Rangers Report Blog

The Rangers need some size and grit, eh? Perhaps two decades from now Will Weinman can be that guy.

The little fella arrived shortly after the Rangers fell in Vancouver last night, checking in at a hardy 10 pounds, one ounce, and a lengthy 22 inches long. The whole family is doing well, including the proud papa, who passed along the good news and a couple pics this morning.

I’m happy to be able to pass along the news. I’ll update here whenever I can until Sam emerges from beneath the pile of diapers.

— I caught the last two games almost in full and saw what you did: 1) a team that played well but was done in by a soft goal late, followed by 2) a subpar effort in Vancouver.

Still, I agree with some of the comments on the previous post. I think it’s premature to judge the team based on two losses on back-to-back nights in Western Canada. Neither were blowouts and spoke volumes about some concerning trend. (That is, unless you want to count the lack of scoring…a persistent problem all season.)

— The other item I wanted to mention were the grades you handed out. They were similar for the players (Girardi and Gomez did well, Jagr and Drury average to below average, Malik poorly), but there seemed to be a great discrepancy among readers on Renney and his staff. I guess it’s a matter of who ya blame for the club hovering near .500, the coach or his players. There seems to be little common ground among Ranger fans on the topic.

Anyone have a thought — a legit, well-reasoned thought beyond calling the coach a weasel — as to why it’s so black and white?

— Also, “John Dellapina reports on his blog”:http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/rangers/ that Brendan Shanahan and Henrik Lundqvist will return to the ice in Edmonton.

Not a terrible way to spend a Sunday night, huh? All you guys and girls who jumped down my throat about NHL vs. NFL were rewarded for your faith in the game tonight. That was some night. (Not that I told you to forgo hockey for a day, but whatever.)

Here’s a few things from the locker room:

— Renney wasn’t happy with the way the game had unfolded. Because of the penalties and because he matched Betts and co. with Kovalev’s line, the top skill guys hadn’t logged much ice time. He decided to change it late, rolling two lines for most of the third period. “They said, ‘OK, coach is putting this directly on our shoulders.’ They love that,” he said.

— Chris Drury said this felt like a playoff game right from the anthems. “It kind of felt like a playoff game, how intense the crowd was right from the anthems,” he said.  “Our bench was pretty excited right throughout the third.” No wonder he played so well, scoring the tying goal with five minutes left and assisting on the winner.

Sam noted to me via text message during the third period that Drury was destroying Montreal on faceoffs.  He was 15 of 21…but that was nothing. Betts was 9 of 11. For the game, the team was 41 of 60 (68%). Not bad.

— Brendan Shanahan had the quote of the night, that you feel like “the coolest kid in school for a day” after scoring a game-winner.

Safe to say he’d be a senior.

Lineup change…Petr Prucha is a late scratch. As you know, he was slashed in the third period last night. Marcel Hossa is in Prucha’s place.

UPDATE: 7:45 p.m. —

1. Another nice period by the Rangers, particularly the top line. Like Gomez mentioned on Friday, there’s Straka digging the puck out, freeing up some room for Gomez to make a play. … Of course, that’s exactly what he did, hitting Dan Girardi for his seventh goal of the season. (Did you ever expect Girardi would have 7 G before ‘08? I didn’t.) The assist extended Gomez’s career-high point streak to 12 games.

2. Terrible giveaway by Marek Malik, who had done a great job along with Paul Mara up until two minutes left in the period. Mara in particular did a tremendous job against Kovalev, but Malik gave it all away. His TO led to a goal that tied the game. Until…

3. Gomez is fast, huh? I think all the haters are going to have to give the guy a break. He’s making plays alongside Jagr, which was the goal when the Blueshirts gave him that boatload of $$$. … For those who didn’t see it, Gomez got possession on the fly on the other side of the red line, then found an opening to hit a cutting Jagr for the captain’s 11th goal of the season. (Stat disclosure: Jagr, after having no goals in 10 games, now has one in his last three, which is his longest stretch of the season.)

4. I’m sorry you guys aren’t sitting in my seat. Sean Avery was just jawing at Huet right before the period ended, which could lead to something later. He was absolutely relentless.

I’m not going to have much else tonight because I’m on a tight deadline, so if I don’t check in I’ll talk to you after the game.

Lundqvist is obviously back in goal, but don’t expect any other major changes. I’ll update when it’s official.

Here are some notes I dug up for your pregame enjoyment:

— Rangers were 2-6-2 in 10 games before winning their last two. Jaromir Jagr had just six assists (and no goals) in those 10 games, but he has six points (3-3) in the last two games.

