Is there anything more painful than watching the Rangers?
Probably. But it's still pretty brutal.
Maybe it's time to admit the Rangers just aren't as good as everyone seems to think they can be.
From this week's New York Sports Express column:

One giant barrier to the Rangers scoring this season is their unwillingness to shoot the puck. It's not really clear what they're looking for or waiting for, but it seems a foregone conclusion the Rangers won't shoot the puck this year. Maybe they're trying to morph into the Harlem Globetrotters of hockey. Maybe they want to embrace trick shots. I'm not sure. But they're not shooting the puck.

And while the Rangers managed to tie Hotlanta Thursday night, they didn't manage to score.

Too bad there's no "E! True Hollywood Story" for athletes.
Former Carolina goalie Arturs Irbe would be a great candidate.
Just two seasons ago, he was helping Carolina try to win the Stanley Cup from Detroit, which Carolina didn't.
The next season, he ended up in the AHL.
This season, it's the ECHL.
Irbe is now playing for the Johnstown Chiefs, perhaps best known as the team immortalized in the movie SLAP SHOT.
I was never a huge Irbe fan. He had all of the scramble and spazziness of Dominik Hasek without the consistency. But to end up in the ECHL two years after you were playing for the Cup? That's just rough, man.

Wow. So apparently the staff at the RBC Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, home of the Hurricanes, keep really bad stats.
Florida Panther coach Mike Keenan was just complaining about it. But the Hurricanes aren't supposed to be any happier with the accuracy.
On the one hand, what difference do stats make? As long as the goals count, your team is OK. But on the other hand, stats are what players count on to get more money. How can a GM justify giving money to someone who has no recorded shots on goal? Although by not counting the missed shots, players are really getting their shot percentage jacked.
I know the NHL trains all the statisticians, but I assume they're Raleigh residents. That would mean they probably didn't grow up with hockey, or they're a transplant from up north. But either way, the NHL probably doesn't have the deepest pool to select from. I'm surprised it's not more of a problem in Nashville, though. I'd imagine they have even less northerners than Raleigh.

Obviously the good people of Chicago have a lot to deal with this week.
But I hope they're not turning to Blackhawk hockey to lift their spirits.
Eric Daze's back is bothering him again (in fact, he was sent home while the Hawks are out on the road). You might recall Daze messed up his back last season by taking a long car trip. Hawk captain Alex Zhamnov is also hurt, out six to eight weeks with back surgery.
Compounding everything, much heralded defenseman Tuomo Ruutu has been trying to fill the offensive void, causing his blue-line work to suffer.
The Blackhawks are a pretty weak team when they're fully staffed. But without Zhamnov and Daze, they're just candy for the rest of the NHL.

Tim over at RinkBlog tells us about the new four-team South East Hockey League.
That's right. A league made up of just four teams.
Look at their schedule. How silly is that? 'The Knoxville Ice Bears are playing the Moosehead tonight. I wonder who the Fire Antz are playing?'

Here's a shocker! NHL owners reportedly want a hard cap of $31 million. According to the Rocky Montain News NHL Commissioner is shooting for a $35 million cap, but owners can live with $38 million.
Or owners can not sign players to ridiculous contracts. Whatever's easier.

Wow. The Arizona Republic has a nice long look at how Coyotes owner Wayne Gretzky runs the team.
While it's not overly critical, it does raise an interesting question: Do the Coyotes need to suck this much?
Bob McManaman looks at Gretzky's role in the team's successes and failures. He doesn't name any actual successes. I think they're implied.
It is interesting to see someone finally questioning Gretzky's committment to the Coyotes, though. The organization often seems more like a place Gretzky can park his old friends than an actual NHL team. And how many stars have they let go or traded away? But no one really talks about Gretzky maybe not knowing what he's doing, becuase of who he is. It's nice to see someone admitting the emperor is naked.
Oh. And the struggling Coyotes are 3-0 this season.

How much does this suck?
The Bruins sent the mighty P.J. Stock down to their AHL team. Stock's a fighter who can score, once in a blue moon. But more importantly, he had a great online diary last season. He came off as a really great guy. Boston doesn't really need him since they picked up Sandy McCarthy, though.
But don't panic. I have a plan. Why not convert him to a defenseman? He's tough. He can skate and shoot. Boston's blue line is thin. It really couldn't hurt. And the people of Boston (and all over the hockey world), would be very happy.
(Thanks to the blog. for the tip)

Do you remember Chris Dingman?
He's not exactly a household name, but the Tampa Lightning Bolt was downright treacherous in the playoffs against New Jersey. Every time he played a shift, you had no idea what would happen. He checked, he scored. He kind of played like a Devil, come to think of it.
Well you'll be happy to know they still love him in Tampa.
They still use him like a checker. I think he's capable of a lot more.

In case anyone cares, ESPN.com's Page 2 reports fans said the Red Wings have the best uniform in hockey.
Pretty obvious, but nice to see confirmed.
It's a good thing it's a nice uniform. You'll be seeing a lot of the Wings. They're playing four games in the next seven days.

Washington Capital Mike Grier was suspended one game for elbowing Maple Leaf Robert Reichel.
Reichel, some of you may recall, plays for a team that considers the dirty, late hit to be a core part of the game, as much a part of hockey as the slapshot.
Is anyone else thinking of that old commercial where the dad busts the kid for getting high and the kids says "I learned it from watching you, Dad!"
Yeah. Me neither.
Oh. And speaking of the Leafs, Mike Ulmer says they should get ready to be booed all season.
Unless they get suddenly good. I wouldn't count on that, though.

