Looking Ahead: Camp Time!
Training camp is upon us. The excitement level and anticipation for a training camp may never have been higher despite the fact the Rangers had a relatively low key off season (for their recent standards) and despite the fact the message coming from the staff has remained the same for the past five months. That message comes in three main themes: Youth, consistency and earning your spot.
Coach Tortorella went on record Thursday to once again preach what he has been saying over the entire off season and from Friday onwards we will see whether what he preaches is indeed his intention. Many Rangers fans will monitor camp with pessimism because many veterans (Fedotenko, Redden, Exelby, Semenov, White etc) hover like a storm cloud over the talented prospects that so many want to see installed on the team immediately. With the Rangers often going with veterans in recent seasons, fans can be forgiven for the pessimism but this year does promise to be different. This is the first season in a while where the Rangers have had a handful of prospects at the same time that can legitimately become core pieces (and not fringe players) and the first camp where these prospects appear ready. Including a key prospect’s immediate future, here are three areas that I will be paying a lot of attention to…
