The big story on the side today was about whether the New
Yokr Rangers were possibly setting up a trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs and
if so whom would they target. The
reason for the speculation were reports from David Pagnotta that the Rangers
have scouted the Leafs three different times in the past week and so I put
together a list of potential targets with the most obvious and most talked about
league wide being Kris Versteeg. There are a few players on the Leafs who could make sense for the Rangers to go after, while others do not fit the teams needs well enough to make the move worth while. See who
the other guys besides Versteeg could be are and what my opinion is on trading for any of them inside the
full story.
Along with that the team did practice today in preparation
for tomorrow’s game against the Hurricanes and when they did they had some good
news as Ruslan Fedotenko was able to take part in practice and is expected to
play tomorrow. His loss was certainly
evident the other night when he went down and so everyone is happy he is back
and certainly sooner than originally feared.
In addition to having Fedotenko out there Ryan McDonagh was
on the ice for his first practice with the NHL club during a regular season
scenario. He will not play tomorrow, but
when he talked with Andrew Gross today he said all the right things about putting
in the work necessary to get in the lineup, his excitement for the chance to be
up with the club, discussed what Wade Redden has done for him and the rest of
the young Whale defenders and talked about his relationship with his Badger
Brother Derek Stepan.
Speaking of Stepan
check out his phone interview on NHL Overtime with VS Monday night
following the USA Canada WJC game.
Stepan was poised as always in the interview and talked about the USA
game, USA hockey as a whole, his season and the Rangers team to this
point. So nice to have a young player
with that kind of poise and intelligence representing your team as he does.
There was also news concerning Michael Del Zotto from Bruce
Berlet in his From the Crease feature.
The article from Berlet is tremendous as always and discusses a wide
variety of topics including: the transition Del Zotto is making, quotes from
DZ, quotes from the coaching staff in Hartford, talk about what the transition
and change in Ryan McDonagh’s play has been and more. Del Zotto said all the right stuff today, but
it will be interesting to see if he carries that over to the ice with his brand
new number. The number 4 was already
taken in Hartford by Stu Bickel, so click inside to see what number he is going
with and why he chose it.
The Fedotenko
news, McDonagh interview and Del Zotto discussion can all be found in that the
link.
There were also some videos:
- There was the hilarious Sportscenter commercial featuring Alex Ovechkin and Semyon Varlamov playing Russian spies infiltrating the network
- The Devils had yet another low in their game against the Wild in which an attempted dump play turned into a goal after deflecting off Kovalchuk’s stick, the boards and going right in the net for the eventual game winner.
- Finally as much as Rangers fans hate him Crosby put on a skill display for Reebok that might top Ovie and the Russian dolls when he stacked pucks in a pyramid formation on the bench wall and picked them clean off the pile even ending it hitting a puck that was rolling down the wall.
