|
|
By Zach Schiff  January 18, 2010, at 12:54 pm  Next Saturday, I will be venturing into Montreal to see the second game of the Home & Home with the Canadiens. Okay, it’s a home-and-home with 2 other games in between, but still, it stands to be more intriguing than a home game against Tampa Bay and a game in Philadelphia.
So, which jersey should I wear?
Should I go with the autographed Dan Girardi jersey?
The autographed Sean Avery?
Superstar Marian Gaborik?
New addition to my collection Vinny Prospal?
I normally like to wear Sean Avery jerseys when I’m in other buildings.
I did it in Nashville last year about a month after the Rangers got him back on re-entry waivers, and a few fans yelled “Sloppy Seconds!” at me. To recap, I am not Sean Avery, I just wear the jersey. And the Rangers won that game.
I wore it in New Jersey amid death threats from the upper level (directed at me, my friends, and Scott Gomez, playing his first game in Jersey since signing with the Rangers). Those were quieted when the Rangers won the game.
I wore it in Philadelphia, where some kid tried to body check my friend. “How could you wear a Sean Avery jersey in Philly?” one cigarette-smoking man asked me. Well, the Rangers won that game.
And I wore it in Montreal on Super Bowl Sunday when the Giants beat the Patriots. As I was on the escalator, there was a man in a Mike Komisarek Habs jersey in front of me. We had an awkward silence, then discussed what it would be like to really date Elisha Cuthbert. The Rangers went down 3-0, then won that game 5-3.
Should I keep the tradition alive, or change things up?
By Zach Schiff November 20, 2009, at 8:58 am Thanks to Longtime Reader Lou (who was responsible for my seat upgrade a few weeks ago during that not-very-fun Sharks game at MSG), I got a ticket into the Garden of Dreams charity event last night at The Garden.
It was a great night with a free buffet (featuring prime rib), an open bar, Adam Graves, and 4 other Rangers patrolling the area all night.
Pictures? Of course I have pictures! But first, let me say…
- Donald Brashear does not like when you thank him for punching Aaron Ward in the face, even if you say that all Rangers fans wanted to do it.
- Marian Gaborik does not play fantasy hockey. And upon my request to slow down his scoring because my friend Dan has him on his team, he politely refused.
- Dan Girardi’s Dan Girardi jersey looked a lot better than mine, although his was free and mine was the crappiest jersey NHL.com ever sent out. I probably should have returned it.
- Marc Staal will tell you he “dusted” me “for two goals” in air hockey. He would be correct, but I decided to let him score to boost his confidence. If he nets two goals against Florida on Saturday, I will accept kudos and congratulations.
- Time for the Worst Moment of the Night, brought to you by Amstel Light. Staal gave up his air hockey paddle to Gaborik and I decided I needed a picture of it. I put the paddle down a moment, reached for my camera to give Lou, and some 6 year-old girl jacked the paddle. Very rude. And since it was a charity event and she was a guest, I couldn’t ask for it back.
- The coolest guy there was the PA announcer. He gave us really good inside information and even announced a line that we wanted to hear: “Ladies and gentleman, time for tonight’s scratches. Number twenty-five, Petr Prucha.”
 If I knew Gaborik was going to be there, I would’ve worn my jersey!
 This picture looks fake but I assure you, it is not. I was just afraid he was
going to hit me. Donald Brashear does not like me.
 I’m 25. I shouldn’t be taking this kind of picture with an athlete.
 This is me teaching our youth to play air hockey. Protect the puck!
 Reader Lou and Volunteer Brad after the event.
By Zach Schiff November 4, 2009, at 12:21 pm The last two times that the Edmonton Oilers faced the Rangers, the Rangers lost in a shootout. Last time, they fired 42 shots on net and scored on only 2 – on a backup goaltender. Ah, the Tom Renney era…
Well, tomorrow, the Rangers meet Tom Renney again, and while not many current players were there for a lot of his reign (Henrik Lundqvist and Michal Rozsival were the only ones there from his first full season in 2005-06), it should be an emotional night for him. Imagine if the game were at Madison Square Garden?
