Rangers Report Blog

I’m not the only person “to have this reaction to last night’s loss in San Jose”:http://njmg.typepad.com/rangersblog/, that while it was still a loss, it was one in which the Rangers at least showed more than some of their wins this season.

I know, no one’s interested in moral victories. But go back to that debacle in New Jersey a week ago Friday. If you were told then that the Rangers would claim four of six points on the West Coast and at least play the league-leading Sharks tough, my guess is you’d have taken it.

So the ship has steadied since then. We at least know that. The next six weeks or so is when the Rangers clarify what exactly they need before the trade deadline, which, given their precarious cap situation, does not necessarily mean they’re going to get it.

The team is busy sleeping off the flight back from California, but will be back on the ice tomorrow. We will be back from vacaction to check in then…

It is not unusual for your loyal correspondent to skip a road game  (which I suppose makes me not-so-loyal, after all), but tonight’s game in San Jose marks a rare occasion: a regular season Rangers game in which not a single New York paper will be represented.

Both the Daily News and the Record have traveled regularly with the Rangers this season but skipped the week-long West Coast trip. And while the New York Post and Newsday were present for the back-to-back games in Anaheim and L.A., both papers decided to have their reporters return home rather than wait around an extra three days for tonight’s game against the league-leading Sharks.

The damage could be minimal. Since the Mats Sundin Saga has passed and the NHL is now in the midst of its Christmas roster freeze, there’s likely to be little in the way of news outside of the actual game, which we can all watch on TV or hear on the radio (and it’s not like a travel budget stopped Larry Brooks from writing “this critical and convincing argument of where the Rangers’ real problems lie”:http://www.nypost.com/seven/12202008/sports/rangers/sathers_cap_woes_simply_indefensible_145092.htm)

But what happens in the game is very often only part of the story. And there’s always a chance of an injury or an event behind-the-scenes that requires greater scrutiny. Plus, in this era of consistent cutbacks at newspapers, with hockey coverage already suffering worse than other sports, it’s still a dangerous precedent. For someone like myself who is technically on vacation and who has been more a reader than a reporter the past few days, I’ll be the first to admit we’re all missing out.

According to people in the Rangers organization who have been with the team for years, it’s the first time they can remember that at least one beat writer hasn’t been at a game. Granted, its a practice that’s become fairly standard in cities like L.A. and Phoenix, where hockey is seen as a fringe sport at best.

But this is New York, and Rangers fans expect more.

Update, 5 p.m.: A quick clarification: For one, Zipay says it was a mutual decision between himself and his editors at Newsday to have him return home after the first two games. And it’s fair to say both reporters would have stayed in California if the Rangers signed Mats Sundin.

Fair enough.

Also, no lineup changes for tonight, meaning Corey Potter truly was only called up for insurance purposes.

A lot to think about now that Mats Sundin is out of the picture:

Do the Rangers look at what else is out there? Do they sit tight until the trade deadline?

Do I shovel the snow as it falls, or wait for it to stop first?

If only I knew.

As for the players who still constitute the 2008-09 Rangers, they reconvene at the rink today before tomorrow’s showdown with the suddenly vulnerable Sharks, who were handed a smackdown of the first order by the defending Stanley Cup champion Red Wings.

The good news is the Sharks are coming off a tough loss. The bad news? Same thing.

News when I have it later..

So it turns out Glen Sather won’t have to make any magical moves to clear salary cap space: “Mats Sundin has signed with the Canucks, after all.”:http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=260123&lid=headline&lpos=topStory_nhl

“I am truly excited to be joining the Canucks,” said Sundin in a team statement. “Once I made the decision to return to play a few weeks ago, the Vancouver opportunity was simply the best overall fit. I want to thank Mike Gillis and the entire Canucks organization for their professionalism throughout this entire process.”

Still unclear is whether Sundin grabbed the full, two-year $20 million offer the Canucks first threw at him back in July.

Regardless, at least from a financial standpoint, it was a much better deal than anything the Rangers could offer.

As for those Rangers, they remain intact…for now.

The bad news in this is they miss out on a chance to throw an elite-level center and leader into their mix, perhaps the difference-maker this team needs to become a serious contender.

The good news is they didn’t have to compromise themselves in making any deal happen. And in staying pat—by choice or otherwise—they leave themselves options to make other moves before the trade deadline.

I have to admit, I’m a little surprised, not so much in the decision, but that it happened today. I always got the sense the Swede was truly torn. Maybe he really was, but it must have been apparent he was never going to get the same type of money in New York.

Enjoy that Northwest Division travel….

Update, 7:38 p.m.: According to J.P. Barry, Sundin’s agent, the deal with Vancouver is just for the rest of this season, and not the two-year contract the Canucks had offered back in July. But that very well could have been Sundin’s choice.

