Rangers News and Notes: GameDay Edition
Here is your daily dose of New York Rangers News and Notes for the day. Remember it is a 7 O'clock start tonight against the Maple Leafs.
Steve Zipay confirmed in his blog yesterday that Henrik Lundqvist would get the nod tonight:
Henrik Lundqvist will be back in goal against Toronto and G Vesa Toskala, who is expected to play on Monday.
Really no surprise here. Nice to see Stephen Valiquette get a shutout in his first start of the year. Tortorella is going to have to lean on him this year, so games like this are nice to see.
Steve Zipay also has a few random stats for the Rangers:
The Rangers are 2-0 at home and have a six game regular-season home winning streak going back to last year.
Going 2 for 4 on the power play put the Blueshirts at 5 for the last 14, a blistering 35.7 percent rate.
Ales Kotalik has three goals in his last three games; Anisimov's goal was the first of his career. He had his first assist against Washington.
Marian Gaborik had an assist on Kotalik's goal: He is 4-3-7. Mike Del Zotto (2-3-5) and Prospal extended their point streaks to four games.
I highlighted the stat that I was most impressed with. If anything tells you this is a different team than last year its the power play numbers.
Check after the jump for more.
Rick Carpiniello had this interesting stat on Rangers home games:
New York has sold out 158 consecutive regular season games, dating back to November 5, 2005 against New Jersey; the last regular season non-sellout was October 31, 2005 vs. Montreal (17,697); including the playoffs, the Rangers sellout streak is now at 172 games.
On Sean Avery:
Sean Avery was his typical self during the game, prompting Ducks coach Randy Carlyle to say after the game it’s really hard to believe some of the stuff that comes out of Avery’s mouth.
This should surprise no one, although I always wish that I could mic him up and listen to what he says on the ice ...
On Ales Kotalik:
Obviously, Avery’s return through the lineup into a little bit of flux. The top two lines remained fairly consistent but John Tortorella admitted after the game he’s struggling to find ways to get Ales Kotalik ice time.
This is surprising to me. What this tells me is that John Tortorella is happy enough with Enver Lisins play, to the point where he doesn't want to take him off the third line. Yes, Tortorella messed with the lines a little during the game but it would appear that we have too much talent to fit into the top three lines. These are good problems to have my friends.
On this team:
I know the Rangers also got off to a good start last season (5-0) but I’m starting to think this Rangers’ team, assuming Marian Gaborik’s health, is going to surprise a lot of the "experts" this season. Sure they played a dog-tired Ducks team, skating on fumes at the end of a four-game road trip and off yesterday’s emotional 3-2 shootout win at Philadelphia. But I really liked the victory at Washington and I’m impressed the players seem to have a fairly good grasp of what Tortorella is teaching this quickly. The key, to me at least, is the defense getting the puck into the neutral zone and into the opponent’s zone quickly. Tonight was a good example of that. Granted, they had some rough moments, even usually-steady Marc Staal who nearly put a goal on Todd Marchant’s stick. But in the first and third period, the Rangers’ defense was as good as it’s been all season.
I have been waving this flag for a long time now, and although it is early in the season I think it still holds some truth that this team looks great. What excites me is that in a year or two Del Zotto, Gilroy and Anisimov will be well seasoned and the Rangers will have at least Evgeny Grachev, Derek Stepan and Ryan McDonagh in the wings.
Jim will have your Leafs preview later. Make sure to come by the open game thread, we have hit 700 comments two games in a row and want that to continue!
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Comments
what no vally after a shutout…torts is playing favorites as obviously vally has shown he is better than lundqvist right now…lol.
by mleetch352 on Oct 12, 2009 12:09 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
gotta go with the hot hand right? Plus Vally has a better winning pct this season
Blueshirt Banter: Covering the New York Rangers
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by Jim Schmiedeberg on Oct 12, 2009 12:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Vally’s on pace for 16.4 shutouts I believe
by John Mjr on Oct 12, 2009 1:52 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Vally should start
every game ever
Blueshirt Banter: Covering the New York Rangers the only NHL team with three home arenas.
by Joe Fortunato on Oct 12, 2009 2:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
if only we paid as much attention defensively as we do when he starts with lundy in the net…now that would be scary.
by mleetch352 on Oct 12, 2009 2:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
LOL
Lundqvist still looks great
Blueshirt Banter: Covering the New York Rangers the only NHL team with three home arenas.
by Joe Fortunato on Oct 12, 2009 2:49 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
i think when lundqvist is in net our players, especially the defensemen take more risks.