 While I rip on Renney a lot here, I do think he was a very good coach, and I’m sure he will be sometime soon. There are a few coaches who will “always be a Ranger,” no matter where they wind up coaching or working. Mike Keenan, though he only had 1 season, is one of them. Renney is another.
No coach could have done what he did after the lockout. He took a team destined to fail -at least according to the experts – and brought them into the playoffs, one point away from winning the division. He got 123 points out of Jaromir Jagr – a man who would have refused to return to the NHL if he wasn’t playing for Renney in New York, he once said. He turned a team of veterans – Rucchin, Jagr, Straka, Rucinsky, Kasparaitis, Nylander – and young no-names – Jay Ward, Ortmeyer, Dom Moore, Hollweg, Orr, Prucha, Betts – into a contender.
I still say that if not for the Olympics, the Rangers could have gone far that year. Jagr and Lundqvist came back injured – Jagr with hip and groin problems, Hank with headaches from grinding his teeth. And then there was Sandis Ozolinsh, who seemed like a good trade at first until he came apart in the Devils’ series and cost the team 2 games.
Still, Renney was a huge part of the rebuilding process. While they rebuilt, he brought them into the playoffs. He just wasn’t a good fit for the team last year and going forward. His style had stopped working, and he continued to play people based on their paychecks rather than skill (see: Wade Redden on the power play while Petr Prucha sat in street clothes).
For all the good he did, he will be remembered for 2 things: being fired when the team couldn’t score and for Game 5 in Buffalo, where Fedor Tyutin and rookie Dan Girardi were on the ice with 30 seconds left with a 1-0 lead. When they iced the puck, Tyutin and Girardi had to stay on, they couldn’t clear the puck, and Chris Drury scored.
Besides that being the one game that still upsets my stomach (and the only time I ever lost sleep over a sports event), you know that if they won that game and went up 3-2 in the series, they would not have lost Game 6 at MSG. I’m not saying they would have won the Stanley Cup – hell, they might not even have beaten Ottawa in the Conference Finals – but they would have beaten Buffalo. And maybe Chris Drury never would’ve been signed the following summer, and maybe everything would’ve been different.
But this is how it’s played out, and I wish Tom Renney the best in Edmonton – no matter how often I make fun of his healthy scratches or his power play.
By Zach Schiff October 27, 2009, at 8:48 am It’s been a slow week here at The Rivalry, due to Bryan having a new baby to take care of (poor excuse) and me having work and a marathon 24 session the other night (better excuse).
I wanted to write something Saturday night after the Rangers overtime loss to Montreal about how, even though they lost, there was still some good to take from the game. Mainly, I wanted to write about the good surrounding the goals they scored.
For example…
Rangers fan favorite Michal Rozsival had a nice shot on Jaroslav Halak moments before Artem Anisimov scored to make it 1-1. It was good to see Rozy shooting – I guess he finally realized there’s no Jaromir Jagr to pass to and he decided he better shoot. And Anisimov? That goal was beautiful – patient and surgeon-like in accuracy.
While Ales Kotalik had a great shot on his goal that made it 2-1 and Sean Avery had a nice pass from behind the net (which he does quite often), the real credit lies with Dan Girardi. If not for him quickly catching the puck from midair and passing it behind the net from the point, the puck would’ve been cleared and play would’ve gone down to Henrik Lundqvist’s side of the ice.
On the 3-1 goal, all 3 players who got points had excellent plays. Marian Gaborik fought off a defender and passed to Vinny Prospal, who saw danger coming and softly hit the puck off the boards to Matt Gilroy, who had an absolute bomb from the point. He also was patient and followed it up with a booming shot. Very good to see that.
Gaborik made it 4-2 on nice passes from Mike Del Zotto and Enver Lisin. In two quick, long passes, they sprung him for a breakaway, and of course, he scored.
