Pluses and Minuses
With the Rangers just a couple of weeks away from the NHL trade deadline (March 4th), the players in the organization no longer just have to worry whether they’ll be dressing in Broadway Blue, but whether the new man behind the bench will make them be successful, or perhaps send their careers the wrong way. […]
Change As Good As A Holiday?
Reading the comments from many fans after yesterday’s firing of Tom Renney, and one might come away with the feeling that the season is suddenly saved, and the Rangers are once again a playoff contender. After spirally towards the bottom of the playoff picture with ten losses in the last twelve games, it’s clear that […]
Home Cooking
Before the lockout, the Rangers were known mostly for one thing: failure. Seven years of playoff futility was highlighted by a stream of aging, high priced veterans, who for the most part failed to perform in the bright spotlight of Broadway. Four and a half years on, and the Rangers have moved on with three […]
Hank and Team Defense Carrying the Team
by Mark Owens Only three NHL defensemen have a worse plus/minus than Dmitri Kalinin. At -10, Kalinin leads the team in this category. He also seems to bring the worst out of whichever defenseman he is paired with. Aside from Sunday’s team-wide malfunction, is it any surprise that Michal Rozsival‘s play improved immensely once he was reunited […]
A Game-Changing Power Play and Other Surprises
by Mark Owens Last season’s power play unit ranked 22nd in the NHL and continually failed to help the team win close games. This failure came to a head in the playoff loss to the Penguins, when the Rangers squandered one power play after another during the five games. In this season’s first 10 games, Brandon […]
Valliquette Backstops Shootout Shutout
The Rangers head into Detroit tonight (7:00pm – MSG) with a 6-1-0 record courtesy of Stephen Valiquette and his third NHL career shutout. The Rangers did it tough last night against the Leafs, needing a shootout to get one past Maple Leaf netminder Vesa Toskala and finish the game 1-0. Nikolai Zherdev opened up the scoring and Fredrik Sjostrom scored the game winner in the shootout, while Valiquette stopped two of the […]
Free Agency – Day 2
Day two of the 2008 free agency frenzy is under way, and so far no more big signings to report, which of course gives us plenty of time to review the stories from yesterday. Wade Redden of course was the biggest signing for the Rangers yesterday, and he seems ready to go. The career Senator is set to play for just […]
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 […]
Rangers Sign Four, Re-sign Two
Perhaps Glen Sather has a rabbit up his sleeve, but with the first nine hours of the 2008 free agent period behind us the Rangers are still without any wingers on their top lines, and are staring down the barrel of a season without a top line winger in their midst. As with most years, the free […]