Archive for the ‘Rangers’ Category

LL Cool J to Foppa: ‘We Should Call This a Comeback’

How shocking! Adrian Dater is hearing Peter Forsberg is a bit undecided about his NHL comeback. Although, this is actually a comeback from a comeback. Dater thinks Forsberg is going to give the NHL another go once he’s extensively tested his foot. Do they not get NHL news in Sweden? Has Forsberg not seen the [...]

Ducks Future Hinges on Giguere’s Groin

Anaheim has a couple of issues right now, mostly that they’re 3-5-1 and have dropped four of their last five. But their most pressing problem might be goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere’s groin. Giguere is making $6 million this season and $7 million next season, even as the Ducks have a much stronger, cheaper goaltending option in [...]

Tortorella Reinvents the New York Rangers

Arthur Staple writes about what everyone watching the Rangers has noticed: the team has undergone a dramatic reinvention. Between the coaching changes and the personnel changes, the Rangers are almost completely different. And it seems like John Tortorella’s coaching is responsible for the success of the personnel changes. For instance, previous coach Tom Renney religiously [...]

Lemaire Opens Things Up…Perhaps Too Much

The start of the season is tough, because you always want to make grand statements about teams when you’re really just working off of a small data set. Watching last night’s Rangers-Devils, on Versus (I’m one of the 50 people left with Versus), I was very impressed by the Devils. They didn’t look like a [...]

To Get Tough, Rangers Need to Recall How They Got Soft

This weekend saw Rangers coach John Tortorella formally announce the painfully obvious: The Rangers needs to be a mentally and physically stronger, more aggressive team this season. Tortorella probably doesn’t care how the Rangers ended up this way, but it’s interesting to track, especially because in some ways, he’s responsible for their softness. Tortorella was [...]

NHL GMs: ‘I’ve Got a Tip on the Fourth Line’

David Pollak had a piece discussing how much competition the Sharks have for their third- and fourth-line slots. This seems to be the new GM move: spending an excruciating amount of time, and to a certain extent, money, on guys who will play 10 to 15 minutes a night. At least San Jose GM Doug [...]

Halpern Returns to DC

Not that he’s horribly objective, but Jeff Halpern expects the Lightning to be much more successful this year. Tarik El-Bashir caught up with him in DC and it’s interesting to hear Halpern talk about how hard it was for him to leave the Caps. Halpern also talks about the pressures of being in a contract [...]

Kane Tips and Zherdev Walks

I’m really not too interested in the Patrick Kane cabdriver altercation story, because there’s really no way to know what went down in that cab. And I’m not sure we ever will know. But Chris Kuc has an interesting post remembering Kane interacting with another cabbie, leaving the driver with a huge tip. Obviously, one [...]

Tortorella: ‘Yikes! The Rangers Need Work!’

Larry Brooks caught up with Rangers coach John Tortorella and found some interesting stuff. For instance, veterans are not a lock to make the team out of camp. Assuming this is true, this is a huge departure for a team that loves to talk about a youth movement but has never been willing to support [...]

Smyth Goes Hollywood; Rangers Cast Big Body

The big shock of the weekend, for me, anyway, was Ryan Smyth accepting a trade out of Colorado. For someone who made a very big deal about where he would sign last year, he sure seemed ready to get the heck out of Denver. And while the Banff native was probably happy to get a [...]