The New York Rangers opened their preseason schedule against
the rival New Jersey Devils in Albany with only a few regulars in the lineup. The performance was underwhelming overall,
but with the few regulars that were in the lineup to fall 2-1 in OT against
many of the Devils regulars is not a bad result. The cliché is that in preseason the results don’t
matter and it is true in terms of the scoreboard, but the play of individuals
is very important to their chances of making the roster. A few Rangers stood out tonight while some
were invisible and others were just awful.
Standouts:
Artem Anisimov: Arguably the Rangers best forward
tonight. Excellent skating and showed
some more strength than last season.
Strength has been the biggest knock on Anisimov so if he can improve
that expect even more from him this year.
Dylan McIlrath: After a rough first period McIlrath had an
excellent game in all areas of the game.
During the second period was where McIlrath really stood out blocking
shots, taking the body, having good defensive positioning and reading the play
well in terms of pinching down offensively.
Dale Weise: Weise was very active tonight in taking the body
and creating things with his strength in the offensive end. Scored the Rangers lone goal on a play where
his hit in the corner won the puck, then it was played to Anisimov who made a
nice pass out front that Weise finished.
Fight against Brad Mills was ugly as Weise got handled and he looked bad
on the Devils’ winner when he couldn’t handle Steve Eminger’s bad pass in his
own end.
Goaltending: Henrik
Lundqvist and Cam Talbot were both excellent tonight. Lundqvist was very solid in his positioning
and was the only Ranger to show up for much of the first period. Talbot made multiple excellent glove saves
before getting beat for the winner.
Brandon Dubinsky:
Dubinsky didn’t do a whole lot in terms of generating chances, but he
was clearly stronger than last season and that bodes well for the Rangers.
Awful:
Erik Christensen: If that was Christensen’s case to keep his
spot on the team, then he should be cut and quickly. He was awful tonight in all aspects of the
game and in all situations. Time to end
the experiment with him and move on.
Michael Del Zotto: Del Zotto did little tonight to show that last season's struggles were behind him. The turnovers and wide shots that plagued him last season were still there, though he was physical at times in his own end.
Roster Battles:
Sean Avery had a solid first period with work taking the
body and drawing a penalty, but he saw little ice the in the second and had a couple glimpses in the third.
Tim Erixon was not overly impressive tonight in his bid to
make the team, but the good news for him is Michael Del Zotto was worse.
Brendan Bell was solid, especially in the first period when
he showed little to no hesitation in firing shots at the net.
Carl Hagelin showed off his speed, but little else tonight,
while Ryan Bourque had a few nice moments though defending an oncoming Ilya
Kovalchuk was not one of them.
