Last night Tom Gulitti, of the Bergen Record, reported
at Fire
and Ice that the New York Rangers made a contract offer to unrestricted
free agent Anton Stralman.
A source confirmed that the Rangers have made a contract offer to defenseman Anton Stralman, the unrestricted free agent who attended training camp with the Devils as a tryout.
Stralman was in camp with the New Jersey Devils this
year, but was not offered a contract to join the team. The initial thinking was that Stralman would
eventually sign with the Devils, but that never came to fruition. Guilitti reports that Stralman has yet to give
the Rangers an answer on their offer and is weighing and offer from HV 71 in
the Swedish Elite League.
Stralman has the ability to add some offense from the
blue line as he scored 34 (6G, 28A) points for Columbus in 73 games two years
ago. He could not match that production
last season, declining to 18 points (1G, 17A) in 51 games. The problem with
Stralman is not in the offensive zone, but on the defensive end where he is a
combined -28 the last two seasons. The
Rangers would love to add offense from the blue line, but they cannot afford to
do it at the expense of solid defensive play.
It does not seem to fit what coach John Tortorella wants from his
defense.
The New York Rangers have made no secret that they are
looking into all possible defensive options with the absence of All-Star Marc
Staal. The team has already claimed Jeff
Woywitka off waivers and is currently carrying eight defenders on the active
roster. The fact that even after
claiming Woywitka and with Michael Sauer said to be getting close to returning,
possibly Thursday, that they are still making contract offers to the likes of
Stralman cannot be a good sign on Staal’s recovery.
During last Tuesday’s game with the Vancouver Canucks
Joe Micheletti said that the Rangers might have an update on Staal the following day, but no
update ever came and all that has been said since is that things are “status
quo.” The lack of an update is never a
good sign and “status quo” in this case certainly doesn’t indicate any sort of
improvement in Staal’s condition. The
positive side of that is there is no announcement of any regression for Staal,
but as the time between positive recovery news continues to grow so does the
seeming timeline for Staal to return to the lineup.
