With the home opener for the New York Rangers now being just a day away everyone is fired up and here is a little more to add to it. While unconfirmed this appears like it might be the opening montage for the Rangers tomorrow.
Video via Rangers official youtube channel:
h/t to NYRBlog for finding this.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Photo: Jonas Hiller Takes Movember To Another Level With New Mask
Facial hair in the National Hockey League is nothing
new. Each year in the playoffs the
hockey beards come out, but long before that point there is Movember. Movember is and effort throughout the month
of November to raise money and awareness for different men’s health issues by
growing mustaches. On some the mustaches
look good, while on others they provide a sense of comedy relief. Today, the Goalie Guild released images of Anaheim Ducks goaltender Jonas Hiller taking the comedy side of it to another level with his new mask depicting himself and
his Ducks’ teammates with ridiculous mustaches.
Photo’s courtesy of the Goalie Guild:
Rangers Blueline Gets Boost With Sauer Return, While Offense Searches For Answer With New Lines
The New York Rangers have
battled through defensively without two of their top four defenders in the last
five games, but that appears ready to change tomorrow night. Michael Sauer told reporters today that he
expects to be in the lineup tomorrow for the first time since October 8 against
Anaheim. This is a huge help to the
defensive corps as Sauer was the steadiest defender on the club last season and
while his presence does not show up in the boxscore often he does plenty of
things on the ice to make himself known.
This should help ease the burden on Girardi and McDonagh while
solidifying the second defensive pair for the Rangers.
What would Rangers game be
without some new lines heading into it? With
the offense continuing to struggle to generate not only goals, but consistent
pressure coach John Tortorella has mixed up the lines once again. Lines via Steve Zipay:
Fedotenko - Richards –
Gaborik
Stepan - Dubinsky - Callahan
Wolski - Boyle - Prust
Newbury - Anisimov -
Rupp/Christensen
The top two lines are solid
as Fedotenko’s grit should help the Richards, Gaborik line possess the puck
more in the offensive zone and create chances.
Stepan brings his playmaking ability to Dubinsky and Callahan, while all
three are trying to get their games going this season.
The bottom six is less
certain for me as Anisimov on the fourth line is not good for him at this stage
of his development. It was fine two
years ago to protect him and let him come along slowly, but playing with
Newbury and Rupp is not going to help him now, especially if Torts uses his
fourth line as little as normal.
Wolski needs to bring the
Rangers offense or he is not worth the price they are paying him, and it is
unclear if he will do that with a more grinding type pair in Boyle and
Prust. Putting Anisimov between Boyle
and Prust is something I would like to see them try as Anisimov has excelled in
the past with physical players, Boyle gets more freedom on the wing to play in
the corners and all three guys can score.
However, if Fedotenko sticks on the top line it would mean wasting
Wolski on the fourth line. Rangers once
again are still searching for combinations that work.
Rupp didnt practice today, as was the case before Winnipeg, but is expected to go tomorrow.
Gaborik Not Benched Monday; Why Tortorella Made Right Call On Ice-Time In Third Period
Marian Gaborik has been the New York Rangers best forward
thus far this season. Gaborik has
returned to the form of his first season in New York with four goals already
and showing the burst he never really had last season. With as well as Gaborik has been playing the
fact he was not playing for much of the third period against Winnipeg caused
concern for possible injury and/or anger at coach John Tortorella for possibly
benching the star winger. Luckily it
appears that neither of those was the case.
According to Larry Brooks at The
New York Post the reason that Gaborik only got four shifts and 3:03 of ice
time in the third period was because of the amount of time the team spent
pinned in their own end.
“It was not a benching,” Tortorella said. “Gabby has probably been our most consistent forward.”
There are those who still
want to see Gaborik get his ice time because of how good he has been and it is
hard to blame them for that. It was a
missed Gaborik shift that saw Prust, Richards and Fedotenko get pinned in the
defensive zone for nearly two minutes, but eventually led to the power play
that Callahan scored on. Once the
Rangers took the lead there was no reason to double shift Gaborik to make up for
the lost ice time, especially since there are forwards much better equipped to
preserve the lead. Sure Gaborik could go
out and make it a two goal game with another snipe and make the rest of the
game a little easier to take, but his line also could have been responsible for
giving up the tying goal and then Tortorella would have been hammered for
having him out there.
Gaborik will get
used and abused when the team is in need of a goal while down one or tied in
the third, so there is no reason to worry about running him out there when you
have the lead. That is the luxury of
having Callahan, Dubinsky, Boyle, Prust to sustain those third period
leads. Tortorella makes questionable
decisions with the lineup and the lines, but his use of Gaborik in the third
period Monday night was not one of them.
Report: Zuccarello Suffered Concussion Saturday Night
According to Norwegian newspaper Verdens
Gang, the reason that Mats Zuccarello did not play on Sunday was because of
a concussion sustained on the vicious hit from Adam Mair Saturday night. Mair was suspended four games for the hit
that knocked Zuccarello out of action.
Concussions are going to happen and Zuccarello said he expects to be at
practice today, but as we have seen with Marc Staal they can be very
unpredictable and hopefully they will be cautious with Zuccarello in not
letting him rush back to action.
h/t to Kevin DeLury of NYRangers Blog for finding this one
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