Sure, there were some defensive breakdowns. I guess Gaborik’s back-checking could be a little stronger. And yes, they blew two 2-goal leads before losing the game. And yes, they gave up a hat trick. And they even made Scott Gomez look good in the game. But they did have a few good plays that shone through – most notably Gaborik’s offensive skills and Girardi’s great play on the Kotalik goal.
* * *
I want to talk about two things now, both related to last night’s win against Phoenix.
1) Chris Drury – He hasn’t been playing incredibly well, and he definitely hasn’t been lighting it up on the stats sheet, but I think that’s okay this year. Last season, the pressure was on him to score, and he came up with 56 points in 81 games, just under his career average of 59.53 points per game. (You could even say he had a lot of pressure to score in 2007-08 when Brendan Shanahan was hurt, Jagr was hurt and slower, and Rozsival and Marty Straka wouldn’t fire a puck to the net to save their lives.)
However, everyone expected more from his. Add up his giganticly inflated contract, his first year as Captain, and the departure of the other veterans (including Avery), and people expected numbers that he put up under Lindy Ruff in Buffalo (his 2 seasons in Buffalo post-lockout: 67 and 69 points… still not huge numbers).
This year, with Gaborik, Kotalik, Prospal, and Avery here, he can stop trying to score and just be a good defensive forward, which he has been. He is killing penalties and blocking a ton of shots and being a behind-the-scenes player. That’s what his role always was, and that’s what it should be.
Of course, Blair Betts did all that for 11 times less money.
2) Enver Lisin – The season is still young, but I would call trading Lauri Korpikoski for Lisin a good trade. Korpikoski scored 14 points in 68 games last year and looked lost for most of the season. Not very good for the guy drafted 10 spots ahead of Mike Green in 2004.
Lisin is fast as hell, and what’s even more surprising is that he’s keeping up with Prospal and Gaborik on the 1st line. That gives John Tortorella so many more options, including putting a struggling player – say, Chris Higgings – on the 4th line.
He’s been an exciting surprise, and I’m curious to see where he goes from here. Now let’s just hope Tortorella keeps him on the 1st line for a while, and doesn’t “Tom Renney” him back to 7 minutes a game.
By Zach Schiff September 19, 2009, at 3:15 pm I’m back from Las Vegas (mid-September and still 100 degrees!) and I received a 2-for-1 in the week I was gone. Not only was Dany Heatley traded, but Phil Kessel was as well, leaving September only for training camp, and no drama.
I’m just brainstorming, but let’s say for argument’s sake, the 6 defensemen who make the Rangers roster for opening night are: Michal Rozsival, Wade Redden, Dan Girardi, Marc Staal, Mike del Zotto, and Matt Gilroy. Not a huge stretch, right? Sure, you could possibly sub Bobby Sanguinetti in for del Zotto, but that has no effect on my point today.
The newspaper today said that Rozsival and Redden would be top pairing, like they were together for most of last season. My question is: Why?
Now, it’s well-documented that I am against having Redden and Rozsival on the team simply because this is a Salary Cap Era. If there was no Cap, then having a waste of space like Wade Redden on the team would simply be par for the course. They’d demote him to 3rd-line pairing or send him to Hartford, and spend big money on someone better than him.
Of course, since his $6.5M/year is looming large for the next 5 years, he has no choice but to play. And of course, it ultimately cost Tom Renney his job, as Renney’s over-reliance on him led to his downfall.
Same for Rozsival. While I may personally like Rozsival and think he is a decent defenseman, he in no way warrants $5M/year, Salary Cap Era or not.
So why pair them together? They were horrendous separately and together last year. Plus, by doing that, you are putting 2 pairs of “kids” on the blueline.
Girardi and Staal should be a tandem. They were last year often, they play well together, one is a lefty, one is a righty. Both broke into the league near the same time and both a re equally as good as the other.
So that leaves Del Zotto and Gilroy, two rookies together, no?
I say John Tortorella should put Gilroy with either Redden or Rozsival, and Del Zotto with the other one. That way the future top-pairing could learn from the veterans, who could (hopefully) cover the mistakes the rookies make.
