While the New York Rangers were getting blanked in Edmonton
last night one Ranger in exile, Mats Zuccarello, scored the game winning goal
for the Connecticut Whale last night as they beat Springfield 2-1. Brian Ring had the recap for CTWhale.com
and said that the Zuccarello goal was in fact a lucky bounce as the Norwegian
winger fired the puck towards the front of the net and it bounced off a
Springfield player and in. Certainly
would be nice if the Rangers tried things like that instead of getting 19 total
shots in a game, wouldn’t it?
Zuccarello is doing his part in proving he deserves an NHL
shot on a scoring line with three goals and an assist in two games for the
Whale. His importance and offense skill
certainly has not escaped coach Ken Gernander…
“It was awesome,” said Whale head coach Ken Gernander. “He’s [Zuccarello] been a big time player for us in just the short two games he’s been with us, but he’s pretty good at generating offense for us.”You would think that with the Rangers offensive woes they would want to try using players that have the ability to generate offense, but maybe that is too logical an approach. Recalling Zuccarello is a popular line of thinking for many fans of the team, especially with his performance in Connecticut thus far. Howeverr, bringing him back on the fourth line with minimal minutes would be a pointless. Zuccarello is better off playing top line AHL minutes than riding the bench in the NHL, but there is nothing that says he could not get another shot to play in the top 9.
The Rangers have failed to generate any forecheck to start the season, so stop using the Boyle line as the third line and give a more skilled line a chance there. Adding Wolski and Zuccarello back into the lineup and removing Christensen and Newbury would give them at least the opportunity to do something offensively. The Rangers might lose some “jam” doing it, but regardless of the 2-1 record on the trip to this point the Rangers have really only had a single good offensive period.