— Rangers are 1-3-1 in the second game of a back-to-back this season. Their only win was an OT shootout victory against Philly.

— Henrik Lundqvist has given up just five goals in the four previous games after a night off. Two of those four games were shutout victories. (3-1, 1.25 GAA). Good sign maybe?

— This will be Marcel Hossa’s eighth straight game off

— Interesting note here from someone in the press room. There are six Canadian teams and the Rangers will play five of them in a span of eight days. Something tells me this doesn’t make your boy Sean Avery very happy…Oh, Canada!

As you can see from the early nature of my post, there wasn’t much a morning skate this morning. It was quick and sparsely attended.

I didn’t get a chance to talk to Renney, so there’s nothing to report. The overnight flight from Toronto at midnight probably didn’t make for much action this morning, but I’ll have a full pregame report later from the Garden.

In the meantime, watch some football…

When the Rangers are on my watch I don’t even need to see the games. They win anyway. When I covered them last April they won. When I was around for the Atlanta series they swept. When I was there for Buffalo they nearly knocked off the beast of the East. I’d like to think I’m the Sean Avery of the Rangers beat, only with less scar tissue and without a handful of Hollywood starlets on speed dial.

Seriously though, I was out tonight covering basketball while the Blueshirts were on the ice in Toronto. What happens…well, six goals, including two by Petr Prucha and one by Blair Betts? Eh…what? At this rate, Joey Kocur may end up on the scoresheet vs. Montreal.

Because I was out, I Tivo-ed the game. I just finished watching it and I realized: dutiful reader, stf, was dead on. You guys have absolutely nothing to complain about, so it’s been quiet around here. Drury made one of those plays Hockey Gods make; Jagr just destroyed it on the PP; Shanahan unleashed his deadly one-timer; Prucha had an impact after Renney gave him precious PP minutes. All was good on the Rangers front.

Heck, even Straka and Roszival shot the puck!

I’ll be back in the morning after the skate. It’s optional, but I’ll see what’s going on before heading down to the Garden. Talk to you then.

If you want to check out Jagr’s thoughts on Sean Avery, give a read to my story today. “You can find it here.”:http://www.lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071229/SPORTS01/712290400

Just as we were done with Jagr, Avery came through the room punching a text into his iPhone. When I went up to him, he stopped to talk for a couple minutes…then as we spoke Jagr yelled across the room to Avery telling him about all the compliments he’d just paid him. Funny stuff.

Because it is apparently our obligation as reporters to throw pure gasoline on the Avery vs. Toronto feud, I will have more on the Rangers resident instigator in tomorrow’s paper and at LoHud. I’ll hold today’s nuggets on Avery until then, so instead I offer you Jaromir Jagr and Scott Gomez’s insight into why they hope they are clicking better this time around.

My questioning was triggered on the heels of Wednesday’s game. Gomez was talking about how well he and Jagr played and he made a point of praising Marty Straka. I thought it was interesting, so I asked Gomez and Jagr about Straka today.

“I think it kind of goes to Marty. We’ve had Marty on the line and he kind of brings another element,” Gomez said. “The guy just works so hard, he does so much in the D zone, so much offensively. At the beginning of the year we didn’t have that. The credit goes to him. I wish I could say it a different way, but he’s been the reason.”

I asked what Straka does specifically and Gomez said: “He does everything. He gets open, he digs the pucks out, he creates offensively. When you see a guy on your line constantly working like that and bringing it, you gotta go. I think the success of our line is because of him.”

Jagr, who has played with Straka forever and who we know has always supported his countryman, almost seemed surprised to hear what Gomez had to say. The captain has always respected Straka so much and he isn’t surprised at how much he can help.

“I’ve played with Marty for a long time,” Jagr said. “He’s got enough patience, enough skill, to hold the puck when we need him to.”

Other items of note:

— Brendan Shanahan didn’t practice today. He had a sore hamstring and sat out for precautionary reasons. Renney expects Shanny to play tomorrow in Toronto.

— Predictably, Nigel Dawes was on a morning train to Hartford. (I actually don’t know how he got to the home of insurance, but I do know he’s been shipped back to the AHL.) Renney said Dawes can be sent back and forth, which made him an obvious candidate for a demotion, and that he’s currently a little limited because he is a scoring LW still working on his skills as a penalty killer. However, the coach assured that Dawes’ time is near: “It really is only a matter of time,” Renney said. “Whether he secures it in the next couple weeks, months or this year, Nigel Dawes is going to play for the New York Rangers.”

