All the latest news, rumors and notes that you need to see about your New York Rangers all in one place!
- Before I talk about the disgraceful game the Rangers played last night, They should be commended for their pre-game ceremony for the late Steven McDonald. Between the words of PA announcer Joe Tolleson, the ceremonial puck drop, or the beautifully done national anthems, it gave me chills.
- Now about that game…
- The Rangers looked flat the whole game. Unfortunately, it’s kind of what I expected, too. A home game after a 5 day break where they were honoring somebody important to the organization? That just screams a loss these days. And that’s what they did.
- We talked about it a bit pre-game, but the Rangers have a lot of roster decisions to make with a number of players returning to the lineup in the coming days.
- Marek Hrivik sat out Friday night’s game just like I thought he might, despite most other Rangers bloggers vouching for him to stay in the lineup.
- When Mika Zibanejad comes back–possibly next week–Brandon Pirri might be the next one to come out of the lineup. And if he does end up getting benched, it will be a benching well deserved. Pirri knows he needs to be better to stay with the Rangers, who may need to waive him when Zibanejad and Matt Puempel come back.
- One returner to the lineup, Rick Nash, knows that it will take time for him to get acclimated back to game speed. He talked to Brett Cyrgallis of the Post about this.
- Even with Nash and Buchnevich finally coming back from injury, another Rangers has caught the injury bug, and it’s Marc Staal with post-concussion symptoms. The Rangers need to let Staal take his time coming back to the lineup and in the meantime, see what Adam Clendening has to offer them.
Team’s biggest needs?
- In recent days, Sean Hartnett of CBS New York and Larry Brooks of the New York Post have written about the Rangers most glaring needs, but they had two completely different ideas. Hartnett talked about how they may be one defenseman away from being a serious threat down the stretch. Brooks, however, took the contrarian view and wrote about how the Rangers not having an elite forward at their disposal is essentially a blessing and a curse.
- I tend to agree with Hartnett on this one, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt if the Rangers had a franchise forward at their disposal.
- Kevin Delury, formerly of NYRangersBlog.com is now writing at BroadwayBoozeshirts.blogspot.com, and he wrote a fantastic article about why he misses fighting in hockey. I completely agree with him. It may not directly correlate to wins, but fights–not staged fights–definitely give a team jump, a fan base more energy and just an overall fantastic atmosphere. I miss it too.
- Two bits of NHL news before I let you all go in peace. Firstly, the NHL All-Star rosters are out. You can check them out here. Ryan McDonagh will be the only Rangers participating in the event.
Next: New York Rangers Round Table: Best Forwards Under 25
- Lastly, the NHL is going to be eliminating third jerseys for the 2017-2018 season. This means that the Rangers will not be wearing their Heritage jerseys next season. The league did this years ago when they switched to Reebok. With the NHL switching to Adidas, this may just be a temporary thing–I hope it is.