Semenov Signs With Rangers

According to Andrew Gross, Alexei Semenov has signed a one year deal for a $600,000. With Del Zotto making the team, Semenov will serve as the 7th defenseman. He’ll give the starting D-Men a rest, and will be there to push Redden and Rosival. A problem last year was that they did not have a proven 7th d-man to give a threat to Rosy and Redden. They have that now. If Del Zotto struggles and gets sent back to juniors, Semenov will likely take his place. I’m on board with the signing, as I was very impressed with him in preseason play. Semenov is big, slow, and pretty physical, with a nice shot. He’s not the ideal fit for Tortorella’s system, but he’s not starting. If MDZ doesn’t get sent back to juniors, expect him to play 10-15 games. Here’s what the 6-6 Semenov had to say about the signing:

“We were talking for a couple of days, just talking about what was better for us, what was better for them,” Semenov said by phone tonight. “It’s a good thing that we agreed on the contract. We had a couple of more opportunities to go to but I felt like this is one of the best teams out there. I feel that Glen Sather and the head coach (John Tortorella) and the rest of management are just perfect.”

Playing the Waivers Waiting Game

It has become abundantly clear that defenseman Alexei Semenov has played well enough to make the team as a seventh defenseman, but the Rangers appear to be waiting it out before they fully commit to him. GM Glen Sather is simply doing his due diligence as GM and waiting to see which players pop up on waivers. Brad Lukowich ($1.56 million) and Randy Jones ($2.75 million) have both popped up on waivers, but are too expensive. They will both be interesting options on re-entry waivers though. Rob Schremp hit waivers, and was immediately picked up by the Islanders.

Manny Legace and Dan Fritsche were waived by Atlanta. Brian Bochenski, Ryan Craig, and former Ranger Adam Hall were waived by Tampa Bay.

Alexei Semenov is just going to have to wait and see as well. If the Rangers like a name that pops up, expect Semenov to be cut from his tryout.

Sundin Retires

Mats Sundin has decided to call it quits, announcing his retirement earlier this morning. After 18 seasons, 13 in Toronto, Sundin amassed a line of 564-785-1349 in 1346 games.

He will go to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, there’s no doubt about it. This is also one less name that the rumormongorers can link the Rangers to at the trade deadline too.

A Look at the Defensive Pairings

With Michael Del Zotto officially making the team, I thought it would be interesting to look at defensive pairings. Who fits well with who? Let’s take a look:

1st pair: Staal-Rosival

Ideally, your first pair is your best. You have a good offensive defenseman, and a strong shutdown d-man. This combination gives the Rangers just that. Staal is the Rangers best defender. He has the potential to shut down one side of the ice. He’s an All-Star for years to come. Michal Rosival, however, has been struggling, and looked absolutely awful in the last preseason game against the Caps. But, that’s exactly why I put him with Staal. If he makes a mistake, he has Staal back there. Will this limit Staal’s offensive capabilities? A bit. But that’s what Gilroy and Del Zotto are for. This is not the best first pair in the NHL. No where close. But, it’s solid.

2nd pair: Gilroy-Girardi

I really debated where to put the rookies. I settled on Gilroy and Girardi for a couple reasons. One, Girardi, even with his preseason struggles, is a solid defensive defenseman. Gilroy, while solid in his own end, is a tremendous offensive player, who will look to lead and join the rush. He showed that during the preseason. This combination combines offensive and defensive players. In a defensive pair, you want a combination of both. This is a nice 2nd pair.

3rd pair: Redden-Del Zotto

Yes. Wade Redden as a third pair defenseman. It’s true. That’s where he belongs. I expect him to take a leap forward in his play this year–he really improved once Torts came along. He may not be the offensive player he once was, but he’s not awful as a defender. Del Zotto has shown great offensive instincts, as well as a good understanding of positional play. Having a veteran like Redden to learn from would be very beneficial to MDZ. If he gets sent back to juniors, I would put Semenov or whatever defenseman they sign off the scrap heap in this spot.

