Photo: Tim Thomas Gets Into Movember By Ordering All To "Grow Your Mo"

First it was Jonas Hiller.  Now Tim Thomas has gotten into the act of using his goalie mask to promote Movember. In Goal Mag posted the above images of what the Bruins’ goaltender will be wearing this month.

The mustache on Thomas is great all by itself, but it is the other touches to the mask that make it even better.  Having Thomas wearing a “Captain’s hat” ordering people to grow their mustaches is great stuff.  If that wasnt enough check out what the backplate is going to look like:

The touch of adding a mustache to the Bruin bear is phenomenal.  Thomas made the mask look good tonight with a shutout in the Bruins 7-0 win over Toronto.

In Goal has details on how you can participate in raising funds for the Tim Thomas Foundation and get a chance to win the mask directly from Thomas himself. 

Rangers Should Look At Zuccarello, Stepan, Thomas As Potential Third Line 2011-12

On Friday I looked at the potential fallout and/or domino effect on the other centers in the Rangers lineup if the New York Rangers go out and catch Brad Richards as the big fish the unrestricted free agent market.  If that happens there is also an impact on what the team’s needs are along the wing.  Assuming that coach John Tortorella wants to keep all the centers in those positions and that Anisimov is left with Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan, then Derek Stepan is likely the third line center next year.  The worry in playing Stepan in that kind of role is about minutes, but also the quality of players he is playing with on his wings for his overall development.

One idea that could work would be to have a skilled third line that is young and developing together.  Seeing as how the line would not play against the top four defenders on the opposition you could use a young skilled, even small line and get away with it.  Stepan and Mats Zuccarello showed very good chemistry at times last season and both possess very good playmaking instincts.  To go with that pair one would want a finisher and the best finisher the Rangers have in the pipeline is Christian Thomas.  Most are aware of the tremendous season that Thomas had in the OHL for the Oshawa Generals when he recorded 54 goals and 45 assists in 66 games.  He followed that regular season up with an equally impressive 10 goals and nine assists in only 9 games.

It is a leap from the OHL and I am not about to say it will be a pain free transition that sees Thomas score 30 goals as a rookie, but his finishing skill paired with Stepan and Zuccarello would give the Rangers a young dynamic scoring line out of their third unit.  The three would likely have some issues in the defensive zone given their combined lack of size, but they can be shielded from that in large measure by being put out for mostly offensive zone draws.

Expect Thomas, especially with the Rangers lack of consistent scoring, to be given every shot to make the club out of training camp this fall, and even the 9 games he is allowed during the year to prove he belongs.  This combination might be his best shot at playing with skill and not being exposed for his youth or size at the NHL level as a rookie.

Tim Thomas Wipes Out During Fastest Skater Competition (Video)

Only in the NHL can you see goalies with the size of their padding compete in a fastest skater competition.  Tonight for the first time Boston Bruin Tim Thomas and Carolina Hurricane Cam Ward were the first goalies to ever take part in the speed race.  During the competition Tim Thomas, the leading candidate for the Vezina, wiped out, but true to his personality he battled right back to his feet and finished the race.

Video: Tim Thomas Imitates Superman To Stone Wideman

Say whatever you want about the style with which Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas plays, but what you cannot say is he ever quits on a play. Thomas showed that again tonight with this lunging save to rob Dennis Wideman on the doorstep. The save is even bigger because he made it with two minutes left in a tie game and while it does no top the save in Toronto it is right up there with the best of the year.

Video: NYR Prospect Christian Thomas Fight During Gordie Howe Hat-trick Friday

New York Rangers 2010 2nd round pick Christian Thomas has an excellent season overall for the Oshawa Generals and that certainly has continued this weekend.  On Friday night against the Plymouth Whalers Thomas would record a Gordie Howe hat-trick actually all within the second period as he scored a goal, then assisted on what would be the game winning goal and closed the period with the fight below.  The fight was against Mitchell Heard who is 6' 2" while Thomas is only listed at 5' 9" but Thomas certainly was not shy about throwing bombs during the scrap.

He followed up the Friday night exploits with a goal last night and currently has two assists through two periods in tonight's action. After some huge games in November but an up and down month, Thomas is back on track contributing nightly as he has scored points in eight of the nine games so far this month.  In those nine games he has scored a goal in seven of them, including the last four heading into tonight.  Overall his season totals now sit at 25G 19A in just 31 games.

Video: Tim Thomas Makes Save of Year

Tonight during the overtime period between the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs, Bruins goalie Tim Thomas what will go down as the save of the year on Francois Beauchemin on what was a sure OT winner for the Leafs. The Leafs would go on to win the game anyway thanks to a Phil Kessel SO goal, but does not change the brilliance of this save.

