What Ranger Jerseys Can You Comfortably Wear?...

I started compiling this list after I was at the Ranger-Islander game at the Coliseum last Wednesday and saw Nikolai Zherdev and Lauri Korpikoski standing next to each other. Of course, it wasn't actually them, but two people who paid a combined $360 for the jerseys of two players who no longer play on the Rangers.

Yet, some players no longer play in New York, but you can still wear their jersey and be proud of it. And even further, there are some players who play here whose jersey should not be worn, and if it is, you should be ridiculed.

Think you're safe? Check the list...

Good (Wear Proudly)
Jaromir Jagr #68 (had a great resurgence in NY; since he didn’t win a Cup, you have about 2 more years with this jersey before you should move on)
Brendan Shanahan #14 (I would never fault someone for having a Shanny jersey)
Henrik Lundqvist #30
Blair Betts #15/19; Jed Ortmeyer #41 (you can wear there jerseys for years and they would be appropriate)
Nigel Dawes #10 ; Petr Prucha #25 (it’s not your fault they were traded)
Sean Avery #16
Dan Girardi #5; Brandon Dubinsky #17; Marc Staal #18; Ryan Callahan #24; Artem Anisimov #42
Mike Del Zotto #4; Matt Gilroy #97 (buy with no hesitation; there two will be around a while)
Marian Gaborik #10
Steve Rucchin #20 (because I have one, and every once in a while, I still wear it)
Petr Nedved #93
Brian Leetch #2; Adam Graves #9; Mark Messier #11; Mike Richter #35
Jeff Beukeboom #23 (or mostly any member from the 1994 Cup team)
Ales Kotalik #12; Vinny Prospal #20; Martin Straka #82; Michael Nylander #92 (not the superstar of the team, but they compliment a Jagr or Gaborik well)
Eddie Giacomin #1; Rod Gilbert #7; Andy Bathgate #9; Ron Duguay #10 (or any other number he wore); Phil Esposito #77 (if you were old enough to watch these players play)

Iffy (Wear Cautiously)
Darius Kasparaitis #6; Pavel Bure #9; Theo Fleury #14 (I don’t mind the players, but it’s time for a new one, don’t you think?)
#28 Colton Orr (had a solid season last year, but there weren’t other choices?)
#99 Wayne Gretzky (can’t fault a Gretzky jersey, but it has been a decade since he left and he was in the twilight of his great career here. If he won a Cup, that would be different, of course.)
Alex Kovalev #27 (hey, he still might come back, and after all, he did win the Cup here as a rookie)
Chris Drury #23 (you obviously bought it during the summer of 2007 when you thought he’d be a superstar in New York, but he plays hard enough most of the time to warrant wearing him on your back... sometimes)

Bad (Give Them Away to the Garden of Dreams Foundation)
(Before you ask, yes, I have seen all of these jerseys recently.)
Dale Purinton #5 (seriously, I once saw one)
Andy Bathgate #9 (if you were born after 1955, you should not wear a Bathgate jersey. If you have seen him play in person, go for it.)
Lauri Korpikoski #29; Fedor Tyutin #51 (while it’s not your fault they were traded, it’s your fault for buying one in the first place)
Wade Redden #6 (must’ve been a present)
Ivan Baranka #21 (one NHL game and you have a jersey?)
Steve Valiquette #40 (you got it to be different, admit it)
Michal Rozsival #33
Eric Lindros #88 (Only one other jersey makes me madder, and I even have a Lindros jersey... safely in my closet. While Lindros, the player, wasn't awful, this jersey symbolizes a horrible stretch of time in Rangers history and wearing it only brings up good memories. No one goes, "Oh, the Lindros Era! What a jolly time!")
Luc Robitaille #20 (he wasn’t here long enough/didn’t play good enough to warrant having his jersey still 10 years later)
Chris Higgins #21 (until he proves otherwise)
Nik Zherdev #13
Markus Naslund #91
Ryan Hollweg #44 (Yes, I have one - I got it after his great 2005-06 season - and no, I’ll probably never wear it again, even though about 15 players have signed it)
Tom Poti #3/16
Dan Blackburn #31 (by this logic, you should’ve gotten a Lundqvist when he first came up)

And the worst Rangers jersey to wear...
Scott Gomez #19 (You bought it when he was signed. He never did anything in New York except play well against them. Everyone sighed when he was finally traded. Yet, you continue to wear this on your back when real players like Prospal and Gaborik actually show up to play. If you have a Scott Gomez jersey, please don't wear it. No one wants to see it, no one wants to remember him.)

