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No, I’m not scared of having Ilya Kovalchuk on the Devils for the rest of the season, for a few reasons. 1) The Devils aren’t the Rangers’ competition this year. If he was traded to a team close to the Rangers in the conference standings, then yes, I wouldn’t like it much. 2) Sean Avery is a Ranger.  Tags: Fighting, hockey, ilya kovalchuk, National Hockey League, new jersey devils, New York Rangers, Rangers F.C., Sean Avery, sport, Categories: NHL Leave a comment You know who was good? Olli Jokinen from 2005 through 2007. You know who isn’t that good anymore? Olli Jokinen. Of course, if the rumors are true, and Olli Jokinen is about to be a Ranger (along with Brandon Prust for Chris Higgins and Ales Kotalik), then he becomes the 3rd highest-scoring Ranger, behind Marian Gaborik and Vaclav Prospal. And yes, he is a 1st-line center who can play with Prospal at left wing and Gaborik at right wing. But the big thing is that Kotalik is making $3M for not only this year but the next 2 seasons as well. Jokinen’s cap hit is $5.25M, and he is an unrestricted free agent this summer. So the Rangers effectively clear $3M off the books for the next two seasons. (Higgins is making $2.25M this year, but that’s unrelated because he’d be a UFA after this season, and the Rangers probably weren’t inviting him back for another campaign. The only thing that his salary has to do with this is that it’s an even exchange, just over $5M for just over $5M. Prust is making $500,000 only.) Maybe Jokinen isn’t as good as his two seasons when he averaged over a point per game, but to add more offense this year while clearing $3M for the next two years is a good move. Keep in mind that this doesn’t address the real problems of the Rangers cap issues – that would involve moving any combination of Wade Redden, Chris Drury, and Michal Rozsival. But the moves are going to have to be made before the Olympic break because there is only 1 game before the March 3 trade deadline. Tags: alex kotalik, brandon prust, Calgary Flames, chris higgins, Marian Gaborik, olli jokinen, trade, vinny prospal, Categories: NHL Leave a comment Not to be unfair to Carolina Hurricanes goalie Cam Ward, but any goalie tonight would’ve stopped 37 of 38 shots against the Rangers tonight. I think the Shot Clock Man has a bad angle of the ice. At one point, a puck was passed parallel to the goal line. He took his stick, reached out, and pushed it towards the blue line. I took a glance at the shot clock and it went from “11″ to “12″. Brandon Dubinsky rifled a shot – absolutely blasted this puck – that was caught by Ward. The only hitch? It was going high if Ward didn’t touch it. He actually had to move out of net to catch it. Shot clock increase. I’m not saying most of those 38 shots never actually were shots. In fact, most of them were. However, how many really tested Ward? Three? Four? The Rangers had a couple of good chances, but at least 29 of those shots were crappy, low-angle, easily-saved shots. The Rangers do that; they have been for years. They make goalies look amazing. Remember when Rick DiPietro made over 50 saves one day in March ‘07 and everyone said how incredible he was? Guess what? Most of those shots were right to his chest – they would’ve hit the Gordon’s Fisherman right in the head.  Tags: brandon dubinsky, cam ward, carolina hurricanes, New York Rangers, rick dipietro, Shots, Categories: NHL Leave a comment Did you really expect something different than what happened tonight? Did you expect Donald Brashear to do more than Erik Christensen or Ales Kotalik would? Look at this stat-line: 5 shifts, 5 minutes 35 seconds, 2 hits, minus-1. With (essentially) a 6-minute power play and Michal Rozsival running the point, what did you expect? A shot to hit the net? A goal? Get real. With Kotalik watching from above and Mike Del Zotto playing the opposite side (so he can’t get a real shot off), there was nobody to blast the puck from the point. And with no Rangers wanting to stand in the crease, even if they did, there was nobody to bang home a rebound. Kotalik sits during the “winning streak” against Montreal and Tampa Bay, so he sits again in Philadelphia. Okay, I see that. If it’s working, run with it. They lose, but he sits again in Montreal. Interesting, but I see what John Tortorella is doing. But now they’ve been shut out 2 straight games and their cannon-shot is still not dressed, while gutless players like Brashear and Chris Higgins get to go in. At one point during the extended power plays in the 3rd period, all four Penguin penalty-killers and their goalie were facing the same direction – towards the corner so Marc-Andre Fleury had to turn his neck left to face the puck. Rozsival, for some unknown reason, was on the left point (maybe Wade Redden was changing his tampon, I don’t know, I’m not the bench boss). Now, if this was a team playing the Rangers – say, Montreal, Philadelphia, or Pittsburgh – that point man would have skated down so that he was facing the penalty-killers’ backs. He would have received a pass and banged it home before Henrik Lundqvist had adequate time to slide back to the other post. However, this is Mikey Rozsival we’re talking about. What did he do? Waited for a pass. Just to pass again. Just to have the puck fumbled out of the zone, thus killing any chance of a good play. Apparently, the PK-men on Pittsburgh weren’t the only ones not paying attention on that play. I’m not saying that Kotalik himself would’ve saved this game. But if he was out there shooting and someone wanted to get dirty in the crease – hey, Sean Avery can’t play every shift, can he? – then maybe a garbage goal would’ve gone in and all of you would be singing the praises of this team for coming back from a 1-0 deficit and finally winning at home. But no one wants to shoot. No one wants to get dirty. No one wants to hit. And I guess no one wants to play in May, either.  