At times it seems like asking Michal Rozsival to talk about the importance of shooting is like asking a third-grader to expound on the virtues of broccoli. He might know it’s good for him, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to do anything about it.

And so it was today with Rozsival, who despite his relatively low profile on this team, is actually an engaging interview. I asked him about my argument from earlier this morning, that some of his misadventures from the point last night might reinforce his reluctance to shoot. Rozsival smiled, and then said he’s aware of the need to shoot more on the power play.

“You want to shoot the puck as much as you can because it forces the opposition to back off and the shots give you more room on top for the defenseman, and more room to work with,” Rozsival said. “Plus, any shots create more opportunities for you and it gets the defending team running around. So you want to shoot as much as you can.”

But then Rozsival added, “But you also want to pick your spots. If there’s no good pass and you try to force it, then you fall on your face as it happened to me the last game.”

As he did last night, Tom Renney said he’s considering deploying different personnel on the man-advantage to shake it out of its mid-autumn slumber. That could mean less ice time for Rozsival on the power play, a decision I think most fans would endorse. And yet the irony is that when I asked Renney about where Rozsival’s shot ranks among his defensive corps, the coach paused for a moment before adding, “He might be No. 1. He’s got a great shot. I’ve even been tempted to use him in a shootout, and encourage him not to deke.”

So why doesn’t Rozsival shoot more? In part because the shots everyone thinks are there actually aren’t. And because there’s some part of his brain that obviously thinks he’s better off distributing the puck to others.

Some might call that unselfish. Many Rangers fans call it infuriating.

Some other notes:

On this Halloween, you have the right to be superstitious.

As in, “There’s no way they can keep this up.”

It’s probably true. At this rate, the Rangers would finish with 63 wins and 132 points, which I believe would be some sort of record* (*actually, the  wins would be one more than the record set by the 1995-96 Red Wings, and the points would equal the mark set by the 1976-77 Canadiens. But I don’t see Guy LaFleur or Steve Yzerman anywhere in sight).

But even if the Rangers do hit a couple of potholes along the way, there are still enough signs that they’re building something worthwhile. You don’t win 10 of your first 13 games with smoke and mirrors, and outside of a few exceptions, you don’t win 10 of your first 13 games and then  disappear completely off the map.

So my advice is to approach this Rangers start as you would Halloween itself: Enjoy it, but be careful. You never know what’s lurking around the corner.

In other news:

 So what was more impressive by Nikolai Zherdev tonight—the ridiculous, water-bottle-lifting goal, the game-winning assist, or the hustle to catch Todd White from behind on the breakaway?

Call me a purist, but I actually vote for the backcheck.

You heard it here first, Zherdev for the Selke.

“It shows his commitment to what (Tom Renney) wants,” captain Chris Drury said. “He had some years win-loss wise in Columbus, and we’re off to a pretty good start. He sees he wants to be a part of it not just offensively, but defensively.”

What’s remarkable is that lost in all the talk about Brandon Dubinsky’s benching Monday night is that Zherdev was also sat down by Tom Renney in that game. I asked the coach how many shifts Zherdev missed against the Islanders, and was surprised to hear Renney say six. Apparently the player got the message,

“At the end of the day the chips you play with are ice time as a coach,” Renney said. “You’ve got to use that. That’s what every player wants. They want to play , and when you take that away, it speaks louder than anything else.”

Calling from the airport, where he was awaiting a flight to Milwaukee of the AHL, Hugh Jessiman could have been bitter. The player was anything but.

“I have nothing but gratitude for the New York Rangers and the Hartford Wolf Pack,” said the 24-year-old wing. “They molded me into a player I never thought I’d be. They gave me every opportunity.”

That opportunity stil resulted in the Rangers cutting Jessiman loose today, trading him to Nashville  for future considerations. You could tell in the player’s voice he was emotional about never making it with the Rangers, the team he grew up rooting for in Darien, Conn., and the team that gambled on him with the 12th pick in the 2003 draft. But he also knew a move to another team represtented best chance of ascending to the NHL, something that became even more apparent when he was scratched for two games by Ken Gernander in Hartford.

