Day: October 3, 2010

Seemingly the only move remaining for the Rangers before Wednesday’s 3pm deadline to file final rosters, will be to give Ruslan Fedotenko a contract. That’s because today they re-assigned rookie defensemen Pavel Valentenko and Ryan McDonagh to Hartford, trimming their roster to 25 players.

They have to get down to 23, but with Chris Drury and Vinny Prospal likely heading to IR, that means the Rangers will be able to get their without any further reassignments.

We’re less than a week away from dropping the puck on the Rangers’ 85th season in the NHL. The league as a whole opens up Thursday at 12:00pm Eastern, when the Carolina Hurricanes and Minnesota Wild get things under way in Helsinki, Finland.

In our late Rangers Countdown profile for today, we stay closer to home and look at undrafted UFA signing Cameron Talbot.

The Rangers today made what will possibly be their last two roster moves prior to the start of the season. By sending Pavel Valentenko and Ryan McDonagh down to Hartford, they effectively have got down to the 23 man roster for opening night.

That means good news for today’s Rangers Countdown Profile subject. With the last reassignments made, along with the pending assignments to Injury Reserve for Chris Drury and Vinny Prospal, there’s enough room to maintain Derek Stepan on the roster.