Marc Staal and Michael Sauer, who are more shut down types in the same draft, and signing Dan Girardi who has shown to be a very solid 4-6 guy.
We're building one hell of a dynamic blueline. I think that with this signing, one or perhaps even two of our defensive prospects can be moved for a good draft pick or forward prospect that we really need (Outside of Grachev and Anisimov, we don't have much there though Derek Stepan is a pretty good prospect.)
The best part of the deal? while Gilroy will get his money regardless of what happens, if he doesn't play a certain amount of games, he doesn't count against the cap! Thats right, if we find out that the dude can't hack it in the NHL, he plays a couple of years in Hartford while adding a few digits to his bank account courtesy of Dolan. If he does work out we'll have a top 4 guys signed for two years at the rate of a bottom pairing player. This is a win/win situation as far as that is concerned.
Heres to hoping that Gilroy becomes this teams Dan Boyle, lord knows we could use a player like that.
