You know what? The traffic’s pretty heavy here on the Festivus Blog today, so let’s just start with a clean thread for the game. Happy Festivus everyone!
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Repost from earlier: No Knuble tonight. No Semin, either. Behave yourselves. See yas in the comments.
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Oh, yeah. New poll on the right side of the blog.

As you’ve heard by now, Brendan Shanahan announced his retirement today. Here’s the story from NHL.com which also has his career stats, etc.

Yesterday we were talking about Hall of Famers in the comments section. Well, here’s one that won’t be debated. Wonder if he’ll pull a Favre around the trade deadline, though. Why not? I’m sure [...]

Good news. Bad news. Worse news.

The Rangers finally have a game tonight. It’s on Versus. Alex Ovechkin is expected to return from his “upper body strain.”

Could be worse than Versus. You could be in Edmonton where some games are on pay-per-view. Egads.
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Did you see that Markus Naslund un-retired to join his buddy Peter Forsberg playing [...]

The Rangers play Washington tomorrow … the only game in six days, and the third in what will be a 13-day stretch. Just awful. Then, as we mentioned earlier, the Rangers get busy, with five games in eight days, and six in 10.

Hope to go to the game Tuesday or some practices this week. No [...]

The Rangers tied Ottawa yesterday in Kanata, Ont., and then won a skills competition.

So technically, they won.

Anyway, some other thoughts.

1) I think P.A. Parenteau should get a shot to stick around for a while. I know, the Rangers are concerned about his skating. Yeah, he’s not one of those speed guys you want to play [...]

From the NYR:

NEW YORK RANGERS POST-GAME NOTES
November 14, 2009 – New York Rangers 2, Ottawa Senators 1 (SO) (Game #20, Road #11)

• The Blueshirts defeated the Ottawa Senators, 2-1, in the shootout today at Scotiabank Place; it was the Rangers first shootout of the season.

  The Rangers improved to 11-8-1 overall, including a 5-5-1 mark on [...]

Doesn’t it seem like forever ago that the Rangers beat the Senators and began a seven-game winning streak?

Well, now they’ve lost five of their last six road games and are coming off that woeful home performance against Atlanta (which, by the way, then went home and spanked the L.A. Kings 7-0).

I think we all agree [...]

From the NYR:

NEW YORK RANGERS TRANSACTION UPDATE
New York, November 13, 2009 – New York Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather announced today that forward P.A. Parenteau has been recalled from the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League (AHL), and forward Dane Byers has been assigned to Hartford.
Parenteau, 26, has skated in two [...]

The “first game home after a road trip of three games or more” theory is built on a solid foundation. Every NHL team has gone through it, and nobody has conquered it. The legs aren’t there, and nobody can explain why. So it’s a legit reason for the Rangers’ start last night. But it’s not [...]

From the NYR:
 November 12, 2009 – New York Rangers 3, Atlanta Thrashers 5 (Game #19, Home #9) 
Click here for the official game summary and event summary.
  • The Rangers were defeated by the Atlanta Thrashers, 5-3, in front of a sold-out crowd (18,200) at Madison Square Garden to drop to 10-8-1 (21 pts.) on the [...]