I had a quick conversation with Brian Ring, who covers the Whale, in October for Avery’s first stint and he noted that Avery was a likeable guy in the locker room, and was more in the Wade Redden mentor mold than he was the Patrick Rissmiller locker room cancer. That was a good sign, as it appeared that Avery had not taken his time in the AHL out on the kids there. Redden has been a class act, and Avery was following in his footsteps.

“Disciplinary reasons” can mean a lot of things both positive and negative. There’s not much to read into this, but it’s worth noting…especially for a player who has now been sent to the AHL twice in one season.

Amid fresh rumours of Sean Avery having another chance at the NHL level the fact remains he’s still a Whale player and according to Glen Sather that won’t change soon. Sean Avery is still an NHL player in terms of ability so over the course of his stay with the Whale it’s fair to expect results.

With his fresh ‘demotion’, one has to assume Erik Christensen can make a solid impact in his conditioning assignment with the Whale and that should help them really strengthen themselves during the regular season. Like Avery, Christensen is an NHL player playing a level below, again one would expect solid results at the AHL level.

Then you have the numbers game that is playing out on the New York defense. While the demoted player may not make it down because of waivers, there is a good chance that the Whale will get one of Stu Bickel, Steve Eminger or Jeff Woywitka to use at some point this season. If (when) Mike Sauer gets healthy the Rangers won’t leave multiple defensemen wasting away in the press box and conditioning stints or demotions become a real possibility. Right now, any of these three – who have all made solid contributions at the NHL level this year – would improve the Whale.

There’s more to come. Looking at the Rangers prospects playing in junior there remains a chance the Whale get reinforcements through this route too. Christian Thomas has improved as the year has progressed (37 points in 29 games) but his Oshawa Generals are outside the playoffs right now and stuck in neutral. A much anticipated prospect, Thomas may find himself with the Whale earlier than he may have hoped this season.

Another junior candidate that could help the Whale and taste pro hockey this year is Shane McColgan whose Kelowna team are close to the playoff cut off line. While they are ‘in’ right now, other teams have games in hand and with a losing record, there’s no guarantee the Rockets can string together enough good performances to stay in the playoff spots.

Perhaps a positive sign for the way Rangers prospect development is trending in recent times is how so many players are currently playing on strong clubs. Mike St Croix, Dylan McIlrath, JT Miller and the Peterborough Petes’ Andrew Yogan and Peter Ceresnak are all battling for top spots in their respective leagues’ conferences. These players, like Chris Kreider with Boston College are unlikely to see time in the AHL because it’s likely some, if not all, could have deep playoff runs at their respective levels.

Meanwhile, the Whale may soon get a player back who is both a former Ranger as well as Ranger hopeful. Chad Kolarik is slowly working his way back to full health and could be a factor this season. Last year, through strong play in Connecticut Kolarik forced his way in to four games for the Rangers (one assist). Should the Whale be able to call on him and the aforementioned list of talented young players, they would have a very deep and talented squad to ice. There’s even still a slight chance of Wojtek Wolski making his way to the Whale at some point too. Not often an AHL club gets to ice a former 60 point NHL player.

It’s early to tell what the Whale will look like come playoff time and with the NHL trade deadline still approaching there’s certainly a lot of moving parts to consider but with a team consisting of established AHL’ers such as Kris Newbury, Mats Zuccarello, Pavel Valentenko and fast developing Jonathan Audy-Marchessault not to mention players such as Brendan Bell, Tim Erixon, Wade Redden and Chad Johnson, adding any combination of the aforementioned prospects and NHL pros makes this a promising campaign the tier below New York. Two Cups in one year? Why not.

We covered this here, here, here, here, and here. I’m actually incredibly sick of this topic. Avery has become bigger than the team, which is impressive considering he’s a fourth liner. He barely played, and was a healthy scratch. Mike Rupp’s return made this inevitable.

