Photo credit: ctpost.com
While the next Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia are still a little under a year away, discussions continue on between the NHL, NHLPA, IIHF and IOC to determine whether NHL players will participate in the games. As it stands right now, all signs point to an agreement being reached to keep the game’s best players representing their respective nations.
In the spirit of these discussions, I thought I’d take a look at which Rangers might be making the trip over to Russia next year…
The Locks
Henrik Lundqvist – Sweden: After a gold medal performance in 2006 and general NHL dominance over the past eight seasons, Hank is the guy for Sweden. Not even a disappointing 5th place finish in Vancouver could begin to dethrone The King.
Ryan Callahan – United States: Cally assumed a penalty-killing, bottom-6 role in Vancouver in 2010, often paired with former Ranger, Chris Drury. Callahan will play a much more prominent role on a still young US roster this time around. A letter is a distinct possibility for the Ranger captain. Read more »
The Rangers took two points from the rival Flyers tonight, 4-2 at The Garden. With the exception of an incredibly scary puck to the eye suffered by Marc Staal, and some offensive zone penalties, it was a pretty awesome game to watch. Rick Nash flat out dominated and Ryan Callahan continued his high-scoring ways. Oh, and Henrik Lundqvist is back. Let’s get to the goals…
First Period
Rangers 1, Flyers 0
The Rangers started this game with a lot of energy and offensive pressure. The Callahan, Gaborik, Miller line was pressing in the offensive zone when Cally drew a holding penalty on Kimmo Timmonen. On the ensuing power play, the Rangers carried the puck into the zone on the near side. Max Talbot misread the puck and committed to the high slot. Stepan then sets up and 2-on-1 with Callahan down low, and The Captain takes it out on the water bottle into the top corner. Read more »
When Gaborik shoots, he collects pucks. Just don’t ask Lundqvist…
Welcome to this week’s edition of musings. This week’s version is entitled Start-To-Worry-But-Please-Don’t-Panic. With a dose of positivity in my veins, let’s get into it.
Let me immediately address the Zuccarello, Fasth and Lindberg news. I do not think any of the three can have a major impact on the Rangers this year. All three are talented but Zuke can’t cope physically in the NHL (from the evidence thus far) and Fasth and Lindberg would require time to settle in to North American hockey. If they come in as depth then sure; utilise their speed, their confidence from productive seasons. However, if they’re coming in to be difference makers then I am not sure. They’re still young.
The Rangers offense has dried up more than the Sahara desert so the three goal ‘explosion’ against the Jets was a welcome sight. What did they do right to get three goals? Traffic around the net and simply shooting. If only they’d have been willing to shoot more in that game… but it’s amazing how these simple aspects of hockey still lead to offense. This game we love isn’t rocket science.
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The Rangers had plenty to celebrate tonight.
The Rangers rode an offensively strong first period and turned it into a pretty dominant 5-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning. Aside from a somewhat defensively suspect first period (which gave Lundqvist some nice practice time…) and a brain fart on the Lightning goal, this was as near to a complete game as you’ll get.
The Rangers had strong performances all over the ice. Led by Hagelin followed by Nash, Staal, Lundqvist, the fourth line and Ryan McDonagh, but in particular Girardi was up there with Hagelin displaying his exceptional decision making all game long. The Rangers controlled the boards, controlled the tempo and controlled a highly skilled team allowing them just 20 shots. This game makes you excited to be a Ranger fan as the depth really came to the fore tonight.
On to the breakdown folks.
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Googled ‘desperate for offense’. I kid you not, this was the 3rd picture found.
Hello everybody! (*Dr Nick voice*). It’s a musings day but in Ranger-land there’s not much to be happy about, so let’s just get straight into it. It’s all business folks.
I read yesterday that we give the ‘star’ players a pass on this site? Not so. If you look back through the musings I was pretty critical of Gaborik recently because he has lacked consistently. That criticism still remains, and it goes for all three of them. When you ice a top heavy line-up the one thing that line has to give you is a consistent effort, even when it doesn’t score, and that trio were generally lousy against the Devils.
Whose return to the line up Thursday is more urgently required, Girardi’s or Callahan’s? Given the constant team wide defensive gaffes you could argue Girardi’s, although with the Edmonton Oilers of the 80’s in no danger of losing any scoring records to this Rangers, maybe its Cally. Hopefully both return.
Peak in to the past time: Bobby Sanguinetti: 6 GP, -4, 0 pts, 13:38mins/game. What a shame.