Rangers Finally Score Goals...

The Rangers didn't play great last night, but they outplayed Washington, finally scored more than 2 goals in a game, didn't play atrociously, and got two points out of the deal.

I wonder if Scott Gomez has watched the replay of Paul Mara's goal a few dozen times. If Tom Renney still had control of this team, he would probably make him do that to show him what can happen when you fire from in front of the net as opposed to a crappy, low-angle shot from the boards. (He also should be force-fed replayed of Ryan Callahan's, Lauri Korpikoski's, and even Markus Naslund's goals so he can learn to crash the net/shoot from the slot to score goals).

Gomez's play has gone from serviceable to inconsistent to poor to horrendous. Nobody making $7M/year should be described as "horrendous" now that we have a salary cap in place. It was different when Eric Lindros and Val Kamensky ate up money, because it only affected the wallet. Now, it affects the entire team like an 800-pound gorilla in the room. As opposed to when it used to just cost money, it now handcuffs the team from making other moves because they have a non-performing player with an un-trade-able contract.

He's not just a non-performer. He actually hurts the team with his giveaways near his own goal, in the offensive zone, and his blown coverages that lead to goals (namely, when he was staring at Henrik Lundqvist instead of the man who eventually scored the Capitals' 2nd goal last night).

Between him and Wade Redden, $13.8M in salary cap room is alloted to players who actually help the other team. For the next 5 years after this year, as well.

Think these two are bad now? Wait to see them slower and older in 2013.

* * * 

I want you to look, next time the Rangers give up a goal, at where the players are standing/looking. Nearly every goal they give up, including the first 3 last night, the players were looking at the puck-carrier and not paying attention to the rest of the ice. Joe Micheletti brought it up on the first goal, where everyone (biggest error was Redden) was staring at the puck. 

It was also evident on Mike Green's goal to make it 3-2 Capitals, when he was alone just above the right circle. Four Rangers were "hounding" the puck-carrier - who in reality wasn't pressured at all - and Green was wide open as the 5th Ranger was nearer to him but was also staring at the puck.

* * * 

Aaron Voros was in the lineup presumably because Renney likes his "size" and ignores the fact that he is a poor skater, doesn't punish people with body checks like a man his size should, and doesn't put pucks in the net. 

I've been harping on the fact that his size hasn't given the team anything lately except a blowout loss, a bunch of shutouts and one near shutout.

Well, I stand corrected. Last night, he correctly demonstrated to all those in the system how to effectively lose a fight to someone you tower over. 

Not sure, but I think even Petr Prucha would've stood a better chance against Matt Bradley.

A Case for Mats Sundin...

In years prior, the Rangers would sign big-name contracts to big-name deals and would get nothing in return. Eric Lindros, injured and slow, would play like Brett Lindros. Pavel Bure played like Pavel Bure for 51 games before his knees wouldn't let him skate. Alex Kovalev never played up to his potential on his return-trips to Broadway, Bruce Driver didn't do much as a Ranger, Bobby Holik got paid 1st-line money even though he was a checking-line player, and when he played the checking line role, he got dumped on. 

The list goes on and on of people who gladly accepted money from the Rangers and didn't produce. Kevin Stevens, Val Kamensky, Matt Schneider, etc., etc., etc.

Mats Sundin is a different breed. If he wanted the money, he would be in Vancouver and taking 20 million of their dollars until next season is over.

Yet, he wants the prize. He wants a Stanley Cup.