Couldn’t hurt, right?
My ideal pairings…
Redden – Gilroy (Redden is a left-handed shot, Gilroy a right-handed shot)
Staal – Girardi (Staal, lefty; Girardi, righty)
Del Zotto – Rozsival (Del Zotto, lefty; Rozsival, righty)
I mean, it’s not like Redden and Rozsival were so dominant last season that breaking them up would be disastrous. They aren’t MacInnis-Suter, Leetch-Beukeboom, or Stevens-Neidermayer. Hell, they aren’t even Staal-Girardi. They’re one step better than the pre-lockout pairing of Vladimir Malakhov and Boris Mironov.
It worked 2 years ago when Staal paired with Paul Mara. Why not let the rookies learn from the veterans? At the very least, they could learn what not to do.
By Zach Schiff September 8, 2009, at 12:46 am 
For next season, which begins October 2nd in Pittsburgh, the Rangers currently have 4 defenseman with “guaranteed” spots. I put that in quotes because you never know who might get traded – let’s hope – or injured – let’s hope not – before then.
We have: Wade Redden, Marc Staal, Dan Girardi, and Michal Rozsival.
Matt Gilroy is probably going to play in the NHL also. Everyone is very impressed by him, and you don’t pay $1.75M/year to keep a player in the minor leagues.
So that leaves one spot. Corey Potter? Mike Sauer? Possible on both fronts, but more likely they will be in Hartford until their contracts end out, then bounce around the AHL (with some rare NHL appearances). Their career-paths will probably look more like Bryce Lampman’s and Lawrence Nycholat’s than Brian Leetch’s.
I figure it comes down to two players. Granted, I don’t know a ton. I don’t go to training camp, I don’t travel to Traverse City. I just read about the Rangers online, a lot, and I know a certain bit about the NHL from watching it for years.
Those two players: 2006 1st round draft pick (21st overall) Bobby Sanguinetti and 2008 1st round draft pick (20th overall) Mike Del Zotto.
And the early edge goes to Del Zotto. He looks real sharp from all accounts in nearly every aspect, and a lot of people think he can push for a spot. Even if he is bound for the OHL this year (he is too young to play in the AHL), the Rangers can still have him in the NHL for 10 games before they decide to send him there. That’s good experience as a 7th d-man, and a great chance to make the Rangers think they should keep him up here – much like Josh Bailey and the Islanders last season.
So where does that leave Sanguinetti? This kid grew up in Trenton, NJ, and was a Rangers fan even when the Devils were winning Stanley Cups when he was 7, 12, and 15. He had a great 2007-08 season in Brampton (OHL) and didn’t play particularly bad last year in Hartford, either.
But is he improving? Has Del Zotto out-performed him? And this is the year that Sanguinetti’s contract is up. Sure, he’ll only be a restricted free agent and he is still only 21, but Del Zotto is two years younger and seems to have surpassed him.
This isn’t an attack on Sanguinetti at all. It just seems that there aren’t very many roster spots available for the taking – 2, possibly, but probably only 1 – due to a few heavy-handed contracts (as well as the fact that you need veterans on the blueline). Maybe if Gilroy wasn’t signed last year, or maybe if Del Zotto didn’t emerge, Sanguinetti would be the 6th.
What are the options? No doubt they’ll keep him around in Hartford if he doesn’t make the team, but he could be Al Montoya-ed during the trade deadline to get a real nice veteran for a playoff run.
At any rate, Del Zotto vs. Sanguinetti should be one of the best “fights” at training camp. I’m looking forward to it, and I hope both show incredible talent.
* * *
Oh, and if anyone wants half-priced tickets to the Rangers/Bruins pre-season game on Tuesday, September 15, please let me know. I’ll be in Las Vegas (lobbying for an NHL team there) and can’t make it. Each seat is $60 and I’ll sell the pair for $60. Email: arson83@aim.com
|
|
Tags: 