Update, 7:56 p.m.: Meanwhile, let the dominos start falling. With Sundin now spoken for, you can count on other teams starting to make some moves, and you can certainly count on a Brendan Shanahan signing not far behind.

I am skeptical of the Rangers’ interest in Shanahan at this point, although strange as it sounds, I wonder if Saturday’s showdown with the Sharks helps clarify things.

It could be a game when the Rangers see they’re not  far off. Or it could be one in which they realize they need to do something dramatic.

And with Dramatic Option A now committed to Vancouver, the Rangers would need to start looking for another one.

Update, 9:13 p.m.: No official comment from the Rangers since the team was off today. I’m sure there was disappointment from those people who had already started penciling in line combinations. But I’m sure there was also a sense that Sundin even considering their comparatively meager offer could be seen as an endorsement of the organization and its direction (or maybe it just had to do with the fact that they have one really good Swedish goaltender).

What to make of today? I suppose the one thing it does is take some pressure off the Rangers. Because if Sundin stepped into the dressing room tomorrow, there’s no question there would be a heap of it (along with the predictable amounts of excitement and euphora).

Now the Rangers remain a pretty good team with a fairly impressive roster. But they’re still a team that doesn’t have Mats Sundin.

That’s it for me. I’m off to play hockey…

More later…

So maybe everyone was getting ahead of themselves in thinking Mats Sundin was going to give the Rangers a plum discount purely out of a desire to win and the kindness of his heart. According to Larry Brooks, the free agent center “is still looking to get paid”:http://www.nypost.com/seven/12182008/sports/rangers/sundin_awaits_rangers_6m_offer_144718.htm.

If Sundin is indeed seeking $6 million pro-rated from the Rangers, that would still be considerably less than the $10 million on the table from the Canucks, but it would also be enough that Glen Sather would have to work some magic to clear space for him.

In other words, forget about a simple waive of Petr Prucha and Dan Fritsche, and start thinking about options far more dramatic—like, for instance, a trade of a core player (yes, there’s always the panacea of dispensing of a defenseman’s bulky contract, but that’s a longshot. More on that in a second).

And that’s when you start asking yourself if whether it’s all worth it. While no one is going to confuse this three-game winning streak with signs that the Rangers are Cup-ready, you do have to be leery of moves that completely shake the foundation of a group that, while certainly flawed, does have a pretty good record.

In the salary cap world, you always have to give up something to get something. I get that. But part of what has made Sundin so attractive these past few weeks is that the Rangers didn’t seem to have to give up an objectionable amount. Now you wonder if that’s actually the case.
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How about that Michal Rozsival? For that matter, how about a number of players on this trip who seem to have shaken out of their respective slumps—from Rozsival to Nigel Dawes to Chris Drury? For the record, if we see Dmitri Kalinin net a couple against the Sharks on Saturday, then we know the Rangers will be pushing for more California trips on the schedule for next year.

When it comes to Rozsival, it may take a game like this to break the vicious cycle he’s been immersed in all season—sluggish play (injury-related or not) leading to sagging confidence, which of course, leads to more mediocre play. Maybe there’s still a long way to go, but the Rangers at least could point to a game like last night and say this is what they had hoped for when they re-signed him over the summer.

And at the risk of sounding sinister, you wonder if a game like last night might make enough of an impression on other teams that they’d be willing to now take on Rozsival’s contract.

Unlikely, sure. But it put this way: it couldn’t have hurt.

Stephen Valiquette gets the nod in goal tonight against the Kings, on the second leg of a back-to-back (this thanks to Zipay, who “chimes in from the West Coast”:http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/hockey/rangers/blog/).

The move makes sense on two fronts: in guarding against wear-and-tear on Henrik Lundqvist, but mostly in preventing the Rangers from coasting against the inferior Kings.

The Rangers are 4-1-1 on the second night of consecutive games, but it would be easy to see this team shifting down a gear a night after outlasting the Ducks. Traditionally having a backup in net helps eliminate the false sense of security.

Don’t forget, 10:30 start tonight.

Update, 6:05 p.m.: The latest on Mats Sundin is “here”:http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=259986&lid=headline&lpos=secStory_nhl, although it’s essentially more of what we already knew.

A couple of quick hits after last night’s 3-1 win over the Ducks.

Dear Chris Pronger,

In the spirit of the season, I will give you back your skates, even though I faked you out of them in the third period last night.

Happy holidays to you and yours,

Nigel Dawes

So maybe Thursday isn’t decision day on Mats Sundin after all. Sundin’s agent J.P. Barry told the Vancouver Sun that Thursday would be the earliest possible day that Sundin would decide, but he hasn’t set that day as the deadline.