Many people - me included, and hopefully him as well - think the Rangers are a few parts short of contending. They have a Top 3 goalie and some good quick forwards. Their defense is questionable-at-best, but if they employ Tom Renney's system, they can mask their flaws and Henrik Lundqvist can do the rest, much like they did at the beginning of this season and most of last.

Now, is Sundin an aging superstar? Obviously, but isn't everyone? His stats have never wavered. The last time he didn't have 72 points or more in a season? 1994-95 when the strike shortened the season, and he had 47 points in 47 games.

Since the lockout, he has averaged over a point per game, which would make him easily the most proficient Ranger on a roster where someone gets hot for 5 games then cold for three weeks. See: Chris Drury, and his 5G, 1A week in November, and his 4 points since then. 

He is a leader in the Brendan Shanahan-mold, except he isn't so injured that he becomes useless like Shanahan was from January to May of 2008. He is big, he takes up room around the net, and two players flock to him, leaving another player open.

He is the equivalent of Jaromir Jagr in 2005-06, before hip and shoulder injuries bested him.

I'm not going to pontificate on who the Rangers should trade or waive to make more cap room (although if I were Dmitri Kalinin, I would certainly keep a suitcase on hand). But the point remains, Sundin for one year makes a whole lot of sense for the Rangers.

Colin Campbell...

For the first time, I watched the Mike "4 Career Goals" Mottau's hit on Frans Nielsen. Very reminiscent of Brandon Sutter giving the Rayden Torpedo to Alexei Cherepanov in the Summit Series. He left his feet, he was looking for an injury. Here, Mottau headhunted Nielsen. A disgusting play on par with Chris Simon attacking Ryan Hollweg and Todd Bertuzzi-ing Steve Moore, and he gets 2 games for it.

Michael Peca touches a linesman's arm, automatic 5 game suspension. (Yes, I'm familiar with the ruling on an automatic suspension when an official is touched.)

Doug Weight gives a clean, feet-on-the-ice check to Sutter, and people vilify Weight for two weeks.

"Disciplinarian" Colin Campbell - and I use the term disciplinarian very lightly - claims it wasn't a direct hit to the head. Well, maybe he didn't see Mottau single out Nielsen and then LEAP off the ice and attack him.

Very questionable ruling.

Some plays are accidental. Weight on Sutter, for example. Jason Doig, while a bad player and a victim of the lockout (where only skilled players stay be in the NHL), injured Eric Lindros for the season, not on purpose but from a hard hit. Same can be said for Scott Stevens leveling Lindros.

However, my view on plays where the person is obviously looking for blood is that they should be suspended until the injured player can play again. Mottau should be out 2-3 months or however long it takes his victim to return. If it means a player will never play again, as it should be in Bertuzzi's case, so be it.

Anyone who wants to take the NHL to task on this horrific ruling can do so Thursdays at 4 as Gary Bettman goes on XM Home Ice 204 (and Sirius 208) to take calls from the fans. No doubt he will be hearing about this next Thursday (as I'm assuming he doesn't host a show on Thanksgiving), and no doubt he will be sticking to party-lines and reiterating what Campbell said, as he never makes waves and always touts the league as in the right. While I love the fact that the Commissioner of the NHL has a radio call-in show (that is always a good listen), I wish he wasn't so vanilla and he would stray from middle-0f-the-road, my-employees-are-always-right answers. If he came out and said Campbell flubbed this, maybe something could be done to change it.

* * *

Links to mentioned videos...

Sutter flying into Cherepanov

Nielsen getting attacked by Mottau

Weight's clean hit on Sutter

Moore getting his neck broken by Bertuzzi

The Difference...

I've probably spoken about this before, but there is a stark difference in this year's Rangers team as opposed to years past. 

Before the lockout, the Rangers were notorious for leaving points on the table. It was a few years ago, so my memory of those lean years is (thankfully) fading, but in 2002-03 and 03-04, I used to try to keep track of how many games the Rangers blew when leading 2-0 or 3-1, only to lose in regulation or overtime or tie. Points lost to weak links like Atlanta, Columbus, and Chicago would have led the team into the playoffs.

