Per Steve Zipay Martin Biron will
get the start today against the Canadiens and Michael Del Zotto will remain in
the lineup, while Steve Eminger is once again a healthy scratch. The move to go to Biron is not unexpected
considering Tortorella called out Lundqvist following the last game and the
fact the Montreal has been a house of horrors for Henrik. The day off gives him two more days of
practice before they play in Detroit on Monday.
Leaving Michael
Del Zotto in the lineup is on the other hand ridiculous. I understand the desire to have him on the
power play, but the first rule in this league is to keep the puck out of your
own net and he clearly is not ready to help them accomplish that task. Michael is playing scared hockey and should be
playing in Connecticut not a crucial game in Montreal as the team tries to end
a three game losing streak. It is pure hypocrisy
on Tortorella’s part to preach that this team needs to play defense first and
generate offense off of it, and yet continue to stick Del Zotto out there
purely for his offensive possibilities.
If that
was not enough there was this quote from the Rangers official twitter feed:
Torts:
"We want to develop our younger players, and especially with Michael--we
sent him to minors, now we want to work with him here"
This has
become some sort of a pride thing it appears.
Del Zotto is clearly not ready and getting beaten every night is not
going to help neither his development nor his confidence for the long term.
In other
news Steve Zipay tweets that Chris Drury had
fluid drained from his left knee yesterday and is day-to-day with no return
date.