“I really thought coming ino the season with Hartford I was going to be one of their top guys  who would have a chance at being called up. But it wasn’t really looking like that was going to be the case,” Jessiman said.

The irony is through the first weeks of the season, many of Jessiman’s friends and family suggested he should ask for a trade to another team. But the player was the one who insisted on staying put.

“I didn’t want a trade,” he said. “I didn’t want to go anywhere because I wanted to be a New York Ranger.”

Instead, for the short term at least, Jessiman will be a Milwaukee Admiral, and then maybe, a Nashville Predator. In Tom Renney’s eyes, the 6-foot-6 Jessiman still has a shot at making it in the NHL. But the coach, who in his old job as director of player personnel was instrumental in drafting Jessiman, also acknowledged the player’s tenure as a Ranger didn’t work out as hoped.

“The bottom line is he needed a change, and as much as anything else, we tried to accomodate him,” Renney said. “I take some responsibility for where this is today. I’m disappointed it didn’t work out for Hugh here. I also look at how I evaluated him and the process we went through to address him as a prospect and hopefully you learn from it.”

Some other notes:

The Rangers have given up on the Hugh Jessiman Experiment, trading the first round draft pick from 2003 to Nashville for future considerations.

Needless to say, given how high Jessiman was picked (12th overall) and how little they’re getting in return, this is an admission on the Rangers’ part that taking a chance on the Manhattan-born, Darien-raised Jessiman was a mistake.

Of the 30 players taken five years ago, Jessiman is the only player to never have appeared in an NHL game. (If you want to torture yourself with the names of players taken after Jessiman, here are a few: Zach Parise, Ryam Getzlaf, Mike Richards, and Brian Boyle)

Moreover, what Jessiman hoped would be a pivotal training camp for him this fall ended with him playing in just one preseason game (and not very well at that).

It’s too bad it never worked out since the 6-foot-6 Jessiman was at least putting in the time in trying to be a legitimate NHL power forward. But it was clear he had been surpassed by a number of forwards in the Rangers’ system, including the recently drafted Dale Weise.

Here’s hoping he gets a chance in Music City.

Three straight wins are apparently not enough to lock into anything at this early juncture, which explains why Tom Renney was toying with new lines for tonight against Atlanta.

Note the return of Chris Drury to wing alongside Scott Gomez and Markus Naslund’ a reunion of the Playstation line; and a rare look at Dan Fritsche at center.

Here’s the full breakdown:

Naslund-Gomez-Drury

Voros-Dubinsky-Zherdev

Dawes-Fritsche-Callahan

Sjostrom-Betts-Orr

Petr Prucha will again be a scratch, while the defensive pairings look to stay the same.

(Update, 1:39 p.m.: Stay tuned on whether these lines hold up. Tom Renney said his intent is to go back to the lines he used Monday against the Islanders. But these combinations were the ones he had together today at the morning skate.)
More later…

Since the start of training camp, there was never more than an outside chance that Brendan Shanahan was going to return to the Rangers. Now there’s not even that.

Larry Brooks gets the story “this afternoon from No. 14”:http://www.nypost.com/seven/10292008/sports/rangers/shanahan_wont_wait_for_rangers_135879.htm, who says he is done waiting for Glen Sather and will now begin fielding offers from other teams.

“I’ve told (agent Rick Curran) that I can no longer wait and that it’s time to move on,” Shanahan told Brooks today. “Until now, Rick has been under instructions to tell inquiring teams that my focus was on re-signing with the Rangers, and that I was not accepting any other offers. That has changed.”

Shanahan says he harbors no ill will toward Glen Sather, who had left the door ajar with the future Hall of Famer since the start of free agency.