Tags: alex kotalik, donald brashear, michal rozsival, Pittsburgh Penguins, Power Play, Categories: NHL Leave a comment I will update later today about the Rangers game in Montreal. For the record, it’s the 1st time I’ve seen them lose in an opposing building (not including the Nassau Coliseum). I saw them win in Nashville, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Montreal before the 6-0 disaster I witnessed first-hand Saturday night. * * * Do you know the differences in Dan Carcillo and Donald Brashear? Carcillo has 6 goals and 6 assists this year; Brashear had no goals and 1 assist. Carcillo dresses for games while Brashear stays nice and clean in a suit and tie. Carcillo wins fights (his record this year is 7-3-2, including beating Marian Gaborik and losing to Sean Avery last Thursday) while Brashear skates away from confrontation. In fact, the last fight Brashear won was against Jared Boll of Columbus three days before Thanksgiving. Brashear’s record this year stands at 3-4-2. As for Brashear’s claims that he wouldn’t fight Carcillo – “I don’t even fight a guy like Carcillo. I don’t think he’s in my league.” – and then his claims that he isn’t a guy who only goes out and fights staged fights… well, what? Do you fight everyone or will you only fight heavyweights? “If I would have played” Gaborik would not have been fought by Carcillo, Brashear said. Oh yeah? If you’re out there fighting people like Matt Carkner, Eric Boulton, Eric Godard, and Shawn Thornton, is that really a deterrent for people like Carcillo? Will he not get under Gaborik’s skin just because there is a chance that Brashear might lose a fight to Aaron Asham or Ian Laperriere? Did Brashear’s presence in the first half of the season stop any team from running over Henrik Lundqvist? Were they afraid he was going to go after Ilya Kovalchuk or Johan Hedberg, or did they know that, no matter what, he would fight Boulton and leave everyone else alone? Like what Carcillo did or not, he got the Flyers an extra 2 points that night. He got the best player on the team to thrown down his gloves and fight him. He threw an entire team off their game, because they then stopped trying to score and started looking for revenge. The only person nearly capable of getting under a team’s skin like that on the Rangers’ roster is Avery. Not Brashear. Guess what, Donald. Carcillo might not be in your league for long – because he’ll still be in the NHL for the next decade.  Tags: dan carcillo, donald brashear, Fighting, ilya kovalchuk, Marian Gaborik, Montreal Canadiens, philadelphia flyers, Sean Avery, Categories: NHL Leave a comment A week ago, I never thought there’d be a day when Aaron Voros and Christopher Higgins both score in Rangers uniforms. Well, here it is. That Voros goal was very nice, but the thing that was excellent was the Brian Boyle pass – through traffic, an excellent pass for a primary assist. Not much I can add here that you won’t find elsewhere, but it’s huge when 8 different Rangers can find the net – and none of them have the initials MG. I’ve been saying all along that the Rangers need offense besides Marian Gaborik, and that the Rangers need to hit the other team and stand up for themselves. Tonight, they did that. If the players that don’t score often – Callahan, Dubinsky, Drury, Lisin, Anisimov, Avery, Higgins … … … – can find ways to score, this team can be be a playoff team. If they go back to only having Gaborik and Vinny Prospal scoring, it will be a long offseason. * * * Two emails in my inbox today from a site I used to write on. And I stopped, because it was ridiculous. 1) Should the Rangers trade for Vinny Lecavalier? 2) Should the Rangers buy-out Ales Kotalik? No, they should not trade for Lecavalier. He is a decent player this year and was alright last year. What about in 8 years from now when he’s 38, has millions of dollars in the bank, a Stanley Cup ring already, and couldn’t care less about playing? And buying out Kotalik? Scratch a man 3 straight games and this crap gets written. Do people really not have any other ideas in their heads? There are at least 5 guys ahead of Kotalik in the Buy-Out Department, not the least of whom would be Vinny Lecavalier if they traded for him. Plus, if they buy out his contract, who would shoot the puck for the next 2 and a half seasons? Michal “Miss the Net” Rozsival? Wade “Pass First, Defense Later” Redden? C’mon. Have something original to write… or work for the Jay Leno Show.  Tags: aaron voros, Ales, alex kotalik, alright, Anisimov, avery, bank, brian boyle, buy, buy-out, Callahan, Christopher Higgins, contract, crap, day, defense, department, Drury, Dubinsky, Emails, goal, half, inbox, Jay Leno, Kotalik, Lisin, man, Marian Gaborik, Michal, Miss, night, none, offense, offseason, pass, player, playoff, Plus, puck, Redden, ring, Rozsival, score, scratch, show, site, Stanley Cup, team, thing, today, trade, traffic, Vincent Lecavalier, Vinny Lecavalier, vinny prospal, Wade, week, work, year, Categories: NHL Leave a comment |
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February 6, 2010, at 10:31 am
