It was a relatively slow news day, but that didn’t stop us from bringing you what was on some people’s minds today. The morning started of course with more talk about the Marc Staal pasting of Matt Stajan in the third period of the game last evening. I went through the play, Rule 48, and found in my interpretation of the play that Staal was clean on the hit and should not be suspended at all. The league apparently agreed with me at least according to TSN tweets which said that the hit was deemed to be legal, so now it is up to Staal to keep bringing the physical play as he will need it tomorrow against the best player in the game, Steven Stamkos.
This afternoon the initial figures from the All-star game balloting were announced and to me the two most deserving Rangers of selection Brandon Dubinsky and Dan Girardi ranked 49th and 34th at their respective positions. Sean Avery 27, Marc Staal 13, and Henrik Lundqvist 11 were the “bright” spots for the Rangers in the results. After the results and simmering on the topic for a few hours I popped the top on a rant about the Rangers fans were putting in so much time and effort to get Avery in the game but not nearly the same about to get their players who do deserve to go in. I have no problem with the Avery effort at all, but a team’s fan base must seek to do their part in having their players achievements rewarded and I do not see that happening right now in terms of voting.
There was very little other news at the NHL level today other than some musings about the injury status of Michal Rozsival, Chris Drury and Vinny Prospal which I discussed along with the minor minor-league trade the Rangers conducted that sent room destroyer Nigel Williams packing and Christian Thomas winning the OHL player of the week here. Speaking of the Hartford/Connecticut team the soon to be Connecticut Whale unveiled their third jersey’s today and I put up some pictures of the new look uniforms along with a picture of Wade Redden and his porno stache he is working with these days.
Finally in the biggest story of the day for me I guess on this slow news day it was reported and confirmed that Brandon Manning a prospect I have been following closely all season since his inclusion in Rangers camp would not only not be signing with the Rangers but the rival Flyers. To me this is a huge blunder for the Rangers as Manning is the type of defensive prospect this team does not currently possess no matter how many good ones we might possess.
