Let's continue our reviews of the 2009-10 New York Rangers with defenseman Wade Redden.

Wade Redden:

What We Liked: Hard to find something I liked about what I think is still the biggest disaster in the history of this franchise, but I did. What I liked is the two games he was benched for mid-season. It gave Ranger fans a glimpse into what life would be like without a $40M boat anchor. December 17th and 19th, the Rangers managed to reel off two wins without the "two time All Star" and "Best first passer in the game". What a joy it was to watch those games, and know Redden wasn't going to step on the ice and take a bad penalty, create a bad turnover, or fall down.

What We Didn't Like: Too Easy. This is like an empty net goal against a team of nuns.

Highlight Game: November 25th, 2003: Wade Redden scores two goals for Ottawa in a 6-3 win over Atlanta. Sorry, it was the best I could do.

Final Thoughts: If Wade Redden is still a member of the New York Rangers on Opening night, Ranger fans will not only demand a Congressional Inquiry, but probably all join hands and walk into a chopper blade. The silver lining for Hartford fans in the possibility of losing the Wolfpack is that they may only have to suffer one season of Redden, and then he will be Rochester's problem.

Wade Redden

#6 / Defenseman / New York Rangers

Height: 6-2

Weight: 212

Born: Jun 12, 1977

Video Highlight of Redden: (Again, I did my best)

Marian Gaborik, signed by the Rangers for five years last July, was undoubtedly the best player on this team other than goaltender Henrik Lundqvist in the 2009-10 season. Aside from minor injuries here and there, Marian was able to stay healthy for a majority of the year, playing in 76 of 82 games. If there was one question mark heading into the season when it came to the 28-year-old speed demon, it was his health, because when at 100 percent, we were all well aware of his capabilities on the ice. Luckily, he kept himself in good shape and we got to enjoy watching his talent from opening night in October all the way to the final game in April.

What We Liked: Ummmm..... A LOT. Starting with Gaborik's numbers on the season, his 42 goals and 86 points were the best offensive statistics put up by an individual player on the Blueshirts since Jaromir Jagr in 2005-06. He finished tenth in the National Hockey league in overall scoring, and fifth in goals scored. So if you did not believe that the Slovakian Star was one of the best players on Earth before this season, I think you were probably convinced after watching him all year, and if not, just compare his numbers to some of the world-class talent out there. If on a better team and with better linemates, there is no doubt in my mind that Marian could have earned the Rocket Richard trophy for the leading goal scorer.

Gaborik was one of the few who contributed on the poweplay for the Rangers as well. He registered 14 goals and 12 assists for 26 points with the man advantage, pretty good numbers considering he was on a failing powerplay unit. What I liked about Gaborik on the powerplay is two things. One is that he has the ability to slow a play down, but himself time, and wait for the perfect connection for a goal to become available. If you go back and look at the tape of Ranger powerplays, just take notice of how much space and time he creates for himself just by stick-handling along the boards. Also, he has the ability to do the complete opposite, and that is to make a play happen without even thinking about it and before the opposition has time to react. Gaborik has one of the quickest releases in the game, both wristshot and slapshot, and that was evident with the velocity and speed of some of the rockets he blasted when on the powerplay.

I feel like I say this in almost every post here on the Banter, but the Rangers biggest  problem this season was consistency. What else is new? However, that excludes Gaborik, because the only slump he went through was in January when he did not score in five straight games, if you even want to call that a slump. That is tremendously impressive when playing on a team that just barely finished with a record above .500. Also, Marian was very clutch for New York this year, scoring 19 of his goals in the third period.

Continue reading after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

            Since 2005 Michal Rozsival has been a mainstay on the Ranger blue-line. A true puck-moving defenseman, Rozi likes to play a simple, quiet, and responsible game especially in his own zone. He was a consistent 20-minute d-man for the Blueshirts this past season and unfortunately only registered 23 points, which ends up being his second-worst point total in a full NHL season in his career thus far.

Join me after the jump for more.

Continue reading this post »

            Since the passing of Alexei Cherepanov, Artem Anisimov has been considered the Rangers best European prospect in the organization. Before this season, Anisimov put in two solid years in the AHL with the Hartford Wolfpack where he performed well and proved to the Rangers that his game could translate from Russia to North America. Anisimov was expected to make the team last fall and he did just that, seeing mostly third line minutes while racking up a solid 28 points in his rookie season.