Renney said Dawes kills penalties in Hartford now, so presumably that is with the goal of expanding his game.

— Don’t expect much in the way of lineup changes tomorrow night. The only exception is Marcel Hossa, who Renney said is “a consideration for us” because of his defensive play and size. If Hossa plays, I wouldn’t expect to see him anywhere but the fourth line.

— Do yourself a favor and read tomorrow’s story in the paper or online. Should be a fun read. Basically, Jagr said some really nice things about Avery’s skill vs. his role as instigator and then teased him about it when Avery walked by. Only in a hockey dressing room…

(UPDATE 7:48 p.m.) OK, so I said I hadn’t covered a game yet this season in person. Now that I’ve seen 20 minutes, I offer something you know already: This offense is just not the same.

I swear the scoreboard says 13-5 Rangers in SOG, but how many were legit scoring chances? Prucha’s two tries on the doorstep, Dubinsky’s shot off the sweet pass from Callahan, and Shanny’s shot off the bar. Not much else there, particularly on the PP, which took the collar in the first period (o for 3).This team just doesn’t apply the same pressure it did in March and April.

The other item of note from the first period were Staal’s two horrendous turnovers. Doesn’t seem like much now, but either could’ve easily led to a goal.

More later…provided my fingers thaw. It is freezing in the Garden tonight.

(UPDATE: 8:20 p.m.) Lindsay Lohan in the house. Question is: Who’s she watching? The odds for Avery are currently opening at 2-5.

Props to Renney-gade for calling the Jagr goal. The big guy was wide open on the doorstep, although I don’t know if Whitney was on the ice or not. The excitement was quickly diminished at the Garden by a nice goal created by Cullen.

That was a vicious open-ice hit by Orr on Cullen, who I thought was out of it for a bit. He was motionless and – as you can see on TV – he couldn’t protect himself. His face hit the ice and left blood splattered below his face.

We were just talking here in the press box and the consensus is that it shouldn’t have been interference on Orr. Yeah it was ugly, but Cullen had the puck, plain and simple. Maybe elbowing, but not interference.

*(UPDATE 10:20 p.m.)* Just got back from downstairs so I’ll give a quick synopsis.

No one on the Rangers seemed to think it should’ve been a penalty, at least not interference. Shanahan said he went into the dressing room and watched the replay on TV. He didn’t think Orr had any malice, and that interference was the wrong call.

Interestingly, Shanahan said he spoke to an official and was under the impression there was no penalty. He left the discussion and minutes later it was a major. Odd.

Renney didn’t think it was an interference either. He also felt Avery was held during the final fracas and that Andrew Ladd wasn’t, leading Avery to feel the need to defend himself. Is that true? Hmmm. Avery looked pretty determined to me…

We didn’t see either Jagr or Orr or Avery afterward. Shanahan said Orr had three cuts on his face from the face-to-face collision with Cullen. A Carolina player told me Cullen was in good spirits after the game and that he seemed to be fine.

The consensus was that this was a big game for Jagr. All across the ice, the Rangers said, players were giving extra effort. But in Jagr’s first multi-goal game of the season they saw a good sign for the future.

“As he goes,” Renney said, “so go we.”

After a painful 90-minute train ride from Brewster and a brisk walk from Grand Central, I’m finally here at the Garden.

We just returned from downstairs where Tom Renney announced that Petr Prucha will play tonight. The scratches are the following: Marcel Hossa, Jason Strudwick, and Nigel Dawes.

Prucha will play alongside Callahan and Dubinsky. Here’s what Renney said about how Prucha handled his benching:

“We know his level of intensity and his passion to play. He’s there in both respects, there’s no question about that. He’s not happy to be sitting but he’s certainly not a problem nor is he going to create a problem for his teammates with that in mind. I know how competitive Petr is and how much he wants to play.”

Renney agreed that Prucha offers a dichotomy. He plays hard, which is good,  but he plays too hard sometimes, which can be bad. Ultimately though Renney sees it as more of a solution than a problem.

“I certainly don’t want him to diminish his passion to play and the price he’s willing to play. Others could go to school by that.”

Renney also talked about how their transition game must improve (not telling you anything you didn’t all know), but he didn’t have much to add about it other than admitting it has been a problem.

— Defensive pairings: Staal-Roszival; Girardi-Tyutin; Mara-Malik

— One statistical note: If the Rangers lose, they will match their worst losing streak of the season, four games.

— Baby news: No news to share.

I’ll have more later..