Blue Notes

what a terrific outing today, dominant performance.

Dubinsky gets the winner!!!

The Naslund-Gomez-Drury line looks very very good together.

Naslund is a heck of a hockey player and a heck of a bargain at 4 mil cap hit.

Dawes looks out of place on a line with Duby and Zherdev, maybe Voros is a better fit there, get a bigger body in front of the net. Even though we didnt score much we still dominated the game. Kalinin cant play defense for the life of him... would like to see potter there down the road if he keeps making these little mistakes. Betts sucks and Fritsche should be in his place. Overall we look real good and promising, cant wait for tomorrow.

Sophomore slump my A$$...the kid is the captain-in-waiting.

Yoav,

everything you said is negative, but then you finish off with, we look real promising, LOL, that's funny

Anonymous:
I love dawes but hes not gonna score if hes not more involved in the play. Put him with korpi and cally and hell get more chances also would really improve that line.
Dude:
those were just the couple negative things i saw, but besides those few things all looks pretty good.

Honestly I don't have one thing negative to say about anything today regarding this team.

Even the powerplay, they couldn't score on the first 6, but it's so refreshing to see them shoot the puck.

I was very happy with the play of Redden and the way he controls the puck and the transition game.

This could have been 6-1 today, they played nearly a perfect game against a team with some damn good players.

so i guess naslund gomez and drury are not leaders. dubinsky will get his chance at a letter in 2 yrs when naslund's contract ends. what is the rush with some people. he does not need the extra pressure of an A or C right now or even next yr.

Dude:
It could have been 6-1 but wasnt. And they for sure played well but it was not a near perfect game. They had a bunch of giveaways and Tampa was able to get some pretty good chances, luckily we have the king back there.
LI Joe:
Those 3 not leaders?

LI Joe

That was my post...my point is that the kid already plays and acts like a team leader..."he doesn't need the pressure"?...looks like he relishes the pressure. My belief is that Dubinsky will one day be the captain of this team, and probably the one he takes the Cup from Bettman to skate it around on Garden ice. He is important a player as there is on the Rangers, save Henke, and perhaps Staal.

yoav - sarcasm related to anonymous post re Dubinsky. of course those 3 are leaders

Dubinsky or Staal will be the C of the future. But i think the leaders we have are plenty good and have plenty of leadership.

k got it, hard to see sarcasm through blogging

jas - i think when the 3 from the top line are gone the c will be staal or dubinsky looking more like the latter. but that is 4-6 yrs away and 2 yrs away at least from an A.

a few yrs ago the flavor of the day for future C was Orts. never happened. let's see how this plays out.

Team looked great. Besides the screne Dawes was pretty invisible all game. He and Prucha are certainly expendable. Like the idea of playing Voros w/ Dubi and Zherdev. But all and all a great start and certainly nice to see hank back to normal.

Kalinin will be okay....st. louis is a stud and would have gotten around anyone especially flat footed like Kalinin was on the loan goal.

I really am the biggest Dubinsky fan there is. That being said...

Drury is going to be the captain the next 4 years at least. He is a great leader, he has 4 more left on a contract that prohibits him being moved. They aren't taking the captaincy away. He is the captain for the duration.

I think it's extremely overrated the importance of wearing an A, really, do we care?

"a few yrs ago the flavor of the day for future C was Orts"

Not in my neck of the woods. All I'm saying is that, when you watch the kid, and how he approaches the game and his teammates, I think it's pretty clear he's got leadership qualities. Whatever expectations you have for him, just throw them aside because he is determined to surpass them...last year he was supposed to go back to Hartford to start the year; instead, he wins the 3rd line center position, and ends being the only center Jagr can play next to. He;s supposed to drop back to 3rd line this upcoming season, only to be the best forward in camp, forcing Renney to make him the 2nd line center. Putting Dubinsky and Ortmeyer in a comparison of any sort is just silly.

progresion sounds like korpikoski.....

duby can wait a few years for the letter......but kid is a stud.