The holiday roster freeze ends tomorrow, and the Rangers will have several moves to make to not only free up space for players returning from injury, but to free up the cap space that is required to activate those players. While most of the focus will be on the blue line –and rightfully so– there will be some movement among the forwards as well.

The roster move that is going to have major implications for the Rangers is the activation of Wojtek Wolski, who has been making significant progress on his sports hernia injury. He was skating earlier this month, and the rumors were that he could be back this week. That means his $3.8 million salary comes off LTIR, and the Rangers will need to clear space to get there.

The activation of Wolski also means that the Rangers will have 24 players on the roster, not including players on LTIR. The NHL roster limit is 23 players, so right there the Rangers have to make moves to get under that limit. Since there are 15 forwards on the roster right now, including Wolski, a forward will have to be demoted. To clear the cap space, only one roster move among the forwards needs to be made, and it’s the simple move of waiving Sean Avery (GASP!).

All sarcasm aside, waiving Avery is the only move that makes sense. It clears cap space and roster space for Wolski. It is the only move that can be made to clear enough room for Wolski. In fact, it may not be enough. Tim Erixon and his $1.75 million salary may also need to be returned to the CT Whale to make room.

Those two moves will leave the Rangers with 14 forwards and 6 defensemen on the roster. Now of course, it is going to be VERY interesting to see what the Rangers do to clear room for Marc Staal and his $3.975 million salary.

Perhaps the main thing the Rangers didn’t do well against the Blues was stick to their own game. The team needs to get back to basics in the next game against Phoenix. The game against the Coyotes should signal a few changes as the Rangers need to get some snarl back and improve their overall effort. Examples may need to be made and the game should call for the inclusion of Sean Avery and Mike Rupp. There should be more ice time to Carl Hagelin whose sole mission should be to harass the puck carrier.

They need to throw the puck on net and crash the net as much as possible. What went on in St Louis was not nearly enough in regards to offense generated and the last two games have been the result of slipping play in recent games. The Rangers have had an up and down couple of weeks with some good and some bad performances.

Will Tortorella bench Brandon Dubinsky at some stage? Despite being a Dubinsky fan it’s a move I have called for, for a while. It’s becoming a serious issue. He’s well off his normal level of play and he needs a game out of the line up. While Dubinsky isn’t the only player underperforming (Brian Boyle, Fedotenko both come to mind for starters) he is the most critical element of what is going wrong.

The Rangers, especially right now, need Dubinsky to be better, much better. He’s an integral secondary scorer that simply isn’t scoring (the occasional assist doesn’t count). When the Gaborik line is being shut down so much pressure turns to Richards and Callahan to score as Fedotenko (on their line) has never been relied on for offense. So with no Dubinsky offense, the depth is tested.

It’s getting to the stage of the season where Dubinsky’s bad year threatens to undermine everything good about the year so far. His bad year threatens to adversely affect the great start to the season. He needs to be a factor going forward. I don’t buy into the apparent annual team slump around this time of year. It’s a different team with different players. What I do buy into is making changes to proactively impact players’ form. Let the players characterised by work effort and determination play. Get back to being a relentless fore-checking team and for that, at least right now, Dubi needs to sit.

Looking at the total ice time, it’s easy to see why people would jump to those conclusions. In Buffalo, Avery received just six shifts for a grand total of 3:48 of ice time. Last night at the Garden, Christensen received 16 shifts for a total of 12:54 in ice time. Looking at those numbers alone, it would appear that Christensen indeed has more favor with the coach than Avery. But looking deeper at the numbers, that’s not exactly true.

Against the Sabres, Avery played each of his six shifts at even strength, and did not receive one shift on the powerplay or on the penalty kill. Two shifts at even strength per period is exactly what is expected of a fourth line player who does not receive –or deserve– any time on special teams, especially in a game that was not decided until the third period. That in itself is why Avery’s ice time appears to be diminished.

