Archive for September, 2009

The Brandon Dubinsky holdout is finally over.  After missing most of the preseason during a contract dispute, Dubinsky has agreed to a 2 year, $3.7M deal – a much better offer than the sheisty $522k qualifying offer that the Rangers were trying to leverage their potential no. 1 center into taking. Now that Dubie is back on the squad, it will be exciting to see how he gets acclimated to his new teammates and how he fits next to superstar recruit, Marian Gaborik.  Ironically, the oft-injured Gaborik also hasn’t played a second in the preseason, so maybe he was waiting [...]

Preseason Game 4 New York Rangers 5, Boston Bruins 2 — 19 Sept 2009 — TD Banknorth Garden, Boston, MA Rangers (1-2-1) in Preseason. The Rangers finally cracked the win column in the 2009-10 preseason, and finally netted a power play goal.  Newcomer Ales Kotalik kicked off the scoring with the Rangers first power play goal of the preseason at 4:30 in the first (assists by Michael Del Zotto and Vinny Prospal).  Sean Avery had an unassisted goal at 7:44 to pad the lead to 2-0.  After former Ranger Marc Savard scored to trim the lead to one, the emerging [...]

Preseason Game 3 Detroit Red Wings 4, New York Rangers 3  — 18 Sept 2009 — Joe Louis Arena, Detroit, MI Rangers (0-2-1) in Preseason For the third straight game, the Rangers failed to score on the power play (0 for 4).  And Marian Gaborik didn’t play.  And the Rangers lost.  Not that the last bullet really matters, but still.  A couple wins here and there would inspire a bit of confidence heading into the season. The Rangers looked good against the Red Wings bench team for the first two periods, and Henrik Lundqvist stopped all 14 shots he faced.  [...]

With Brandon Dubinsky still hoping to become a millionaire, Vinny Prospal making the switch to the center position, and Artem Anisimov and Brian Boyle seemingly battling to avoid being the third-line center, Glen Sather has taken his head out of his rear and rather than bringing back Blair Betts, he is reportedly having conversations with former gritty Ranger centerman, Dominic Moore. Moore had a relatively big season last season for the Toronto Maple Leafs with 13 goals and 32 assists and could be a veteran third or fourth line fix who knows how to play in the City.  He would [...]

According to the Philadelphia Daily News, Blair Betts made the most of his opportunity with the Philadelphia Flyers, providing a shining light on their penalty kill, a niche that he carved out quite well with the Rangers.  Stupidly, the Rangers let him (and Fred Sjostrom to Calgary) go from their no. 1 ranked penalty kill and now a worst case scenario has occurred:  Betts is going to be a Flyer this season. Yet another stupid mistake by Sather and Co., as Betts is sure to frustrate the already pathetic Ranger power play in every meeting between the heated rivals this [...]

Preseason Game 2 New Jersey Devils 3, New York Rangers 2 (SO)  –  16 Sept 2009 – Prudential Center, NJ Rangers (0-1-1) in Preseason For the second straight night, the Broadway Blueshirts fell behind 2-0 and had to mount a comeback.  On this night, they fought back to tie the game up thanks to third period goals by Matt Gilroy (at 3:03, assisted by Aaron Voros and Sean Avery) and Jordan Owens (at 11:46, assisted by Michael Del Zotto).  Unfortunately, and somewhat the opposite of last year’s Ranger modus operandi, the Rangers fell to the Devils in the shootout, as [...]

Preseason Game 1 Boston Bruins 2,  New York Rangers 1  –  15 Sept 2009 – Madison Square Garden Rangers (0-1-0) in Pre-season Chris Higgins scored the lone Ranger goal at 10:05 of the third period to cut the Boston lead to 2-1, but the Rangers did not have enough to tie this one up to send to OT.  Higgins was assisted by Alexei Semenov and Ales Kotalik.  Glad to see the Rangers found another giant human in Semenov – yet another guy listed at a towering 6-6 – and can bring some toughness to our very thin defense. Another thing [...]

After missing the past week due to some personal travel, I am back on Broadway, ready to recap some of the stuff that has happened in RangerLand since I last blogged a little over a week ago.  Stay tuned as I sift through the archives and bring my Blue Line Station followers up to speed and provide reaction to what has happened since the opening of training camp and in the first two pre-season games.