“I did tell Mike that Thursday would be the earliest,” Barry told The Vancouver Sun in a telephone interview from Alberta later in the day. “I am not going to hold Mats to any kind of deadline. He has never been held to one before and he’s not going to be held to one now. He says he is going to try and make a decision by the end of this week.

“It may not be Thursday if he struggles with the decision. He is going to make up his mind this week, is what he has told us. But we are not going to put any deadline on him.”

Is it possible this decision is more difficult than Sundin originally anticipated? Absolutely. A $20 million offer can do that to a guy.

While waiting for Sundin to make up his mind, give some love to our NFL writers Mike Dougherty and Jane McManus, who will be hosting a live video chat tomorrow at noon on “LoHud.com”:http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage.

More later…

So Thursday appears to be the day that Mats Sundin will finalize his decision on whether he’ll play for the Rangers or the Canucks, “this according to a story out of Vancouver”:http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=259896&lid=sublink01&lpos=headlines_nhl.

‘’He’s going to make a decision Thursday about the final destination,’’ Gillis told reporters. ‘’We re-iterated our position in  all of this and formalized our offer moving forward. We feel good about our team and where we sit and what we have to offer.

‘’We will see how it plays out.’‘

J.P. Barry, Sundin’s agent, heard Vancouver GM Mike Gillis’ tempting offer in person again today, but I go back to the idea that if Sundin has already taken it this far, he’s ready to become a Ranger.

As for those Rangers, expect Henrik Lundqvist in goal tonight, and the same lineup as Saturday night. If I hear anything different, I’ll pass it along.

I’m so sorry to hear that it’s cold and rainy on the West Coast. Really, I am. It breaks me up.

In the meantime, some notes from the cozy confines of Blog Headquarters:

The real trading deadline isn’t for another few months, but the Rangers are confronting their own of sorts “given the whole Mats Sundin situation”:http://rangers.lohudblogs.com/2008/12/15/agent-rangers-have-offered-sundin-a-framework/. In fact, here’s my new question:

If Sundin says he’ll decide by the end of the week where he wants to play, and the Rangers have until Friday before the NHL’s week-long roster freeze, does the team make a move to clear roster space without a commitment from Sundin that he wants to play for them? In other words, is there a scenario in which the team trades or waives a player but then sees Sundin go to Vancouver anyway?

Of course, if that does happen, we’re not necessarily talking about a devastating loss but a player the team might have been looking to move regardless. The only scenario in which the Rangers confound themselves if they completely restructure their roster to make room for Sundin—i.e. moving one of their core players—but as of now, that doesn’t seem likely.

Completely unrelated to big Mats is my story in today’s paper “on the Rangers’ shootout prowess”:http://www.lohud.com/article/20081216/SPORTS01/812160386/-1/SPORTS, in which players and coaches divulge some of their, ahem, strategies (starting with, “OK, Henrik, you’re in net”).

I did note the irony that Tom Renney is coach benefiting most from the shootout these days. Don’t forget that  it was Renney who was behind the bench as coach of Canada in the 1994 Olympics gold medal game, when Peter Forsberg won the shootout with the greatest move in history (later celebrated on a stamp)

I remember exactly where I was watching that game, in some dorm common area at Colby College, shaking off the cobwebs from a particularly late night out and preparing for the drive south back to UNH. A few days later I remember trying the move in a pickup game. Let’s just say there was no stamp to commemorate my effort.

And speaking of my endlessly fascinating hockey career, I’m off to WSA in a bit for a midday skate. If I see Sundin there, then we’ll know he’s serious about picking the Rangers…

J.P. Barry, the agent for Mats Sundin, disputed “a report that says Mats Sundin has already settled on the Rangers”:http://www.fan590.com/, saying the center hasn’t yet made a final decision on where he’ll play this season.

But Barry also said the Rangers have made clear they want Sundin, and have even indicated what they’d be willing to pay him.

“Whether a formal offer has been submitted or not is semantics,” Barry wrote in an e-mail. “They have provided a framework of what could be made available to Mats if he selected the Rangers.”

Updated, 7:10 p.m.: In other words, the Rangers have offered Sundin a salary range based on what they can accomplish in unloading salary.

I imagine that range is pretty wide.

In the unlikely event Glen Sather can trade Michal Rozsival or Wade Redden, it’s Sundin’s lucky week. If the Rangers merely send down Lauri Korpikoski, they better hope Sundin really likes Manhattan.

Naturally, I asked Barry what that range was but he we wouldn’t say. As for Sundin’s time frame, the agent said by the end of this week.

So now it comes to the Rangers vs. Vancouver, a lot of money vs. a ridiculous amount of money. I am willing to offer some advice for a small fee.