That doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion.

If the reports are true, general manager Glen Sather is making a terrible mistake allowing both Sean Avery and Jaromir Jagr to walk. After covering the two players since the lockout, it crystal clear the Rangers need them in order to be a winner team in 2008-09.

First, let’s start with Avery and the facts are clear. When the Rangers acquired him back in Feb. 2007, they went from a lackluster team to a winning club and since then they went 50-23-13 with him in the lineup and 24-35-9 with the winger wearing a suit during the game. That alone should tell Sather the value Avery brings to the Rangers and how irreplaceable he really has become.

Sure, you have problems with No. 16. Opponents hate him, while some in the locker room may have grown tired of defending him all the time. But who cares? All great teams have players who get under opponents skin. It’s the mark of winning and most Blueshirts will overlook Avery’s antics and outside distractions to have a solid chance to win the Stanley Cup. The fact is Avery give the team that edge.

Without Avery, Sather will have to sign someone like him [Darcy Tucker?], yet there is no one on the market who is Avery’s age, skill and has his fine fashion sense. For what he’s asking, $4 million a year seems to be a bargain. They should pay the man and get it over with.

As for Jagr, it’s a little more complicated. At 36, his skills have diminished and there is a supposed huge offer on the table from don Omsk-Avangard of the Russian Continental League. Even with that, Jagr still wants to play for the Rangers if the price is right.

Without No. 68, the Rangers will have to get another first line forward and with only Marian Hossa out there on the market, Sather will have to pay the Penguins free agent or suffer maybe a crippling loss.

With Jagr, the Blueshirts will be pretty much still intact with the offense focusing around Scott Gomez, Chris Drury and No. 68 himself there shouldn’t be too much of an adjustment period next season, unlike the past one where both Drury and Gomez went through some sort of early season slump. [Drury’s was greater than Gomez’s].

Jagr is also a proud man, who seems to thrive when people are telling him he is finished or his team will struggle. As evidenced by the last month of the regular season and the first round against New Jersey, the future Hall of Famer carried the team on his back. Jagr can still be a central figure on the team.

Now Sather shouldn’t break the bank for Jagr. It would be silly to give him more than two seasons and if he walks because another team gives him a long term deal, then so be it. But based on what the right wing said when the team broke up at the end of the season, he only wants to be in the NHL for two more years and then return to the Czech Republic.

Yet, that’s years away and right now both Jagr and Avery are needed on Broadway. Unless something is done by Tuesday it may be a long season at MSG, much like the one I am experiencing now at Shea.