“I am disappointed that I’m not going to be here, but I’m not bitter at all. I believe Glen was always being honest with me. It just didn’t work out. I’m sure it’s going to, but it’s going to be somewhere else. I’m looking forward to getting on the ice and playing.”

Update, 7:21 p.m.: As for my own thoughts on this, I suppose there’s very little about Shanahan’s decision to look elsewhere that counts as surprising. But the news today is noteworthy nonetheless.

As much as I and others played down the chances of Shanahan returning for a third season, it was never something you could dismiss entirely as long as the player was unsigned. Throw in the fact that Sather hadn’t officially closed the door on Shanahan, and that the player was still skating at the Rangers’ practice rink, and it was a prospect you at least had to entertain until given reason otherwise.

Today was that day. How much did the Rangers’ fast start kill Shanahan’s chances of returning? A lot, probably. Or put it another way: if the Rangers were anywhere below .500 and seeming to lack Shanahan’s gravitas in the locker room, we all could have been chronicling his return game tomorrow.

And this isn’t to say the Rangers have it all figured out already, because they don’t. But they are obviously doing OK for themselves, and I’m with many of you who thought bringing Shanahan back for another run would be a contradiction from the team’s stated goal of trying to get younger and faster.

Still, the 39-year-old Shanahan was a great player for much of his tenure in New York,  and a treat to cover—probably the most thoughtful, articulate, and clever hockey player I’ve ever been around. Plus, he fought Donald Brashear, which was kind of cool, too.

So good luck, Shanny. Wherever you go, here’s hoping you have some gas left in the tank, and that you have as positive an impact on your next team as you did on the one you just left.

While I’d be reluctant to characterize Brandon Dubinsky’s benching in the first period of Monday’s win over the Islanders as a big deal, it was still an episode that offered a window into the sophomore center, who in his time in New York has always succeeded in carrying himself as someone much older. This is just the latest example.

The basics: Dubinsky committed a tripping penalty and a holding penalty in the first five minutes of that game, and was sat out by Tom Renney for what looked like the next two shifts. After the game, Dubinsky admitted immediately to not playing well, and conceded Renney was just doing his job by sitting him down.

The reason this is important because the 22-year-old Dubinsky seemed to handle the whole sequence with more maturity than most 10-year veterans (of course, a second-year player shouldn’t be as ruffled as a 10-year veteran might be). That was apparent that night, but even more so today, when after the player practiced on a line with Aaron Voros and Dan Fritsche (more on that later), he expounded on his shortcomings the last two games.

“There was no further conversation,” Dubinsky said when asked if he and Renney ever talked about the issue. “I know what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to perform and make sure I’m ready to go. There’s no excuses. You have to be consistent in the NHL. It’s one of the things people bank on here. So many players come in and they’re not consistent, and they’re not here anymore. I put a lot of pressure to make sure I’m ready to go every night.”

I asked Dubinsky if his struggles of late could at all be a reflection of greater attention from other teams. A case can be made that, on whole, the center has been the Rangers’ best skater so far this season. And if I’m seeing that, other teams are too, and might be stressing the importance of shutting him down.

“No,” he said. “Every player in the NHL is a good player. Obviously there are some superstars, but I certainly wouldn’t classify myself in that category. I think that it’s just a matter of work ethic and realizing you can’t cheat for certain things. You’ve got to do the little things. I’ve always really prided myself on trying to make sure I do the little things. I don’t think I got ahead of myself but maybe subconsciously I started doing things that aren’t what make my game special.

“So if anything maybe it was really a good thing. I came in today and worked hard. I know what I need to do to be successful so it’s really just a matter of getting back to it.”

For his part, Renney acknowledged there was no need to revisit the issue with the player, because he knew the message got through the first time.

“He’s a great kid. We have a hell of a dressing room in there,” Renney said. “And I’m not the type of coach who packs that baggage around. It’s been dealt with once. That’s enough.”