Looking at Christensen, it’s easy to see why he has more ice time: he plays the powerplay. In last night’s win over Florida, the Rangers had three powerplays. One went the full two minutes, one went 1:08, and the last one went 1:55. That’s a total of 5:03 of powerplay time for the Rangers throughout the game. Christensen received an extra 1:29 of powerplay time. That plays into his extra ice time.

Another aspect of his increased ice time last night: The Rangers blew out the Panthers. The game was decided long before the third period began, so coach John Tortorella began playing his fourth line more often. In a non-blowout situation, a coach generally rolls his lines in a 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4 pattern. What that means is that he will play his first line, second line, and third line in a row. Then he will start again with his first line, and go through to his fourth line. This rotation generally repeats itself.

*-Naturally there is more to this (matchups, special teams), but for the sake of this post I’m simplifying it.

With the game out of reach for the Panthers, Tortorella ditched the usual rotation and rolled his fourth line more often, giving Christensen more ice time late in the second period and for the entirety of the third period. This explains his 11:25 of even strength TOI.

Let’s remember that before Christensen wound up a healthy scratch, his last game was the 2-1 loss to Florida last month. He played just 8:01 during the game, with 6:05 coming at even strength. That’s an extra two shifts over Avery’s ice time from Buffalo. This was Christensen’s first game in a month, where Avery played in each of the games that he was a healthy scratch.

Let’s also remember that these are fourth line players, and neither will be with the club next year. Perspective is important too.

With 12 points (7 goals) in 16 games and an outstanding +10 already, Hagelin is thriving on the ice.  He’s scored in shorthanded situations and scored a game winning penalty shot as well.  There’s not really anything Hagelin hasn’t done yet and looks to be more offensively complete than many gave him credit for prior to entering the pro ranks.

Hagelin was considered a good two-way prospect that could fill a bottom six role  at the NHL level,  to be relied upon to play hard both ends. Is his play (both last year at the NCAA level and for the Whale) perhaps suggesting he could be more than ‘just’ a depth forward? Given his outstanding speed, maturity and now even shootout skills, Hagelin is showing another level is within reach offensively.

Thanks to the Rangers start this year and the apparent depth at their disposal, Hagelin has had to wait and is not being rushed (not a bad thing). A full year in the AHL may be in store for the young Swede but despite the depth in NY Hagelin may still get a shot. While Brian Boyle is safe from criticism because of his contract and defensive ability there are plenty of players under-performing in NY.

Erik Christensen is still unable to appear more than once a month and given Hagelin’s ability in the shootout that shouldn’t be enough to save EC from players being called up for a look. With Wolski and Rupp unable to stay healthy and Andre Devaux playing sparingly Hagelin may yet see New York ice this year. The Rangers were outmatched in the speed stakes against Montreal (as well as in other facets…) and Hagelin could add to that aspect if given the chance.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle – other than desire to give him big minutes in CT – may be the improving form of Sean Avery. With Avery finding the net and playing more like his old self the need for a guy like Hagelin may not be as immediate. With Sean Avery and John Tortorella however, you never know what is around the corner. There’s a lot of possibilities in the Rangers bottom six this year, one of them may include Hagelin at some point this season.

Last night The Canadiens (the next opponents), Capitals and Penguins all lost. Toronto continued to lose and for the second year in the row, ruin a fast start. Everywhere you look in the conference, teams are helping the Rangers in their quest for a higher seed. The best part of it all is that the Rangers are benefitting from all their rivals’ inconsistencies while they remain relatively idle. The Rangers main opponents for a top 5 seed have all played at least two games more, at times three. By the time the Rangers face off on Saturday night in Montreal that could be as much as 4.

So what does the favourable shake down of the East mean to the Rangers? Pressure. Less of it. With a winning streak such as the Rangers’, comes heightened expectancy. With winnable games in Montreal and against the Panthers to come, the Rangers have a chance to really cement a place in the top spots of the Eastern conference before three big showdowns with the Capitals, Flyers and Penguins. Should things go as planned the young Rangers can enter the three games against the perennial Eastern powers with everything to gain and reltaively little to lose.

