With his strong play against the Islanders Matt Gilroy at
least for the moment has put a lock on a spot for himself in the lineup and so
this morning I looked at what the ramifications for him locking in a spot where
on the other defenders and who
might become the new odd-man out.
There really are only three candidates who might qualify to be the one
who now misses time from the lineup and I went through the cases on Rozsival,
Del Zotto and Eminger to see whom given all the factors I would leave out of the
lineup. On this front coach John
Tortorella made some news both agreeing and disagreeing with my logic in the original
piece and I will look at what he said and what will be the right move for Del
Zotto tomorrow.
In other Rangers news today all four of the prospects at the
WJC were in action and while Roman Horak was held scoreless the other three all
got on the board today. I recapped the
Team USA game in which Kyle
Palmieri and Charlie Coyle lead the way in the romp over Slovakia and
discussed the play of both Kreider and Bourque who both had assists in the
game. Both of the Rangers prospects
showed well for themselves in their different areas of expertise and look to be
in form to be even bigger factors as the tournament progresses. Jesper Fasth who had an assist in Sweden’s
opening game would score a goal today in the 2-0 win over Russia.
Other than that there was only the photo of the new Whale home jersey in direct relation to the Rangers.
Outside of currently relating to the Rangers there was:
- Jody Shelley deciding to sucker punch Andrew Alberts during the third period of a blowout loss to the Canucks
- Steven Stamkos getting railroaded for having the audacity to hit Colin Campbell’s kid with a clean check that led to a bogus boarding call and the Bruins game winner
- Zach Kassian being tossed from the WJC game against the Czech Republic which was more about the result of the hit than the legality of the hit itself in my opinion, but watch the video for yourself.
- Anze Kopitar making an amazing pass against the San Jose Sharks to spring Dustin Brown for a beautiful goal that for me is one of the best overall scoring plays of the year.
