When you think of the New York Rangers greats, Brian Leetch is certainly among the first names to come to mind. While I won't compare Dan Girardi to Leetch, Girardi and his fellow defensemen have brought new prestige to being a New York Rangers d-man.

With Marc Staal having return from injury, the Rangers have one of, if not the best defenses in hockey. Michael Del Zotto is having a breakout season, while Ryan McDonagh is making the Canadiens regret trading him increasingly each day,

Meanwhile, the likes of Anton Stralman and Stu Bickel have filled in for the loss of Michael Sauer fantastically, and when Sauer returns, along with Steve Eminger, the Rangers will have one of the best problems a team can have: too much defense.

In the minors, the Rangers have Tim Erixon and Pavel Valentenko waiting in the wings. Dylan McIllrath is a huge prospect for the Rangers at defense as well, so not only does the current look bright, but the future does as well.

At the All-Star Break, the New York Rangers continue to sit at number 1 in the standings (at least by points percentage), and have shown no signs of slowing down. That's a far cry from where they were way back in October during my first update, where a slow start had people questioning a lot about the team. Now the only question is whether the team can still avoid the dreaded 'regression,' dropping like other teams of the past. As usual, Rob already covered that again with the shot metrics, so I'm just filling in the rest, with the season data on scoring chances.

Typically with these summaries, I start with the goaltending and then bombard the rest of the post with more tables. I just posted a lot of the data recently with the chance types, so for a change of pace, this time I'm going to instead bombard the post with pretty pictures charts. Here's one such chart:

This will look familiar to a select few of you, as it is an update of one I posted a month ago. This shows the 10 game ratio of each of the important shot ratios, goals, Fenwick, Corsi, and scoring chances (all even strength data). For the most part, shots and scoring chances have been tied fairly closely all season, an indication that 'shot quality' is still not really a driving force for their domination in goals. That credit still goes to Henrik Lundqvist and Martin Biron. Even with the goaltending, it's important to get the better of the shots over the course of the year, as the correlation between goals or shots and scoring chances is quite high the later you get in the year. That 52.6% they're at now is perfectly acceptable for that goal, and where they need to remain.

After the jump, more charts!

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Things started off tonight with the traditional puck toss, that ended up leaning in Zdeno Chara's favor. Daniel Alfredsson passed the choice over to Chara being the great host he is. There were definitely some surprising picks this year, including the first overall pick Pavel Datsyuk.

In case any of you haven't seen it, I will save the anticipation. Follow below the jump for the entire rosters for both Team Chara (Blue) and Team Alfredsson (Red).

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Tonight marks the start to All-Star weekend which will take place at the Scotiabank Place in Ottawa. Tonight's festivities will consist of the fantasy draft which will decide this year's All-Star teams. On one team, we have Zdeno Chara as the captain of the Blue team, along with Joffrey Lupul as his assistant captain.

On the other side, we have Daniel Aldfredsson and Henrik Lundqvist running the Red team. There will 19 rounds of drafting the remaining 38 All-Stars. All 12 rookie skaters will be divided into groups of six, and once one of them is picked, that team gets the rest of the five. Sounds confusing I know, but it's much easier seeing it done in-person.

With that said, hope everyone enjoys the draft tonight, and what is your predictions for the last player picked?

Follow after the jump for the full fantasy draft rules.

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The New York Rangers headed into their All-Star Break on as high of a note as they could have. After beating the Boston Bruins in overtime on Saturday they routed the Winnipeg Jets the other night for their second win in a row.

It seems like a funny thing to talk about when a team is in first place in their respective conference, but confidence still plays a big role in any team's success, no matter where they are in the standings. The Rangers are exhibiting that right now, as they continue to win games despite a stagnant power play.

But as of now it shouldn't be about what the Rangers haven't been able to do so far this season, it's what they have done.

Join me after the jump for more.

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Most of the New York Rangers started their All-Star break following last night's 3-0 win over the Winnipeg Jets. The Rangers will also go into the break atop of the Eastern Conference with 66 total points. Now, the real question is, will this break effect the Rangers in a negative way, or a positive way?

Some of the players like Brad Richards, Derek Stepan, and Artem Anisimov have been in mini slumps over the last handful of games. However, Richards finally broke his with a goal last night assisted by Ryan Callahan. I believe the break for these players will definitely help clear the air, and make for a fresh start in the final stretch.

On the other hand, players like Henrik Lundqvist and Ryan Callahan, play better game by game. While it make seem like they will be taken off their game, I don't believe it will effect them one bit either. The Rangers have a great, focused group of guys that are ready at any given moment. Not to mention, this break will also help guys like Brian Boyle, Brandon Prust, and Mike Rupp heal up before they get back to action.

Overall, I think this break will help the Rangers get their minds together and give them time to heal and rest up. The stretch of games following the All-Star break will be the games that count, and the Rangers cannot afford to be off their game. What do you guys think?

Carl Hagelin of the New York Rangers is the latest addition to the 2012 NHL All-Star game. With the recent injuries to Adam Larsson and Adam Henrique, Carl Hagelin has been called in as a replacement for the All-Stars rookie team. I was actually surprised to see that Hagelin did not make the initial roster created by the National Hockey League.

This now marks four New York Rangers players that will be heading to Ottawa, along with head coach John Tortorella, not bad huh? It's also disappointing to see that the NHL is not bringing back the young stars game, which was also absent from last year's All-Star game as well.

I for one and really excited to see Carl Hagelin compete in the fastest skater competition, who seriously has a chance at beating him? He's just that ridiculously fast. Ever since his recall, 29 games ago, Hagelin has been an instant success, and has been flying. It is great to see him get a chance at this year's All-Star game, and we want to wish him the best of luck!

The New York Rangers have been in a major slump on the power play as of lately, and it's starting to become a really big concern. During the beginning of the season, the Rangers had a very weak power play, but they eventually kicked it into gear sometime down the road.

But as of lately, things just are not clicking like they should be. However, in last night's game against the Winnipeg Jets, I definitely saw some improvements, despite them not scoring a goal on four chances. It seems as if there is finally some sort of movement going on when they gain the zone.

The Rangers were able to gain the zone as well, without having to resort to dumping the puck in and chasing it all the time. The Rangers had quite the opportunities last night, but they still did not shoot as often as they should. A perfect example was when Brad Richards set-up Michael Del Zotto perfectly on the face-off circle.

Del Zotto proceeded to attempt a pass back across to Ryan Callahan who was tied up in the crease. This was a perfect time for Del Zotto to fire the puck on net, which could have potentially beat Pavalec, or lead to a big rebound.The Rangers just need to get the puck to the open man, and fire it away. Sounds easier said then done, but at the end of the day, the Rangers are over thinking way too much on the power play.