Rangers Report Blog

We had heard the rumor a couple of days ago, now Larry Brooks is writing in the Post that Markus Naslund will retire from the Rangers—saving them some cap money and avoiding an inevitable buyout by doing so.

So the parade of change has begun.

Meanwhile, you keep getting reminded about how much has to change. Did you see last night that the Blackhawks have already had six playoff periods in which they’ve scored at least three goals? My God! It would take the Rangers two or three games to score three.

And the Rangers’ coaching staff and players would do awfully well to watch tape of how the Penguins, Capitals, Blackhawks and especially the Canucks work the 5-on-3, how to pass the puck in a box, how to align guys so they are always on their forehand. It was almost an automatic, fairly easy and very quick goal on every 5-on-3 I saw yesterday.

The Canucks, however, did display some of the worst down-low, around-the-net defensive play that I’ve seen since the Rangers had Kevin Hatcher.

Here’s my column from The Journal News and LoHud.com today, about Joe Devenney of Mahopac, who is retiring after 37 years with the Rangers as an equipment guy.

Tom Horvath, the legendary NYC hockey coach who developed the Mullen brothers, has been in the organization about 52 years as an equipment man. Devenney was second in terms of length of service. When I first covered a Rangers game in 1978, only three people were there then who are still around now: Horvath, Devenney (who started in 1972 under Emile Francis) and Sam Rosen, who was just starting out doing Knicks and some occasional hockey. Now there are two.

You might recognize him (above) because for years he was on the visitors’ bench during games, literally, in the early days, opening and closing the bench door.

Just a great, good man. We will miss having him around.
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BY THE WAY, LAST CALL: Get your “after” photos in for the Playoff Beard contest. e-mail them to me at rcarpini@lohud.com. Only those who sent “before” shots will be eligible.

Hi.

I’m having a hard time not posting today, so I thought I’d throw a couple of things out there.

1) We should have the beard contest polling up and running by late Monday or Tuesday.

2) Do you guys—the Boneheads, the Festivus Bloggers, all of you—want me to just throw a blank post up when I have nothing so you guys have a fresh place to have your own discussions? It seems that might be the way to go when there’s no news from here, because obviously you guys talk here 24/7.

What do you think?

Here’s my story from breakup day in The Journal News and LoHud.com today. You have already seen all this stuff live from the training facility yesterday.

-Carp
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Also, I found this site (duh, NBC, not like I was Columbus or DeSoto as a discoverer), which has video of Torts’ mea culpa yesterday, and also video of last night’s Chicago-Vancouver game, including that Brashear-like hit that resulted in a two-minute penalty. Note that referee McCreary is the common denominator.