Dude - depending on the C will tell how much the A is overrated. certainly on a young team like Pitt the A supporting the C of Sid the Kid is more important. the A's support the C in any case so I don't think it's overrated although certainly less important than the C. having a core group of leaders is important so I give the A more importance than you do.

with a diverse team from all corners of the hockey world it is a good idea to give an A to a guy like Naslund to help the other Euros.

JAS - my main point is to be patient with things like the A or C. also not to move otherwise perfectly fine assets like Gomez or Drury just so ones favorite player gets to be top dog. the team to be good needs all oars rowing so all the above named need to produce. The orts comparison was more about the home grown youth faction being too much in a rush for certain things. I personally do not want Dubinsky to be given the C or A over such guys like our current 1st liners. In 2 yrs if Naslund leaves fine give him an A if he is still at this level or above. I fully understand that Dubinsky is far better than Orts. But many of the same people who wanted Orts as C now want Dubinsky.

LI Joe

And my point was not questioning the current leadership of the Rangers; rather, I believe that, some day, Dubinsky will be the captain of the Rangers. Whether or not he has a "C" or and "A" on his sweater means very little to his approach to the game. He has leadership qualities about him. He leads when he's on the ice, and he's a player that the press is going to quotes for after the game. He's being groomed for a leadership role right before our eyes.

jas and when do you think someday is. I don't see an A before 2 yrs and C before 4 to 6 yrs. press also goes to drury and Gomez and both are still signed for 4 and 6 yrs respecrively.

Just a little off topic but do you think that Dubinsky will be on the U.S team for the Olympics. Then we could have 3 Gomez Drury and Dubinsky right down the middle. That would be pretty cool.

Otherwise the Rangers played very well and I think I saw Gomez play one of his best games as a Ranger except for one turnover. The guy was all over the place. Hank played very well as he should be if he wants to be the best in the East. Kalinin had way to many turnovers but he has some great offensive abilities. Dubinsky is a stud and Zherdev was also hustling his ass off. At one time I saw him give up his body to block a shot from the point. That is one thing that really stood out at me. Zherdev looks like the real deal and will only get better. The guy was all around the net making plays. He looks really good with Dubinsky. He had one glaring turnover at his own blue-line but I am confident that Renney will get him to stop doing that.
Staal looked really good and by the end of the season I wouldnt be surprised if he was our #1 defensemen. Overall a solid win but we need to score more and that is what it comes down too. If the Rangers have 7 power plays they need to score more than once. Naslund could have had 3 or even 4 goals today.

LI Joe

I have no timeline for it...however, I wouldn't guarantee either Gomez or Drury finishing their careers as Rangers, so who knows.

give credit to smith he plays well everytime he plays the rangers. i still think we should just trade prucha for a draft pick, save the money incase we need either shanny or sundin cause of injury to someone key. put voros on the second line and dawes on the 3rd have fritsche center the 4th with orr on one wing and rissmiler on the other. keep betts and sjostrem and rotate them into the lineup here and there. Im so excited this is really going to be a sick and exciting year. I think if Renney keeps Kalinin with Girardi and Mara with Staal it really improves our D and they looked much better. Less giveaways when those pairings were together, and then maybe Girardi's awesomeness can make up for the times kalinin gets caught... and we always have the king back there dont forget

Kalinen suciks, he's our Malik of 2008-09. Dawes seems out of it but he has shown he could do the job in the past. Korpikoski is a great addition. He will be the Dubinsky of this season. To me, Prucha and Dawes are on the bubble. Fritshe, Sjostrom and Rissmiller are waiting to play.

Voros, Betts and Orr look solid foir the 4th line.

Not ready to do my usual bashing of Renney until I see more of this team. Right now, I’m bashing Sather for picking up Kalinen, Roszival and Redden. All Mr Softee’s.

