First intermission: Blue 1, White 0
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- September
- 18
Sean Avery scored the only goal of the period in the first minute, after Thomas Pock’s turnover in the defensive zone allowed the wing to walk in uncontested on Stephen Valiquette.
Other than, play was fairly even. The blue line of Dawes, Anisimov, and Hossa was one of the best on the ice, with Hossa looking particularly strong in the corners.
It’s apparent the Rangers haven’t spent much time on specialty teams seeing how the Blue team’s penalty killers included Jaromir Jagr and man mountain Mitch Fritz.
One oversight from before is the absence of Alex Bourret in the scrimmage. Since the Rangers said everyone other than Joe Barnes (groin) is healthy in camp, this fuels speculation that the team hasn’t been happy with Bourret’s conditioning thus far.
Again, that is complete speculation at this point. But it’s worth a question after the game.
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on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 11:19 am by Sam Weinman.
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Josh Thomson Josh, who is 26 and a native of Carmel, graduated from Boston University in 2002 and began working for The Journal News the following March. 
Interesting note on Bourrett. I figure that eans that he’s headed to Hartford if he couldn’t even get into the Blue and White game.
Also, I’m glad Avery has worked on his breakaways enough to finally score on one.
Lastly, I bet Pock is thinking he just played himself into Hartford.
Don’t be so sure that he’s being benched for lack of conditioning. Check out this link on youtube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP-IwJcqpRA&mode=related&search=
Too bad about Bourret. I’d liked what I heard about his game.
Sam, any thoughts on Valiquette? How does he look? You think he’s good enough to be an NHL backup? And how about Lundy? There seems to be some hints that maybe he’s not in top form. Anything behind the insinuations?
And Kaspar? Still sucking with the puck?
Thanks. Good to see you back in top posting form (for pre-season).
Blueshirt Bulletin reports Bourret has a bad shoulder
not so sure Pock will be sent down. He’s relatively cheap and a perfect candidate to sit as one of the 3 extras. If he’s sent down and tried to be brought back, if he’s claimed we’ll lose him and 1/2 his salary (albeit only a few hundred k) would count vs our cap. Still more likely they’ll send down the younger guys. Not sure if this same scenario applied to Hutchinson.
Hutch, Pock, and Struds are all in identical boats. There is one spot open on defense (assuming the other 5 go to Malik, Roszi, Tyutin, Girardi, and Mara), and the team is unlikely to carry two defensemen to sit, simply because the only defensemen on the roster that any of those guys can make a claim against are each other. One of them is bound for Hartford.
If Staal makes the team, then two of them are headed to Hartford.
Kaspar is in a similar boat, but a little worse off because he’s got a big salary, making him far less likely to make the team unless they can swing a salary dumping deal. So he’s almost certainly headed for Hartford.
Please note, that when I say headed for Hartford, a trade is also a possibility, especially for Kaspar and Hutch.
Doodie- I think they will keep 8 D-men and send down Staal and Kasparitis. Pock and Strudwick can also both play forward, so that allows them all to get playing time early to see how they respond. This will mean Dawes makes the team (or Dubisnky or Bourrett, but Dawes makes the most sense, especially with Callahan, Straka and Avery as optins at center.)