Put it all together and Larry Brooks is right today in “noting that re-signing Dubinsky should be a priority”:http://www.nypost.com/seven/10292008/sports/rangers/rangers_in_dubi_ous_ituation_135763.htm to Glen Sather this season.

The point isn’t that the kid is always going to soar, although he’s come pretty close this season. The point is that he still knows how to respond when he stumbles.
————————————————————————————
As for another young player, Renney didn’t necessarily shoot down the idea that Lauri Korpikoski could be better served playing in Hartford. The Korpedo has sat out five of the last six games, and was practicing today on a line with Patrick Rissmiller and Petr Prucha—not exactly a good sign.

“It’s a good question,” Renney said. “He’s practicing hard. He can play. If he’s getting in every third or fourth game, you have to ask yourself if that’s worth it.”

It’s a fair point. While I don’t think Korpikoski has fared poorly in his time here and I still think he’s an asset to the Rangers, there is no point in having him sit around when he can pass freely between New York and Hartford without waivers. It’s obvious that the Rangers still haven’t locked into anyone in that third line wing spot, and until they do, they might as well give him a chance to skate somewhere.

Update, 2:09 p.m.: Sure enough, Korpikoski has been sent to Hartford. The Rangers obviously were waiting for my endorsement before making it official.
—————————————————————————————
Great line by Renney on whether he felt the need to talk to Nikolai Zherdev after the wing’s ghastly turnover that almost led to a Kyle Okposo goal on Monday. The coach nodded and said, “I’m not a great coach, but I’m not an idiot.”

Somehow I missed “this story about the KHL and Jaromir Jagr”:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/sports/playmagazine/112Russia.html in the most recent issue of the New York Times sports magazine, Play. Life being what is, I just recycled all of last week’s papers without even knowing of its existence.

(Somewhere, one of our younger readers is asking, “Why does he care about having the magazine when he can read it online? Who reads anything on actual paper?” These are the type of questions that keep me awake at night)

Regardless, I continue to be fascinated by the Big Fella, as I always have been. I realize most of you will say the Rangers are doing just fine without him, and I’m not in a position to disagree. But he remains a compelling figure, and will likely go down as a pivotal player in the team’s history.

More from practice later…

Is it a coincidence that ever since the Rangers put Patrick Rissmiller on waivers, they’ve won three straight?

Yes, it is, actually. I’m pretty sure there is no correlation.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Rissmiller’s situation is a peculiar one.

The deal is this: although Rissmiller cleared waivers last week, he hasn’t been assigned to Hartford, and continues to practice with the Rangers. He still counts toward the salary cap, and should the Rangers want to play him Thursday against Atlanta, they can. Of course, that’s not likely to happen, so instead, Rissmiller will probably remain in the same holding pattern until the Rangers figure out something better to do with him.

Can this go on indefinitely? Yes. And no. The reality is after 10 NHL games or 30 days, the Rangers would have to again put Rissmiller on waivers, where he could conceivably be claimed by another team. But since that didn’t happen the first time and teams might be skittish about his three year, $3 million contract, Rissmiller could remain in this limbo for the rest of the season.

Which is fine, except that again, Rissmiller’s salary counts toward the cap, and I’ll tell you right now that if the team is just looking for someone to fill a uniform in practice, I can do it for much cheaper (albeit probably not as effectively. Make that, definitely not as effectively).

So why don’t they just assign him to Hartford?  Since Rissmiller has cleared waivers, the player could report immediately. The problem is once he’s assigned to the minor, the Rangers would have to put him through re-entry waivers if they ever wanted to  bring him back up. And should that happen, other teams could be enticed into picking him up at half price (with the Rangers on the hook for the other half).

As people with the team have noted to me, that part of the CBA is the worst possible deal for veterans who aren’t locked into an NHL job. Look at Andrew Hutchinson last season. Even if the defenseman couldn’t make it as an every day player with the Rangers, he is someone who could have been brought up in a pinch.

But since the team risked losing him to re-entry waivers, they never did.