Join me after the jump for specifics.

Continue reading this post »

December 2, 2009. Things for the Rangers began getting hectic on this date as they were in the middle of a drought and just waived long time back-up netminder Stephen Valiquette. Then, in the midst of it all, general manager Glen Sather announces that he has picked up forward Erik Christensen off of waivers from the Anaheim Ducks. Many, even outside of the Blueshirts fanbase, questioned the move and looked at it as yet another useless acquisition that the Rangers find themselves making often. Little did we know, though, that Christensen would eventually be a spark on offense for the Rangers, and would  become one of the few to develop chemistry with star winger Marian Gaborik.

What We Liked: 26 points in 49 games played with New York are decent numbers for a player that critics felt was not going any further with his career after seeing him continuously fail on various teams around the league over the years. Realizing that this could make or break his future, Christensen poured his heart and soul onto the ice night in and night out while with the Rangers, and was one of those players that was seldom criticized by head coach John Tortorella. He could keep up with Gaborik and always seemed to know where he was, enabling him to lay the perfect feed onto the blade of the Gabs and more often than not, create a legitimate scoring chance. For that reason, the Rangers will seriously consider re-signing Christensen for next season as he is a restricted free agent come July.

Continue reading after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

A contract negotiation that dragged on far too long. A week long holdout, trade rumors, a mid-season position change, the first injury of his NHL career, and a career year points-wise. Add it all up, and it was a very busy year for Brandon Dubinsky.

What We Liked: When Brandon is on his game, he has the makings of being a solid offensive player for the Rangers. He can play the physical game, is not afraid to get in anyone's face, and his 20 goals were good enough to tie him for second on the team. He was second to Chris Drury on face-offs among centers, and the Rangers were 12-1-4 with Dubi in the lineup. He is the closest thing the Rangers have to a power forward.

What We Didn't Like: What plagues Brandon plagues the entire team: inconsistency. He is still prone to long scoring droughts, I believe there is still immaturity in his game, still too many nights where he is just taking shifts. He needs to bring the intensity every night. He probably needs to thicken up the skin a little as well, because I do believe the coach was in his head early in the year.

Highlight Game: January 17th, 2010: A three point night against the Montreal Canadiens, including a short handed goal, leading the Rangers to a 6-2 win. It was one of nine multi-point games for Dubinsky this season.

Final Thoughts: 

With just three full seasons in the NHL, I think Brandon is still on the way up. As he matures, his numbers will improve, and he will become the player we all believe he can be. We have not seen the best of Brandon Dubinsky, but he needs to play every night like he does against Mike Richards of the Flyers.

Brandon Dubinsky

#17 / Center / New York Rangers

Height: 6-1

Weight: 205

Born: Apr 29, 1986

Many of these player reviews won’t be very pleasing, but one that will be is mine: Marc Staal. Staal has been a bright spot on the Rangers blue line for years now, but this year was particularly trying for the young defenseman. With Wade Redden, Matt Gilroy, Michal Rozsival and Michael Del Zotto all playing like rookies (at least two of them were warranted); Staal was basically asked to take on the roll of number one defenseman and then some.

Although he wasn’t given a letter—no, the Rangers aren’t going to remove the "C" from Chris Drury and give it to him—he truly stepped up as a leader. Staal helped keep the back end out of chaos, when he was on the ice, and kept the flies off Henrik Lundqvist for the most part.

I’m not too sure any of us expected John Tortorella to take such an aggressive role in having Staal hone his offensive game. The experiment, however, was a failure; and incidentally threw off Staal’s defensive game at the start of the year.

But soon enough Tortorella realized that the idea was a failure, and he let Staal play his style of play. Staal bounced back pretty quick, and within a few weeks of seeing no power play time, he was back to his old self. Unfortunately he really was one of the only solid contributors on the blue line for the Rangers this season. That has to change next year if the Rangers expect to have any success.  

Join me after the jumo for more.

Continue reading this post »

            In his second season with the Rangers, the 28 year old Aaron Voros played in 13 less games and scored 9 less points. To his credit, though, he saved two of his three goals for the stretch-run, and also played a role in the effective checking lines that set the tone many nights as the Rangers came up just short for the 8^th spot. Voros will be heading into the final year of his contract with the Blueshirts this season (1 Mill $ cap hit), so it will be interesting to see if he can produce enough to warrant another contract.

Join me after the jump for more.

Continue reading this post »