Rangers fans started the day feeling the effects of the hangover caused by the awful performance against the Avalanche last night. In that spirit I opened the day responding to thoughts that happened during the game about what is the next course of action for Michael Del Zotto whether it be a benching, reducing his role, sending him to the minors or trade. Personally to me the last two are on the loony side but they have been suggested so I had to at least address them. For me the best course of action is to reduce his role at even strength work on his fundamentals, build confidence and then move him back up later in the year just as they have done with Stepan of late.
As bad as last night looked for the Rangers I Colorado that is the way virtually the whole season has been in Hartford, but last night there were some signs of life in the 5-2 victory against Springfield. The game featured 2 goals and an assist for Chad Kolarik, 1 goal and 1 assist for Mats Zuccarello as well as Wade Redden and two huge team building fights for Jared Nightengale and Dale Weise. The game also marked the return of Weise to the lineup after missing 15 games with his wrist injury.
That was followed by the pregame for tonight’s tilt in Minnesota in which my speculations on the lineup turned out to be pretty good other than the D pairs as Michael Del Zotto stayed in the top four. That is as good a transition into the game as I am going to do at this point of the day, but Del Zotto rewarded Tortorella with a very good game, other than a bad play on the first Minnesota goal. His strong play on offensive end included a beautiful goal off the feed from Derek Stepan. Overall the game was the exact opposite of last night where the Rangers would dominate the second tonight and never look back in 5-2 win. Only other thing I want to say on the game is once again I am proud to have Brandon Prust on this team and if we had 20 guys like him win or lose we would never wonder if they gave it full effort as he played tonight when he probably shouldn’t have and after the game could not even straighten his leg. We bow to you, Mr Prust.
Other than that I took a look at the great scoring race going on between Rangers prospects in the CHL and how each fared Friday night, led by Christian Thomas and his six point performance. Andrew Gross put out an update on the Michal Rozsival injury which has now officially ruled him out for Monday and pushed his return back to at least the middle of the week. The full details of the update can be found here.
In terms of posts the last thing was a posting of the Rangers Heritage Jersey Schedule.
In wrapping up I want to take the time to mention and thank Dig Deep of Blueshirt Banter for making the banner so this place can look a little more professional in its growth stages. Things like what he did are why I try to do what I do in that the point of this place is not for me to chat with myself about the Rangers but give you a forum that you can let out your thoughts and create a conversation. For each of you that enjoy this place that makes the work it takes to do it worth it and I thank you for coming.