I know Buffalo dropped their first two games, also failing to score in either game. But watching them tie Dallas yesterday I have to say: Buffalo looks pretty tight.
Sure Buffalo could have won, having led Dallas by as much as 4-1, but they were able to preserve the tie. And they can probably learn to stop taking stupid penalties.
Miroslav Satan and Chris Drury will work really well together. You can see them trying to figure each other out. Eventually those near-miss passes they were sending each other all game will start hitting tape.
Sabers owner Tom Golisano supposedly declared that the Sabres need to win the Stanley Cup very, very soon. Golisano denied saying that.
Good thing. The Sabres looked sharp, but not particularly big. Dallas looked monstrous compared to the tiny Sabres.
Or maybe it was my TV. I should check that.
UPDATE: OK. Buffalo actually beat Dallas. It wasn't even an overtime game. Plus, I saw the game. Maybe I was thinking Dallas could have tied it?

I love sports logic.
The Canes decide to move Ron Francis to the left side, to try and save some wear-and-tear on a player who is rapidly approaching 65. It's a fairly standard move.
So coach Paul Maurice starts the season with Francis as a winger and the Hurricanes drop their first two games.
Guess what?
Francis is back in the middle again.
Like that was the problem. It wasn't that Francis needed time to adjust to his new position. It wasn't that the Hurricanes still don't have any real goal-scoring talent. It was that Francis was out of position.
Shockingly, the Hurricanes tied Florida last night. I would have thought with Francis back at center, the Hurricanes would have won by like 12-0.

Who would have guessed?
The Senators gave Martin Havlat a one-year, $1.6 million deal
Saturday afternoon.
Havlat had been playing in the Czech Republic while waiting to come to
terms with the Senators, who seemed pretty committed to not giving
Havlat a lot of dough. I sort of assume the Senators gave him a little
more than they had initially been offering as a show of good faith. Now
it's up to Havlat to either have a killer year and get paid for it or
to fizzle out and come back next year for an hourly wage.
Still, it's a happy ending.

Geez. Everyone is always talking about protecting goalies.
Who's going to protect us from the goalies?
Or from Dallas goalie Marty Turco anyway?
Saturday night against the Predators, he racked up eight minutes worth of penalties in the last six seconds of the Stars' 3-1 win. Turco was slashing and elbowing like Pedro Martinez.
Apparently he's so serious about winning a Vezina this season, he throwing himself out of contention for the Lady Byng, presumably to avoid splitting the vote.
Turco's outburst is pretty serious stuff, though. He could face a fine or suspension. It's kind of surprising, though. I've always thought of Marty Turco as kind of a low-key guy. I guess he was just feeling froggy. And he did attack Peter Forsberg last season.
Oh. And speaking of Nashville, which we were in a roundabout way, Jordin Tootoo, the beloved Predator who's the first NHL player of Inuit decent, has his own Web site. It's at TeamTooToo.com.

How about some fun?
The Dallas Star-Telegram has a list of the top ten reasons hockey rules the world.
And from ESPN.com's always boisterous Page 2, a bracket to determine the best hockey uniform. It's between the Red Wings and the Bruins. The Wings have got to win, though. They look like superheroes in those things. They all look like Winged Wheel Man.
Man, I loved him.
OK. Enough fun.

This is weird. I hadn't heard it. Apparently, when Tampa coach John Tortorella benched goalie Nikolai Khabibulin for their fifth and final playoff game against the Devils, he was just trying to provoke Khabibulin into getting mad and demanding the start.
Khabibulin came up through the Soviet system, though, so he's pretty trained to do whatever a coach says, be it skating or playing or even killing. Well not killing, but maybe. I heard the original title of THUNDERBALL was really THUNDERPUCK. AC/DC ended up stealing the title, and writing "Thunder Struck" (all of you AC/DC fans are going to want to play that ringtone, by the way).

Wow. The National Post has an exhaustive look at Toronto's lack of a solid defenseman since Borje Salming's 1979-1980 season.
Shockingly, I learned that the Leafs, still defensively deprived almost 25 years later, didn't even try to land current Red Wing Darien Hatcher, who was supposedly interested in playing in Toronto.
So from draft picks to veterans, the Leafs have just never been very good on stocking their blue line.
The Post also has an interesting story indicating coach Pat Quinn will be under less pressure this season, now that he's no longer the GM, too.
I'm no psychologist, but I imagine that he might be a bit stressed that his team has no defensemen or defensive system and it's widely thought that his job is riding on the start of this season.
So maybe Quinn doesn't have GM stress this year, but I still don't think he'll be relaxed.

Don McKee of the Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Canadians like hockey.
We'll keep on eye on this for you as it develops.
We're also hearing rumors that people in the Southern United States enjoy college sports. We'll also check that one out for you.

It seems like we'll be hearing a lot of Mike Comrie and Curtis Joseph trade rumors for a while. Not many will involve both of them, though. And neither does this one: Larry Brooks reports that New Jersey might be looking to trade Scott Gomez for Mike Comrie. Gomez had a great rookie year, but never really exploded the way everyone thought he would. Plus, he broke his hand toward the end of the Devils' 2001-2002 season, so that hurt his numbers. It actually seems like a pretty fair swap, though.

Remember when we reported the Devils had a huge ticket price increase?
The Devils say the report is wrong. They say ticket prices haven't risen in two years. I say Devil games are still pretty empty.
I know people who go just to study.