Back when Chris Simon, Matt Barnaby, Petr Nedved, Eric Lindros, and Mike Dunham wore Ranger blue, no one played as a team, and they had no chemistry. Nobody besides Leetch, Messier, and Richter cared if the team won or loss. They were there for their paychecks, and that was that. Free agency hit at 31, so they collected big money from the big bosses in NY, then rested on their laurels (does that phrase apply?).

The years after the lockout were different. The Czech Contingent played as a team, and everyone adapted to it. The 2005-06 season was a dream season. Jaromir Jagr playing like a beast, Marty Straka and Rucinsky playing great, rookies like Hollweg, Ortmeyer, and Moore playing with heart. 

In the past 2 years, the team was good, but it lost some identity. There were a lot of points left on the table as well, however, no one complained because the team reached the playoffs. 

Do you remember in 2007 when the Rangers would consistently blow 2-goal leads? As a fan, I would cringe when they would go up 2 goals. They were up 3-1 to Detroit at MSG, and the whole building was waiting for them to blow it. And they did, in regulation.

I remember one game against the Penguins, March 2007. The Rangers were up 2-0, gave up two shorthanded goals to tie the game, went up 3-2, then gave up a powerplay goal. They lost 4-3 in a shootout. At that point, the season seemed lost. However, the next game, the Rangers beat St. Louis in a shootout after being down 2-0, came back and made the playoffs.

This year, they are playing much like the did down the stretches in 2007 and 2008, like they did that night against the Blues at MSG. Yes, they have flaws. They had shaky-at-best offense against Dallas and Buffalo, including some shaky-at-best defense against Dallas. 

But they fight back. They were behind against Detroit on the second game of a back-to-back (after a flight to Michigan) and scored 2 third period goals. They were down 2-0 to Pittsburgh even though they played well for most of the game, and they didn't give up.

The difference in this team from the teams in previous seasons is that they don't let their flaws bring them down. They still find ways to win. They haven't played like Stanley Cup champions every game this season, but an 8-2-1 record after a shortened training camp and 8 preseason games is nothing to complain about.

Plus, I'm smiling like a 7-year-old on Christmas morning from watching that Nik Zherdev goal over and over again.

Notes From the Garden, 10/20/08...

A few notes from the Garden after a stinker that saw the Rangers play two spirited minutes and 58 boring ones.

1) First of all, kudos to the people who still wear the Charlestown Chiefs jerseys, 31 years after the movie Slap Shot was released. 

2) I don't think the guy in the Fedor Tyutin jersey liked me joking that "My Christian Backman jersey is at home."

3) Sean Avery gets crap from the fans when he wanted to remain a Ranger but they didn't return the favor. If Eric Lindros returns, will he get the same treatment for his mediocre play that Avery got for his inspired play over 2 seasons? Fact is, Avery and Henrik Lundqvist were the reasons this team made the playoffs in 2006-07 and 2007-08.

4) I think the girl who I drunkedly called "a dirty wh**e" on Saturday attacked me more than the Rangers attacked the Dallas Stars tonight. The scoreboard said 27 shots for the Rangers. How many of those were actual good shots? There was the Markus Naslund goal, the Brandon Dubinsky play where he toe-dragged then took a shot, and maybe one or two others that I don't remember. 

The games the Rangers won were good. The Detroit OT loss was acceptable because they gave a strong effort after a game the night before and a long plane flight. But the two losses - Buffalo and tonight - were utterly atrocious. The only bright spot is that they have exposed holes that Tom Renney can fix.

5) Chris Drury once again made his case to be captain of the Hartford Wolf Pack. Sixteen minutes of ice time, one shot, one shot that missed the net, one blocked shot, no takeaways, no hits. What exactly did he do when he was on the ice?

6) The only players who played well today were Lundqvist, Dubinsky, Dan Girardi, and Paul Mara. Both Mara and Girardi crushed Avery with checks. Naslund's goal was a good goal, but can you tell me he played good the rest of the game? He had 4 other shots, but once again, those were bad shots and not scoring chances.