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“Some fans don’t like me? … Oh no!” </sarcasm>
There’ll be no Marc Staal defence’s today (kudos Suit), no long-winded rants, just lots of discussion. I’m feeling concise today so let’s get straight into the Le Musing (ooh, very French…)
Michael Del Zotto: The young and oft maligned blueliner is off to a great start to the year. He’ll never win over all his critics but he’s been the Rangers best blueliner at both ends so far. For a unit that struggled early on, and for a player with much to prove, he’s doing exactly that. Several big plays already this season.
Glen Sather deserves a ton of credit for Del Zotto’s start. Sather challenged Del Zotto to earn a bigger deal. He called him out while at the same time ensuring he publicly acknowledged the young defenseman’s worth to the franchise. He doesn’t speak in public much but Sather hit this one on the head. Sather dealt with the MDZ situation perfectly.
If I were to personally grade Marian Gaborik after 6 games, I’d probably be harsher than most people. I’d give him a B+ where some people would see the totals and assume excellence. I’m one of Gabby’s biggest fans, but he’s at times dominated and at times been found wanting. Of course, the times he’s impressed have outnumbered those he’s struggled in. The only thing missing from Gaborik’s season thus far is that elite level of consistency.
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Per Bob McKenzie, captain Ryan Callahan is out 10-14 days with a shoulder subluxation, which means that Cally’s shoulder popped out of its socket real fast, then settled back in. This could have been a lot worse, but the Rangers will definitely miss Cally while he is out for those two weeks.
While he’s out, expect Carl Hagelin and Taylor Pyatt to get a lot of time with Derek Stepan.
If you weren’t watching the game, then you missed the big news that captain Ryan Callahan left the game in the third period with an apparent left shoulder injury. Following a scrum with Max Talbot, Cally headed straight to the locker room and pointed at his left shoulder. The scrum itself didn’t involve any punches, it just looks like it was tugged awkwardly by Talbot.
No word yet on the severity of the injury.
Ranger fans left The Garden disappointed tonight, as the Blueshirts dropped their home opener to the Penguins, in particularly brutal fashion, 6-3. In a game we saw The King pulled in the second period, Rick Nash’s first Ranger goal, and continued sloppy, disjointed play, the good guys fell to 0-2-0 on the young season. Let’s break down the goals…
Penguins 1, Rangers 0: Only seconds after Aaron Asham kicked the game off with a solid tilt with Tanner Glass, Brad Richards took an undisciplined interference penalty just :37 into the game. On the ensuing Pittsburgh powerplay, after some pressure, Marc Staal failed to the clear the zone as his attempt was picked off by Kris Letang. The Pens continued to move the puck and eventually caught the Rangers running around. James Neal was left alone in the slot, and he rifled a shot low to the glove side and past Lundqvist. There may have been a small screen there, but I think Hank will want that one back.
Penguins 1, Rangers 1: Around the nine minute mark, the Rangers were starting to buzz offensively. An aggressive forecheck lead to a Simon Despres penalty for holding. On the faceoff, Brandon Sutter took a penalty for playing the puck with his glove. Apparently this is a new penalty this year. Just ask Sam, he’ll tell you all about it. This lead to a full two minute 5-on-3 for the Rangers. The Pens decided to play two forwards and one defenseman and collapse the front of the net. This allowed the PP unit the opportunity to move the puck freely around the perimeter and seek openings down low. After alternating the two tactics, Richards drifted down into the high slot and ripped a half slapper toward the net. Tomas Vokoun was unable to control the rebound and Captain Cally banged in the rebound as it was bouncing for the equalizer. Read more »
(AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Two summers ago (2011), we started writing posts titled “Reasonable Expectations.” The idea behind these posts was to outline what we should expect from some of our core youth on the Rangers. It’s natural to expect every player to turn into a first liner, but that’s not reality.
When we wrote these expectation posts two summers ago, they were obviously for last season (2011-2012). Now that the season has come to an end, Suit brought up a good idea to track how we did with our predictions. Since it was my idea to start with the Reasonable Expectation posts, it only makes sense that I go first.
Beginning in February of the 2010-2011 season, I wrote three Reasonable Expectation posts: one for Michael Del Zotto, one for the Brandon Dubinsky/Artem Anisimov/Ryan Callahan line, and one for Tim Erixon. Considering the players I wrote about, it looks like I have a kiss of death. Apparently if I write a Reasonable Expectations post about a player, he has a 60% chance of being traded for Rick Nash.
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