New York Rangers News, Rumors and Rumblings, February 20th, 2017

All the latest news, rumors and rumblings surrounding your New York Rangers, all in one place!

The New York Rangers defeated the Metropolitan Division-leading Washington Capitals by a score of 2-1 on Hockey Day in America. Here are our three stars of the game.
The Rangers defense–including Dan Girardi and Kevin Klein–looked good for the most part in the contest, which is worth noting.
Over the past couple of days, Brett Cyrgalls of the New York Post wrote about the Rangers two biggest bugaboos; their defense and their power play.
Cyrgalls’ main point in the defense article was about how the Rangers’ forwards aren’t exactly helping matters on the defensive end, either. This was very noticeable in the Rangers vs. Islanders debacle.
On the subject of the power play article, it is worth noting that the Rangers did score a goal on the power play Sunday, but it was overturned after a Washington challenge brought light to a missed offsides call.

A recent article on Blue Seats Blogs brought up a very good point about what the Rangers could do at the deadline this year. The team can go in one of two completely different directions, based on how the front office views this team in terms of being a contender or not.
With that being said, there have been multiple reports recently about the Rangers having scouts at LA Kings games. It is fair to speculate who, specifically, the Rangers may be looking at. Both us here at Blue Line Station and the folks at Blueshirt Banter have our ideas.
My hope is that the Rangers are looking at Jake Muzzin.

Larry Brooks of the New York Post suggested the Rangers make a trade for a Vancouver Canuck player. His name is Alex Burrows, and he would add some much-needed bite to the Rangers’ lineup.

Sorry, it was too easy…
In all seriousness, though, there aren’t many players I would rather the Rangers stay away from more than Burrows. Burrows is an old, slow and, more or less, bad hockey player. Burrows has 9 goals and 11 assists on the season. He is nothing special and would probably be the Rangers 14th best forward.
While I would personally like the Rangers to add some snarl to their lineup, it would need to make sense with the rest of their roster, meaning said player would have to fit the speed module that the rest of the team follows. A guy like Antoine Rousell would fit that bill.
Of course, I’m in the minority on that subject. People like Joe Fortunato of Blueshirt Banter don’t believe the Rangers need to make any changes to their forward group and need to focus on improving the defense.
The top priority obviously needs to be the defense, but an addition of snarl to the forward group at the right price certainly wouldn’t hurt.

Lastly, on a happy note, the Rangers have announced that they will be retiring Jean Ratelle’s number 19 at some point next season. This, according to most New York Ranger diehards is long overdue. The NHL named Ratelle to the league’s 100 greatest players list, which is quite the accomplishment.