The story of tonight’s Rangers game was about the Rangers proving again that this year is different with another comeback sparked by Brandon Prust and finished by Erik Christensen. The game was certainly not pretty at moments, heck for long stretches but this team just finds a way to get the job done and there is certainly something to be said for that. Inside the full recap would be all the details on scoring plays, thoughts on who/what worked and what didn’t and how the Rangers managed to do it again.
Most of the day today was spent looking at the fallout of the Ryan Callahan injury which will sideline him for the next six weeks. The morning I discussed how losing Callahan would be the Rangers toughest test yet in terms of dealing with the various injuries to key players on the club. I looked back at some of the other injuries and what the absences of those players meant for the club along with analyzing what having Callahan out of the lineup will mean. I also looked at who might be the biggest loser in the injury to Callahan though that might be painfully obvious already. Bottom line is there are things that Callahan brings that no matter what the team does on the stat sheet cannot be replaced in my opinion.
Following as I put it, the morning of mourning over his injury I looked at where the Rangers will turn to fill the different roles Callahan plays. Some of these decisions are easier to figure out than others like the penalty kill, but some of them are probably going to be a fluid situation where different players take over those different positions. Some of the names that I looked at included: Chris Drury, Brandon Prust, Mats Zuccarello, Dale Weise, Ruslan Fedotenko and even Matt Gilroy. Now not all of them were suggested for instance to take the second line spot but be done in coordination with other moves, so check out what I view as the pros and cons to all the possibilities and give me your thoughts.
Before the game there was more information on from John Tortorella’s pregame meeting with the press. The headlines were Biron starting; Callahan now out 6-8 weeks; No call-ups and Prospal getting a new timeline. Inside there are more details on why some of the moves were what they are and my take on all the news.
In the odd-ball story of the day there was also the Coyotes signing amateur goalie Tom Fenton to a pro contract to be their emergency goalie tonight in the Garden. Absolutely unbelievable that a guy could go from not playing an organized game in nearly two years to an NHL rink and it must really tick off a lot of professionals who have spent their entire careers toiling in the minors and never gotten the same seat he had tonight. Inside are some details on his “career” along with one of the interviews he did during tonight’s game.
