Rangers Report Blog

No, we won’t know today about Nik Zherdev’s arbitration hearing, which will almost certainly provide his ride out of town.

The arbitrator has 48 hours—which might be stretched to 72 because it falls on a weekend—to make his decision. Then the Rangers have 48 hours to reach their decision on whether to accept the award or walk away and make Zherdev an unrestricted free agent.

We’ve been told the numbers in print elsewhere today aren’t completely accurate. But they are probably close.

Anyway, you’d assume Glen Sather has contacted every team in creation to see if they’d be interested in Zherdev, depending on the size of the new contract. You’d also assume that Sather will also have his decision made the moment the arbitration award is announced.

But he doesn’t have to make it right away. He can use those 48 hours to further shop Zherdev, whose pricetag will then be known. 

Very, very unlikely, though, that Zherdev will be a Ranger 49 hours after the decision, one way or another.

Back to Russia and the KHL. Here’s the story from TSN.
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Rangers Report Bonehead trivia: Zubov is not the last player listed alphabetically in NHL history. Do you know who is? I’ll answer later if nobody gets it.

The Sporting News is rating the top 50 all-time coaches in sports in its latest issue. Not surprisingly, very few are from hockey. Herb Brooks—who coached what is widely recognized as the greatest sports moment of the 20th century—barely made the list at No. 50.

The voting panel included Hall of Famers. Here’s the list.

SPORTING NEWS’ TOP 50 COACHES

1. John Wooden, college basketball
2. Vince Lombardi, NFL
3. Bear Bryant, college football
4. Phil Jackson, NBA
5. Don Shula, NFL
6. Red Auerbach, NBA
7. Scotty Bowman, NHL
8. Dean Smith, college basketball 
9. Casey Stengel, MLB
10. Knute Rockne, college football
11. Pat Summitt, women’s college basketball
12. Paul Brown, NFL
13. Joe Paterno, college football
14. George Halas, NFL
15. Chuck Noll, NFL
16. Bob Knight, college basketball
17. Joe Gibbs, NFL
18. Tom Landry, NFL
19. Mike Krzyzewski, college basketball
20. Bill Belichick, NFL
21. Adolph Rupp, college basketball
22. Joe McCarthy, MLB
23. Eddie Robinson, college football
24. Bobby Bowden, college football
25. John McGraw, MLB
26. Bill Walsh, NFL 
27. Woody Hayes, college football
28. Connie Mack, MLB
29. Bud Wilkinson, college football
30. Pat Riley, NBA
31. Pete Newell, college basketball
32. Joe Torre, MLB
33. Bill Parcells, NFL
34. Tom Osborne, college football
35. Walter Alston, MLB
36. Bo Schembechler, college football 
37. Toe Blake, NHL
38. Sparky Anderson, MLB
39. Al Arbour, NHL 
40. Amos Alonzo Stagg, college football
41. Tony La Russa, MLB
42. Geno Auriemma, women’s college basketball
43. Dick Irvin, NHL
44. Ara Parseghian, college football
45. Chuck Daly, NBA
46. Bobby Cox, MLB
47. Hank Iba, college basketball
48. Tommy Lasorda, MLB
49. Gregg Popovich, NBA
50. Herb Brooks, NHL

I was watching the highlights from the 1997 Stanley Cup finals the other night, and though the Philly Flyers—who handily beat up the beaten-up Rangers in the Eastern final—were swept by Detroit, man, that was a good team.

It was old, yeah, and about to break down. But it had Lindros, LeClair, Brind’Amour, Renberg, Desjardins, Niinimaa, Podein, Therien, an old Kjell Samuelsson and a young Vinny Prospal. And it had brought in players like Paul Coffey, Joel Otto, Dale Hawerchuk, Petr Svoboda.

Of course, it also had Garth Snow and Ron Hextall in goal. So, you know …
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Today’s Seinfeld trivia: There are multiple instances in the show where Kramer vomits. How many can you name … with details?
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Busy day today. Be back late this afternoon if any news. I’ll count on you Boneheads to update the comments if anything happens before then.

Follow us on Twitter. You can find it at twitter.com/rangersreport, or @rangersreport.