7) I was told today by someone very high up in the Rangers organization that Petr Prucha is being actively shopped and the reason he is not in the lineup is so he doesn't get injured or lessen his value with a poor performance. The source is extremely credible, you would know his name if I said it, and it depresses me that he is the one to be moved because of the plethora of forwards on the team.

* * * 

Not to beat a dead horse, but a note on Bryan's Rick DiPietro post below: If DP is somehow a relevant starting goalie until the end of his career, then $4.75M will look like a steal 9 or 10 years down the line. However, with every head injury or skills competition injury, that looks less and less likely.

On Campbell, Hossa, Sundin, and Other, Former Mistakes...

The Rangers would be in a terrible position if they decided to throw $8M a year at Marian Hossa or Brian Campbell (or Mats Sundin, for that matter). Yes, they are all good players, but that's a lot of money. Remember when Eric Lindros made $8M, and Bobby Holik made $9M? The Rangers were a bunch of expensive, overpaid, underachieving, non-performing jokes.

The Salary Cap Era was supposed to change that. Payroll got cut from over 80 million dollars a year in 2003-04 to less than half of that in 2005-06. Ticket prices went down 10%, roughly $4-$16 a ticket depending on how rich you are, but not because of the work stoppage, but because they didn't make the playoffs for the 7th straight season.

I don't need to run this down for you. You know how bad things were in NY. Hockey was off the radar because both teams were ridiculous.

So, the Cap Era is ushered in, the Rangers restock their farm system, build a Czech-centric team around Jaromir Jagr, and have a dream season, followed by 2 more seasons of making the playoffs.

Now, if all the rumor-mongers are to be believed - and by no means am I saying this is true, but you can see it all playing out, can't you? - GM Glen Sather will be making pitches to any of these 3 players.

Hossa has averaged a point per game in his career 4 times (including once when he had 80 points in 80 games). Last season, he had 66 points in 72 games. Jason Arnott and Ales Hemsky were on the same pace. Yet, if someone offered Arnott $8M a year, he would be put in an asylum. Hossa is 29, no doubt looking for atleast 6 years. He will be an expensive cap hit when he's putting up 25 points a year at age 35.

You should also ask Carlos Beltran, Stephon Marbury, Dwayne Wade, and Lindros about how that old adage goes. Something about phoning it in when a player already has his big guaranteed paycheck.

Campbell is a good defenseman with a nice scoring touch. Lucky for him that Dan Boyle re-signed with Tampa Bay in February, so he is the only one of his kind on the free agent market, making him a very rich man automatically. Yes, Buffalo could have had him at $5M/year last summer, but they rejected his offer, and now someone is going to offer him (along with his 8 goals last season) a huge contract in both length and cash.

New York used to overpay for defensemen with marginal-at-best talent, or have we forgotten Stephane Quintal, Bruce Driver, Mathieu Schenider, Ulf Samuelsson, Vladimir Malakhov, and Boris Mironov. It was because of these players like people like Sergei Zubov, Mattias Norstrom, and Marek Zidlicky, all once drafted by the Rangers, were shipped off.

Sign Campbell, have him stick around, and Sather will wind up trading Mike Del Zotto, Mike Sauer, or Bobby Sanguenetti for a 2nd round pick in 2 years.

And yes, Sundin is a good player as well (and in the 90s he was amazing), but when the team is trying to get younger, does it pay to sign an expensive center when we already have 4 solid centers? (Yes, I consider Blair Betts "solid", considering his role as a 4th line center and an exceptional penalty killer at a very reasonable price.)

Need I remind you how bad hockey was in these parts when Oleg Kvasha and Alexandre Daigle were marquee names?

* * *

With Ryan Malone off the market, the Rangers best moves are to send offer sheets to Corey Perry, a young RW, and Jay Bouwmeester, whose name is fun to spell. Brooks Orpik, whose stock rose with one shift in Game 3 of the Finals, wouldn't be bad, although I am still bitter of him breaking Erik Cole's neck. Mark Streit and Ron Hainsey would be good choices if the price is right. Wade Redden was bad at 31. How awful is he going to be at 35?