Blue Notes

"Well I don't know, but I've been told
You never slow down, you never grow old...
Tired of screwing up, tired of goin' down...

"Last dance with Mary Jane
One more time to kill the pain
I feel summer creepin' in
and I'm tired of this town again...

Can't ever go wrong with Tom Petty and the boys coming thru the Bose, can ya?

The banged-up Rangers have a last dance with the Devils---for the regular season---that is, tonight at Madison Square Garden

A lot of the Rangers (Jagr, Straka, Nylander, Cullen) were excused from the morning skate in Westchester.

But there was a brief Shanny sighting and an encouraging report from coach Tom Renney. A gap-toothed Shanahan, wearing blue shorts and a t-shirt, feigned throwing some jabs at some media folks before ducking into an office.

"He comes in every day, getting some treatment on his shoulder," Renney said, a residual effect of the collision with the Flyers' Mike Knuble that left him briefly unconscious on the ice last Saturday. "He feels better, he's giving Harry (Marek Malik) hell."

Shanahan remains on the IR---eligible to come off on Sunday---and is expected to meet with his neurologist tomorrow. Renney declined to speculate on the veteran forward's return, saying "we'll err on the side of caution."
In other news:

* Renney said he might experiment with Jagr on left wing as he attmpts to shake the Devils' shadows and create open shooting lanes. On his opposite wing, Renney said, perhaps Jagr will shoot more. The puck would be "protected to the inside and he'll be able to snap it," said Renney. "He wants the clear shot," rather than shooting through screens, and as a result is passing too much. "That's not the way the game is going for him."
* As reported yesterday here, Malik's shoulder is well enough for him to play and D Thomas Pock and Jason Krog will be scratched.

* Both Brad Isbister, just recalled from Hartford, and Marcel Hossa, who practiced with a sore neck, will skate in warm-ups and one will dress, Renney said, explaining that both could provide size around the net to be guarded by Martin Brodeur as one way to counter the Devil's defensive strategy. “The activity around the net, the way we’re going to work their D, you don’t get too much off these guys off the rush. So where Ryan (Callahan, Hartford's leading scorer) can and certainly will contribute to our team that way, it’s a big strong body. So if in fact we lose Hossa, we thought we could replace him.”

* Assistant coach Perry Pearn ran practice and at one point, emphasized to the troops the need to shoot on odd-man rushes. "If we get a 2 on 1 tonight, we want to make sure we get a scoring chance." he said.

More from the Garden later....