Yes, this is a Rangers blog and yes I cannot stand the Bruins, but if you love hockey you love great hockey plays and this certainly was one.

Rangers Prospects Ethan Werek and Christian Thomas Left Off Canadian WJC Invite List

Today the Canadian World Junior camp roster was announced and there was some reason for hope that a couple of Rangers prospects would get an invitation to the festivities.  The two main hopefuls for the New York Rangers were 2009 2^nd round pick Ethan Werek and 2010 2^nd round pick Christian Thomas.  Werek was at the camp over the summer so he probably had a better chance to make it, but he still needed a strong push in November and he just did not get that.  Overall for the month Werek had a respectable 5 games 4 assists performance in his 11 games, but he was held scoreless in four of his last five games before this announcement and that probably sealed his fate. 

Christian Thomas was a long shot coming into the year, especially considering he was not invited to the camp over the summer but his spectacular play this season with 18 goals and 16 assists in just 22 games was thought to put him in the running.  Overall in November Thomas numbers were down sans an incredible two game stretch in which he netted 5 goals and had 5 helpers on his way to OHL and CHL player of the week.  In his other 8 games this month he only had 2 goals and 5 assists and as Jess Rubenstein astutely as always pointed in a tweet:

His size I suppose is being one factor, he struggled against the Russians in the SSS is another

Do not take the lack of inclusion for either of these players as a statement on their future abilities with the Rangers as both are very talented and playing very good hockey.  The Canadian ranks are very deep as we see every year and this does not mean you should think any less of these players because they did not make it.   Werek is still someone I envision as a potential top 6 forward in the NHL and Thomas a tremendous sniper down the line.  Missing out on the experience is a negative in that playing against the best makes you better, but with both expect them to continue their hard work and development for the bigger picture of being a Ranger.

The Rangers are expected to have four prospects in the World Junior Championships this year with Ryan Bourque and Chris Kreider playing for team USA as they look to repeat; Jesper Fasth (2010 6^th round pick) playing for the Swedes and Roman Horak (2009 5^th round pick) representing the Czech Republic

News Roundup: Rozsival, Drury, Prospal Injury Updates; Minor Trade; Prospect Wins Award

Overall it was a slow news day for the Rangers, but there were some tidbits that can all be wrapped up at one time.  Let us first start with the minor trade of a few hours ago where the Rangers shipped out malcontent Nigel Williams for Stu Bickel who is a tough player, but is really more of an ECHL defender than anything else.  The move was purely about getting Nigel Williams out of the room in the AHL as he had been demanding a trade for since the spring and never realized that the best way to get traded was to play well enough for someone to actually want to acquire you.  I would not expect much from Bickel as he has been a healthy scratch many times this year in Syracuse, but maybe he will give us a good fight or two.

In better news as was clearly expected 2010 2^nd round draft pick Christian Thomas was awarded the OHL player of the week with the likely announcement of his as CHL player of the week coming tomorrow when the choice is made.  As I said in the prospect stats update Thomas had an outstanding week scoring 5 goals and adding 5 assists while being a plus 5 in just two games of action.  Just as if not more impressive than the numbers themselves was the fact that Thomas scored in all phases of the game and scored at important stages of both games.

Finally on the NHL level there were no definitive answers in terms of the returns of Michal Rozsival, Chris Drury and Vinny Prospal but there was some news.  The goal now for Rozsival is for him to play on Friday as he recovers from the should strain and the PRP treatment he had in the past week.  He participated in practice today wearing a yellow non-contact jersey.  Chris Drury for his part watched practice from the bench and then did on ice conditioning drills following the team practice.  Vinny Prospal has yet to resume skating and does not know when he will but he is said to be progressing with his pool rehabilitation and no change has been made to the prior mid-late December timeline.

Prospect Roundup:Scoring Race Contestants And Huge Friday Night (Thomas, Horak, Bourque, etc)

So far this season the New York Rangers prospects have been putting on a tremendous effort, particularly those in the CHL as there has been a scoring race going on between Roman Horak and Christian Thomas since the very beginning, then Ethan Werek climbed into it as his game rose and theirs slipped slightly and now red-hot Ryan Bourque is right in the mix for the lead.  The other guy who is in the running right now is not Rangers property in Brandon Manning the free agent defenseman who is destroying the WHL and Glen Sather must sign.  Other than Werek all of these guys in the race had huge nights on Friday night and even some Hartford guys got in on the act.