A young team will benefit from playing big games without too much expectancy, necessity or pressure. They can play freely on not worry about the what if’s. If the Rangers can find a way to win against the depleted blue line of Montreal and the overachieving but hardly world beating Panthers then it really does set up an interesting week ahead.

With Marc Staal to return (at some stage, we hope, we pray) the Rangers have a huge opportunity head. They enter the next two weeks well rested and with a chance to lay the foundations for a strong regular season. If they can continue – for the most part – with what has got them to this point there should be no last day jitters or a race to the April finish line. Well rested and not burnt out come the post season, a prolonged second season is more likely and every Rangers fans wants that. So, let’s hope Avery, Richards and the team can hit the next two games hard and steal another two wins. 9 in a row; sounds good.

But the 2009-2011 version of Sean Avery was far less effective, drawing just .1 more penalties for every one he took. He was constantly offsides, and seemed to only “bring it” on certain games. At that point, he was no longer worth is $1.9 million cap hit, and had become a liability, instead of an asset. Thus, the controversial decision to send him down was the right one. He was no longer playing the way he needed to play to stay with the Rangers.

As injuries mounted (Wojtek Wolski, Mike Rupp) and players were deemed not ready for the NHL (Mats Zuccarello), the Rangers had no choice but to recall Avery. The Rangers have been 7-0 since news of the recall broke, even if Avery has not played in all games since his recall. But, in the games that Avery has played, he seems like a renewed player.

Avery is no idiot, he knows this is his last shot to stay with a NHL club, and he is doing everything he can to stay with the Rangers. Aside from the scoreboard, the true value of Avery is in his ability to draw penalties while staying out of the box: Something he has done very well thus far.

So far, Avery has not taken a non-coincidental minor penalty, but he has drawn a few penalties on his own. His penalties drawn per 60 minutes is at 3.2, meaning he draws about three penalties per 60 minutes played. His penalties taken per 60 minutes is at 0.0, meaning he hasn’t taken any penalties that resulted in his team being shorthanded thus far. Those are extremely telling numbers, albeit with small sample size.

So why is the title of this post “Avery Proving People Right?” Simply put, we had been saying that Avery needed to be more effective to stay on the roster. He did not prove anyone wrong by playing this way and staying on the roster, it’s what we’ve been saying since the day he was demoted. He was not effective, and now he is. It’s as simple as that.

Prust fans should not worry however. With less ice time comes less focus, but that doesn’t mean Prust isn’t a valuable player for the Rangers. He’s a heck of a gritty player and will go to war for his team and teammates and he’ll likely be a major factor again this season. But he needs to get healthy and Rangers fans need to realise it cannot be a good thing when the Prust’s of this world are getting 15 minutes a game like he was last year. The Rangers lacked the ability to hold on to the puck last year and part of the reason was the lack of skill on the ice.

Sean Avery has re-emerged, and based purely on the past two games (albeit against inferior opponents) Avery has a legitimate role on this team. Avery is still unique when he plays like he can. He has a healthy dose of skill, is an intelligent hockey player (at times), and is a pest who can bring a physical, relentless style to the game. If the Rangers can have both Avery and Prust firing on all cylinders this season, then my-o-my this team can go places.

Avery, Prust, Fedotenko, Ryan Callahan and even Brandon Dubinsky give this team a boat load of grittiness and effort. Brad Richards, Marian Gaborik, Derek Stepan, and Artem Anisimov bring the skill and finesse to the table. Combine the two and you have the makings of a perfect blend amongst the forward group.

In an ideal world, Prust (and his line) will get between 8-11 minutes per game and be a physical factor. They’ll harass the opposition and create space for the skilled lines to do their thing. Prust will chip in the odd goal, assist, fight and everything he does but it can only bode well when the top six are playing the important minutes because they are – and will be – the difference makers for this club.