The Rangers defense core is solid. Not great. Solid. They have an emerging young star in Staal. Two really promising rookies in Gilroy and Del Zotto. Girardi, Rosival and Redden round out a solid group. I expect good things from all of them this year. What do you think of the defense core, and what are your ideal defensive pairings?

Del Zotto Officially Makes Team

As per Steve Zipay’s Twitter, rookie defenseman Michael Del Zotto has officially made the team. Kudos to him. He really deserved it.

This is the first time in a long time that I have been excited to see a young kid on the Rangers. Let’s hope he can keep it up. He looks like he is the real deal.

Update 3:45pm: According to Bob McKenzie, Del Zotto “will be running the Rangers powerplay”.

Thanks for the update Bob.

Islanders Claim Schremp

In a very good move for the Islanders, they have put in a waiver claim for Edmonton forward Rob Schremp. As the last place finisher last year, the Islanders had first dibs on any player placed on waivers. This is a very low risk, high reward move for the Islanders, as Schremp didn’t cost them anything.

Schremp, a first round pick from the 2004 draft, has fallen far. So far, in fact, that he couldn’t even crack the Oilers roster, and was set for yet another season in Springfield. The Islanders should be able to give the kid top line minutes while he tries to find his game again. If he ever does, the combination of him and John Tavares can become lethal.

Overzealous Spam Blocking

So, in case you haven’t noticed, sometimes when you comment on a post, it doesn’t appear on the blog right away. This is due to the spam blocker I have, and it usually does a great job. But every now and then, it flags some legitimate posts as spam, and I have to go and approve the posts. I check the spam queue several times a day, but it has led to a good four-five hours between comment posting and me catching it.

It appears to be sensitive to more than one link in your post, which includes linking your homepage URL. Essentially, if you have your blog name as your URL, and are directing users to a specific thread on your blog, it’s going to get flagged as spam. To make sure that your post goes through, I’m going to ask that you use one or the other until I can figure out how to fix this. If you don’t care about the delay for me to “approve” the post once the spam blocker catches it, then by all means, continue what you are doing. It’s up to you really. Just wanted to make you all aware of the situation.

My Fantasy Hockey Team

So last night was the first ever BSB fantasy hockey league draft. There are 14 teams, split amongst two seven-team divisions. The head-to-head league has stat categories G, A, +/-, PIMS, PPP, SOG, W, GAA, SV%, SHO, with the last four categories being goalie categories of course.

Yours truly had the fourth overall pick in the draft, and I think I did very well for myself, I have a solid team (Round, Pick, Player):

Gabby Gone Wild
1. (4) Jarome Iginla
2. (25) Niklas Backstrom (the goalie)
3. (32) Dany Heatley
4. (53) Chris Pronger
5. (60) David Backes
6. (81) David Krejci
7. (88) Olli Jokinen
8. (109) Semyon Varlamov
9. (116) Dennis Wideman
10. (137) Paul Kariya
11. (144) Ales Hemsky
12. (165) Ryan Whitney
13. (172) Keith Tkachuk
14. (193) Todd White
15. (200) Matt Gilroy

You start 2 C, 2 LW, 2 RW, 4 D, 2 G. What do you think?

Evgeny Grachev Sent to Hartford

As expected by most people, prospect-extraordinaire Evgeny Grachev was assigned to Hartford, following a loss in the preseason finale to Washington. Grachev played very well during the preseason, which is why he was the last cut to be made. This is no slight against Grachev, it is as simple as he will benefit greatly from a season in Hartford. You can expect him to be with the team next year, or even as soon as midseason this year.

The Rangers are now left with 22 players on the roster: 13 forwards, 7 defensemen, and 2 goalies. The best part about this? They are under the cap, even with the spare parts. This will give the Rangers some flexibility with lineups and under-performing veterans (cough, albatross twins, cough). The lines are still up in the air, as they should be, but it will be interesting to see what coach John Tortorella does with Artem Anisimov and Enver Lisin, who both need to be on the top three lines to be given a chance to really utilize their talents.