USA Hockey announced its newest class of inductees into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame.

The are:

The 1998 U.S. Olympic Women’s Ice Hockey Team, Tony Amonte, Tom Barrasso, John LeClair and Frank Zamboni.

Read the entire release here.
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NYRangerscast did an interview with Artem Anisimov. It was translated and transcribed. Here it is.

There really isn’t much going on with hockey—unless USA Hockey comes up with some big names this afternoon when it announces it new inductees into the US hockey Hall of Fame.

So I want to share a thought. I was driving home from an interview last night and I put on the Yankees game on the car radio. The two announcers were talking about Alex Rodriguez’s birthday. Oh boy! Yippeee!

What, they wondered, would you get A-Rod for his birthday? What do you get a guy who has everything, and if he doesn’t have it, he can get it in five seconds?

They couldn’t come up with anything. So I thought I’d put together a list:

How about a personality? Some friends? A relationship? A clue? Some more “boli”? A championship ring? An important October hit? Some common sense? Some sincerity? Some inner security?
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A pretty good summer hockey read over at NHL.com about hockey stats and records. You can see it here.

Here’s the official word:

RANGERS AGREE TO TERMS WITH DEFENSEMAN SAM KLASSEN
            New York, July 27, 2009 – New York Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather announced today that the club has agreed to terms with free agent defenseman Sam Klassen.
            Klassen, 20, skated in 72 games with the Saskatoon Blades of the Western Hockey League (WHL) last season, registering two goals and 18 assists for 20 points, along with 92 penalty minutes.  He established career-highs in games played, goals and plus-minus rating (plus-27).  Klassen ranked fourth among team defensemen in assists and fifth in points.  He also finished fourth on the club with 92 penalty minutes, while his plus-27 rating ranked seventh on the Blades.  The Watrous, Saskatchewan native recorded a season-high, three-game assist streak from November 22 against Brandon to November 30 at Prince George, collecting six assists over the span.  Klassen tied his career-high for most assists in a game with three assists in the final game of the streak.  In addition, he recorded one assist and 10 penalty minutes in seven postseason contests with Saskatoon.
            The 6-2, 200-pounder has skated in 182 career WHL games with Saskatoon, registering four goals and 47 assists for 51 points, along with 247 penalty minutes.  In 2007-08, Klassen established career-highs in assists (24), points (25) and penalty minutes (103).  He also had a stretch of seven assists in eight games from November 13 against Brandon to November 30 at Lethbridge, and recorded a career-high, four-game assist streak (six assists) from February 20 vs. Prince Albert to February 26 against Lethbridge during the 2007-08 season.  Klassen made his WHL debut with Saskatoon on December 16, 2006 against Swift Current, and collected his first WHL point with an assist on the game-winning goal in the final minutes of regulation on December 30, 2006 vs. Regina.  Prior to joining Saskatoon during the 2006-07 season, Klassen recorded 11 points (two goals and nine assists) and 74 penalty minutes in 32 games with the Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League (SJHL).

I’m going to skip the Seinfeld trivia today because I was blown away by how many had interest in the Honeymooners.

So here’s a clip you must see.

No idea if we’ll have any hockey action today, tomorrow, this week, next week, or next month (that’s paraphrasing part of a Honeymooners line). If there’s news, we’ll try to get it to you.

‘Til then, enjoy this.
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You can find it at twitter.com/rangersreport, or @rangersreport.

Did you know that 17 players filed for arbitration this summer?

Did you also know that, so far, there has only been one case that actually has gone to arbitration (Phoenix’s Dan Winnik), and that eight others have been settled before arbitration?

There are still eight others scheduled this week, including Nik Zherdev’s on Friday. It’ll be interesting to see how many actually get to arbitration. Zherdev is almost certain to get there because the sides are so far apart and the Rangers will NOT sign him for anything close to what he wants. In fact, as we’ve said all along, the Rangers are almost sure to walk away from whatever award Zherdev gets, and make him an unrestricted free agent.
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Since I plan to do some Seinfeld trivia on slow days, and since it’s a weekend and thus less traffic here, I’ll start with a simple one:

How does George get his job with the New York Yankees? Share any details you might have.