Grass Isn’t Always Greener
As of March 3rd, 2009, the Rangers sat in eighth spot in the Eastern Conference, six points out of home ice advantage for at least one round, and just one point ahead of the ninth placed Hurricanes. With just eighteen games remaining, the Rangers are not focused on building momentum for the playoffs, but are […]
Meeting The Deadline
This year promises to be quieter than most for many teams, but despite the Rangers seemingly impossible position with the Salary Cap, there’s still some room to maneuver. Glen Sather made his first move yesterday by reacquiring Sean Avery off of re-entry waivers, something that is almost certainly going to have some impact on the team. He also cleared […]
Turnover, Speed, and Leadership Void
by Mark Owens Chris Drury and Scott Gomez, along with Henrik Lundqvist, take over as the team’s leaders. Jagr’s offensive production ‘ hopefully ‘ will be replaced by the speedy, enigmatic, underachieving, high first-round pick Nikolai Zherdev (sounds a little like Alex Kovalev, doesn’t it?). Replacing Shanahan’s 23 goals, theoretically, will be Markus Naslund, whose production the past two seasons has […]
The New Squad
by Pete Robinson Out with the old and in with the new. Thus ends the Jagr Era of the New York Rangers. Even though it was short, Captain Jagr will definitely be missed by all. Whether you loved him or hated him, Jaromir Jagr was a main contributor to the rebuilding of the Rangers, as well as […]
Pennywise And Pound Foolish
Going into today’s annual free agency period, I was relatively calm. The Rangers had several key players free to sell their services to the highest bidder, but the Rangers appeared in a relatively decent position cap-wise and had some room to make some deals to improve the team. On top of the wish list was […]
Sather Turns Defense Into Offense
After day one of the 2008 Free Agent period, the Rangers were set on defense, but had significant holes on their top two lines. On day two GM Glen Sather made an attempt to rectify that, dealing defensemen Fedor Tyutin and Christian Backman to the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for Nikolai Zherdev and Dan Fritsche. Zherdev, a 24 year old right wing who […]
Progress Made, Changes Needed
by Mark Owens Despite bowing out in round two again and perhaps wasting their final season with Hall-of-Famers-to-be Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan, the Rangers’ season was mostly successful, due to the development of rookies Marc Staal, Brandon Dubinsky, Nigel Dawes and Ryan Callahan. Lauri Korpikoski scored a goal in his NHL debut Sunday, and is one of several rookies with a chance to make […]
Game 5 Is Alive
An independent observer of the Rangers-Penguins Eastern Conference Semifinal series could easily jump to the conclusion that the Rangers have been thoroughly outclassed in this series, and that a win for Pittsburgh on Sunday is all but a foregone conclusion. After all, the Rangers lost an almost unlosable game in Game 1 when they gave […]
Back At MSG For Game 3
The third game of the Rangers-Devils series will get underway tonight (7:00pm – MSG, VS) with the Devils looking to get back into the series. While history is definitely on the Rangers’ side, a 2-1 series lead and a loss on home ice looks a whole lot different than a 3-0 lead. Certainly we’re not ready to say the series is over, […]
Things About To Get Interesting
With a 2-0 lead several stories in the papers over the last couple of days have all but awarded the best of seven series to the Rangers, and while history is on the side of the Blueshirts, there’s still plenty of hockey to play. A controversial ending to game two, which saw several Devils players, […]