Congrats to Lisin, Anisimov, Alexei Semenov, Matt Gilroy, and Michael Del Zotto, who played very well in the preseason and earned their spots on the roster.

Scoring: A Problem?

Before I start, I’d like to properly introduce myself: My name is Jeremy Fuchs and I’m really excited to join the team here at BlueSeatBlogs. A life long Ranger fan, I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts on my beloved Blueshirts. You may have seen my other work on GiantsGab, or The Blog of Champions. Now that you know a little bit about me, let’s talk hockey.

Last year, all we heard about was scoring. Or the lack thereof. Scott Gomez didn’t (or couldn’t) fill the large shoes of Jaromir Jagr. Chris Drury was playing like a second or third line center, not a first. Markus Naslund, while solid, certainly didn’t set the world on fire. Nikolai Zherdev oozes talent, but can’t get it done on the ice.

As in typical Ranger fashion, they re-tooled in the offseason. They traded Scott Gomez to Montreal, getting Chris Higgins and promising blueliner Ryan McDonagh. Markus Naslund retired, Nik Antropov went to Atlanta, and Nik Zherdev went to the KHL. They signed Marion Gaborik to a mega deal. They signed Vinny Prospal and Ales Kotalik. On paper, this seems to make up and then some for the losses. Yet all I hear from fans is: Where’s the scoring? All I read about in season previews is: Where’s the scoring? Is it an issue? Or are we just too wary of Glen Sather to think he actually did a good job?

184. That’s how many goals the Rangers scored last year. In comparison, the Cup winning Penguins scored 255. Big difference. Well, how many goals can we project the Blueshirts to score this year?

Marion Gaborik: 32

If he’s healthy, he scores 40+ goals. However, I’m accounting for the fact that he might not stay healthy. I think 32 is a reasonable estimate.

Chris Drury: 24.

Hopefully, he’ll rekindle his magic with Kotalik.

Brandon Dubinsky: 16
Playing with Gabby should increase his outptut.

Sean Avery: 15

He scored 8 goals in 41 games. 15 in 81 sounds about right.

Chris Higgins: 24

Higgins was hurt last year, limiting his goal production to 12. I think he can double that if healthy, especially if he plays on a wing with Gaborik.

Ales Kotalik: 20

Scored 20 last year, too

Ryan Callahan: 28

28 might seem like a lot, but Callahan scored 22 goals last year, and was on fire at the end of the season, and in the playoffs. He’s a perfect fit for Tortorella’s system.

Vinny Prospal: 20

Scored 19 last year on a Tampa team in turmoil.

Artem Anisimov: 10

I don’t want to expect too much from the rookie, but he’s a goal scorer, and proved that in Hartford.

Donald Brashear:  2

Hey, it’s an improvement over Colton Orr

Brian Boyle: 5

That’s a nice number for a fourth line center.

Enver Lisin: 15

Lisin scored 13 in Phoenix. His speed is too tantalizing from him not to improve on that total, and he’ll flourish with Torts. He’ll score some on the Power Play as well.

Marc Staal: 8

I think he’s going to flourish in Tortorella’s system. He’ll be leading the rush a lot more.

Dan Girardi: 5

He’s got a very underrated shot.

Wade Redden: 5

I expect him to improve, and he was much better once Tortorella came on.

Michal Rosival: 8

If he just used that shot of his more, this total would be in double digits.

Matt Gilory: 5

He’s been very impressive in preseason duty.

Michael Del Zotto: 4

He’s a true power play QB. He’ll have a good number of assists as well.

So how many goals is that? 246. That’s a HUGE improvement over last year. I think the Gaborik addition, and the development of youngsters aids in the increase. And even if Gaborik gets hurt and only scores 10 goals, it’s  still 224 goals scored. Am I being a bit optimistic? Perhaps. But, it’s reasonable to think. This team is more well balanced. And judging from preseason games, they are a much better passing team. They attack, and they shoot the puck more.  If the Rangers get this goal amount, they will be a much better team. And with Lundqvist, it could lead to a deep playoff run.