B R O A D W A Y***B L U E S H I R T S

September 22, 2008

A Good Case of the Blues

UPDATE: The Rangers have agreed to terms with Evgeny Grachev on an NHL entry-level contract. He is the third of this year's draftees to be signed along with Tomas Kundratek and Dale Weise. Mike Del Zotto is a good bet to be next. Grachev is expected to play with Brampton of the OHL as a junior.

Four members of Team White are, as of the morning skate, coming right back onto the ice as members of Team Blue tonight at the pre-season opener at the Garden. Brandon Dubinsky, the best player in camp as well as in Ottawa, will possibly knock Andreas Jamtin out of the line-up and Petr Nedved down to the third line tonight, centering Dan Fritsche, who he lined up with on the first two days of camp, and shooting star Dale Weise, the recently signed 20-year-old right winger who moves up from the fourth line for an accelerated audition. Nedved's demotion may be the death knell of his bid to return to the NHL.

Aaron Voros, Dubinsky's linemate in Ottawa, will get another chance to agitate the Sens' goalies and defensemen on the left side of a third line with Nedved and P.A. Parenteau. Brodie Dupont is the victim here, knocked completely out of the line-up with Jamtin, his most recent center, the Swedish Sean Avery who has shown little so far in camp. Colton Orr will also be back, hoping to show off his new skill set for a second straight game on an interesting line with Antem Anisimov and Lauri Korpikoski, two of the leading candidates for promotion from Hartford. Hugh Jessiman, a third hopeful, may have lost his spot as a result.

On defense, Brian Fahey gets a second straight start, replacing Maxim Kondratiev on the third pair with Thomas Pock. This move could signal the end of Kondratiev's bid to return to the Rangers, or it could just be Fahey getting one last chance to show what he can do before moving to where he was expected to play, Hartford. Fahey has quietly gotten a much longer look in camp than anyone expected, so he may very well have become a bona fide candidate for #7 D, or at least a candidate for an early call-up from Hartford in case of injury.

Other than these changes, which are not set in stone and could be juggled again by game time tonight, fans can look forward to getting their first look at the Rangers' top six players -- the first line of Scott Gomez centering Markus Naslund and the struggling Nikolai Zherdev, the top defensive pair of Wade Redden (facing his former club in his first game for another team) and Dan Girardi, and of course number one goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who will be backed up by Matt Zaba, competing for a job in Hartford. Bobby Sanguinetti gets a chance to show his stuff, paired up with Dmitri Kalinin.

Thanks to Blue Lines, Ranger Rants, and Rangers Report for posting the lines. Redden's match-up against his former team is the subject of an article in the Ottawa Sun. Fritsche is profiled by NYR.com. The Post says that Brendan Shanahan turned down a formal invitation to participate in training as a try-out. If Jessiman doesn't play, that would derail an unusual match-up of players from Darien, Connecticut -- Ottawa is expected to dress Ryan Shannon, another product of Jessiman's home town, as Steve Buono reports in the Darien Times. The Record has a look at Jessiman too. And like Jessiman, another former Ranger draftee is making his annual training camp bid to avoid being a first round bust -- Al Montoya in Phoenix (read about it here).

Today at Blueshirt Bulletin+ we have our impressions of how the players on Team White have done through three full days of training camp and one pre-season game -- click here to read it if you subscribe to Blueshirt Bulletin. If you need instructions on how to access BB+, write to us at Blueshirt@mindspring.com. If you are not a subscriber, E-mail us or click here to learn how to take out a subscription to get the magazine as well as BB+ access.

xavier mcdaniel wrote:

I wouldn't anticipate him being on the team. Renney didn't exactly offer a ringing endorsement. I liked the way Zherdev and Naslund played together though.

too much promising youth,

a problem we havent had in a very long time, if ever.

singularity wrote:

nedved released:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=3611739

i thought he looked pretty good in the 3 games he played, but i am not too suprised he was released.

i would have liked him on the team, i thought he could have brought alot of good traits to the table.

ah well, so ends his NHL career.

adios petr

back to the czech republic.
in al the interviews isaw with him he acknowledged that this would most likely happen ( as to opposed to him actually making the squad ) .

maybe theyll drop him off with the planeride
over to prague for the 2 season openers.

the youth has prevailed at camp
that is until the final cuts.
:eek:


who will it be ?

2 more days till the season begins.


to me, it wont really begin until the Blueshirts are back in the States and playing to the Garden Faithful on 34th between 7th amd 8th .



[size=+2]

http://ordinaryleastsquare.typepad.com/blueshirtbulletin/



October 03, 2008
Paper Cuts
Corey Potter and Brian Fahey became the last two players cut from the roster to help the Rangers reach the 23-man regular season roster limit by today's noon deadline. That they could both be re-assigned without going through waivers was a major factor in the final decision, according to a Ranger source. And that suggests that the cuts were, for the moment, simply done on paper -- the reality is that Potter and Fahey, neither of whom would have dressed for the season opener anyway, are still with the team in Prague and could instantly be called up should a defenseman get hurt tomorrow night. Indeed, the same is true of Miika Wiikman should a goaltender be needed.

Up front, Lauri Korpikoski appears to have made the team -- he told me today that as far as he knew, he was the Rangers' third line center. It also means that the Rangers will carry his $1.1 million salary without eliminating a veteran forward with a comparable salary, at least for the time being. Once the team returns to New York and the re-assigned players have to physically re-locate to Hartford, the Rangers may make further adjustments, as Renney hinted today during his press conference. They may have to move one of the forwards to make room for a seventh defenseman, forwards who are protected for the next two games from the waiver wire. But Renney will use these two regular season games to further evaluate those extra forwards to see who might stay and who might go.

NCBRI wrote:

I drafted King Henrik and Naslund for my fantasy team. Will I be able to sit back and enjoy the spoils of these 2 picks? Who is Naslund going to skate with? Is Lundqvist banged up?

As far as I know, Henrik is fine. ( I also met him last week in NYC - he looked fine and said he was in good shape. Does this stem from a rumour of him receiving a cortisone shot in his kneee(s) ?
Because I read that was strictly prophylactically done and there were no injuries to report- granted something like that isnt going to be on the front page of the NY Daily News or Post either. So who knows for sure . ?

Practice lines: Gomez, Drury and Naslund; Dubinsky, Zherdev and Dawes; Korpikoski, Callahan and Sjostrom; Betts, Orr and Voros; Fritsche, Rissmiller and Prucha. Defense pairs remain the same.



this line can possibly score a helluva lotta points- you may win your fantasy league on that pick alone ! Nice ! Good Luck !


cant wait for tomorrow ! totally pumped


[/size]