For a 1st game I think we played ok..I was most impressed w/the forechecking, something I didn't expect. I also think it's a bit unfair to make any judgements after the 1st game.....we need to let this team jell before we start putting anyone down!!!!!!!!!!!! I am happy Drury is our Capt. for the next 4 years, and Gomez and Naslund "complete" the leadership roles, and the reason there are assistant captains you ask? because the leadership is divided on the bench and on the ice, And if the captain is having an off night, the assistants pick up their roles. .....We played a decent team with 3-4 good players...not a great team by no means w/a new coach and goaltender. Our 1st true test comes against the Flyers on 10/11, then against the Devils 10/13.

I am from the Yankee blog and owe all of Red Sox Nation an apology. They own us. I use to get coffee for the brokers at Bear Sterns. Now I am part of the demolition team.

I think we should trade Dawes for the kid Gretzky. He is good a defense.

This team is a work in progress, kind of funny after one game some of you guys want to dump young players. I think the key word for this team is patience. Drury will (is) a great captain, and yes BD will be a team leader without a letter. I am sure we will see him on Team USA along with Stall. I thought Prucha and Dawes look good yesterday. The Jury is out Kalinin....

If you go to the games stand behind these guys, remember this is a Marathon to reach the Cup

Dawes shouldnt be dumped cause he can play both sides of the ice but prucha cant. Dawes should play on that third line with korpi and cally they would be real good for a 3rd line on both ends and they could each have 15-20 goals. Prucha is always gonna be the odd man out on this team and its time to just trade him and get something in the range of a 2nd round pick back. The key to being a good team long term and always have good younger players coming is when you see one doesnt fit dont waste him and kill his value, get something while you can at least for the future if you cant get something for now.

Mike From Foxboro

Staal is Canadian.

Dubinsky making that the U.S Olympic team would be sick then we could have all 3 centermen In Gomez, Drury, Dubinsky that would be pretty sick.

For once it wasn't me that started on Mr Renney. It's way too early and he can only play the hand he was dealt by Mr Sather. I think the forwards playing and obtained are a big improvement over last year. They are younger and faster.Would like to see Renney switch off on line 4 and let the combination of Sjpstrom, Rissmiller and Fritsche battle the present combination Voros, Betts and Orr. Too bad they can't dress 5 lines. :~)

Think there are two left wing spots on the top three lines still up fpr grabs with Voros (who played on the 4th yesterday), Dawes, Prucha, and Fritsche battling for two jobs still open in my opinion.

Did you see Drury go after Recchi when he shot the puck at Hernik after the game was over? That's a great start as captain of this team.

Like I already said, the Achilles Hell is those three Mr Softees on defense but nice to see how good Del Zotto, Potter and Fahey looked in the pre season plus Sags might step it up too. We should have a speedy defense with a little size too. Glad Kalinen was just signed for this season.

The D is definitely scary soft. I'd love to see Roszival and Kalinen go for someone with some size and grit. Some size on the wing would be nice too. The lineup for the most part looks solid but they're not quite there yet. Sather never seems to finish the job. Always a trade or two short. Hopefully this season he does'nt wait till the deadline to finish the job. We've all seen how that works.

You know people bash on Kalinin for that goal St.Louis scored, but he had the right idea in forcing St.Louis to go wide, rather than cut in, and he was already stopped, so there was no way for him to catch St.Louis, and IMO Henrik should have hugged the post.

That said, I feel Kalinin is a solid addition to the team, he's not the best defender there is, but he's steady (faster than malik, and he has a MUCH better shot, and is willing to jump into the play).

Roszival still looks like he's not 100% from that offseason surgery but he hasn't been terrible.

I've been happy with Redden, he's doing exactly what was expected of him. Solid defender, PP QB.

Right now our toughest D are Mara, Staal, and Girardi, who take the body often. All 3 have shown they are willing to stand up for their teammates (and subsequently all 3 have pretty sinister shots, Girardi's Wrister, Mara's Slapper and Staal can do both).

I think there's a theme here as far as our defenders go, with not being the Brooks Orpik's or Dion Phaneuf's, but playing solid defense and not being afraid to provide some offense