LET'S GO RANGERS!!!
by Moshe52792 on Oct 12, 2009 2:56 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
funny you mention this, Rob has a story coming up on it I believe Wednesday. I think it’s a “rally around the troops” mentality when your backups are in.
Blueshirt Banter: Covering the New York Rangers
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by Jim Schmiedeberg on Oct 12, 2009 3:06 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
I Would Pay
I would pay for a service that mic’d up pro athletes and just played back their tape uncensored. Some of the stuff I’ve heard from playing just high school and college club hockey has been piss-my-pants funny, so I can only imagine how funny Avery would be.
Depends on the point-of-view though, I guess.
Blueshirt Banter - We party like it's 1994 every game
US Soccer - The Yanks Are Coming
"I just pooped a little" - by Jim Schmiedeberg on Oct 8, 2009 8:25 PM EDT
by Rob Luker on Oct 12, 2009 12:37 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Great idea….looks like posted at the same time lol
by MattPwrcf1 on Oct 12, 2009 12:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Here's a good one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MNA0_n32Hc
Camp Tortorella - Where Vomit is a Mainstay
by RangerSmurf on Oct 12, 2009 1:09 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Avery
I would really love to hear what Avery says to other players to get them off their game. It must be some good stuff since even the Ducks’ coach can’t believe Avery is actually saying those things hehe
by MattPwrcf1 on Oct 12, 2009 12:38 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
The Defense
I said this the other night while watching the game against the Caps.. For such an offensive-minded coach, Tortorella has them playing Tom Renney-style defense. The way the young players are accepting accountability and responsibility is amazing, and the forwards are back-checking their butts off. All this is leading to more two-on-ones and three-on-twos than I’ve seen in a long time.
by DJ Wuss on Oct 12, 2009 2:18 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
The pressure is great.
Attack Attack Attack! I love it…
On another note, PAP and Locke look to be off to strong starts at Hartford. Maybe Grechev does need to spend some real time down there.
Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau 4 4 3 7 1 4 2 1 19 0.211
Corey Locke 4 5 1 6 2 6 4 0 13 0.385
by Toad McGee on Oct 12, 2009 2:55 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
grachev has always been a slow starter but nothing wrong with 1G 2A in 4 games.
Also nice to see Sangs w 4A and Heikkinen 1G 3A in 4 games.
by mleetch352 on Oct 12, 2009 3:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
im happy we sent grachev down. next year in camp well see how much better he is
LET'S GO RANGERS!!!
by Moshe52792 on Oct 12, 2009 4:41 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
You know, I was so hyped about all the rangers early season success so far I forgot that Sather was our GM.
by John Mjr on Oct 12, 2009 3:50 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Not that I’m trying to bring it down but I don’t think we had 700 comments last game….
Anyway, too much talent huh? Good and bad. The good, we all know, but what about the players’ ice time?
Where there is too much talent, the players are all deserving of ice time, and those that don’t play as much have a lesser role with the team. Now I don’t think Kotalik should get less ice time, but at the same time, I don’t think Lisin should get more than Kotalik. John and Joe mentioned during the broadcast Anisimov hardly gets ice time. He should get more, but other players shouldn’t get less. Take Prucha’s role with the team a couple years ago. He played his heart out in as many shifts as I can remember, but he struggled to find ice time, and unfortunately, he was the odd man out. We traded him to allow him to get better, and give him the opportunity to play. Now he logs plenty of healthy minutes with Pheonix. So as much as I love talent, I don’t want to see it wasted.
Weren’t we all scratching our heads at the excess of forwards brought in this year? It was said this was good, but now it seems like players are fighting for ice time (which I love, because the players will play harder). But I don’t want to see an odd man out. I hate seeing that.
I’m sure Torts knows what he’s doing.
"Jaromir Jagr.... it's a POWER PLAY GOAL!"
- Sam Rosen
by rmc235 on Oct 12, 2009 5:45 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
you do have a point, but thats why i think its a good idea to have kotalik on the 4th line. at this point in his career he is what he is, and he will get plenty of ice time just bc of PP time. guys like lisin and AA need minutes to develop their game whereas kotalik probably hit his peak at this point
by Conway on Oct 12, 2009 6:43 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Eventually Torts is going to have to back off giving Gaborik, Callahan, and Dubinsky 22 minutes a night, that’s a lot of hockey.
He’ll be able to pick spots to cut those minutes and give them to other shifts that work hard game to game.
It’s still early and I think getting off to a fast start was a priority of the team, given the overhaul of talent and the new conditioning program.
Camp Tortorella - Where Vomit is a Mainstay
by RangerSmurf on Oct 13, 2009 9:29 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

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