Staple: Don't expect a drastic revamping of Rangers

The Rangers are wrapping up their organizational meetings as the playoffs march on. Considering that the three teams that barely beat out the Rangers for playoff berths won their first-round series, the mood out in southern California with Glen Sather and the staff could have been particularly glum.

But there were no indications heading into the week from people inside the front office that the Rangers are at all tempted to deviate from their plan to stay young and plug holes via free agency rather than remake the roster this summer.

The July 1 targets remain the same: a physically imposing defenseman and an offense-minded center. The Senators' Anton Volchenkov and the Predators' Dan Hamhuis top the list of defensemen, not just for their resumes, but mostly for their youth - Volchenkov is 28, Hamhuis is 27.

Up front, the Canadiens' Tomas Plekanec stands out most. There will almost certainly be rumors of a Rangers-Ilya Kovalchuk union as free agency approaches, but Sather need only view the Devils' five-game loss to the Flyers and see that Kovalchuk, for all his wondrous talent, does not make the players around him better.

"Not a winner," one Eastern Conference executive told me when the Devils made the deal for Kovalchuk in early February. That was certainly the truth.

The Rangers' main goal this spring is to get Marc Staal signed to a long-term deal. There will be some money thrown around in free agency, to be sure, but the goal is not to try and revamp a team that wasn't especially good this past season, but could easily be the Bruins, Flyers or Canadiens and be vying for a spot in the Eastern Conference final in a tremendously weak year.

This isn't a happy week for the Rangers, knowing what might have been. But that's no reason to plan on making a splash this summer.