Monthly Archives: October 2009
The Rangers have announced that P.A. Parenteau has been sent back To Hartford.
Parnteau had one goal in his two games since being called up.
Last night, the Rangers called up Dane Byers from Hartford and were rewarded with a goal. Wednesday night against the Islanders, P.A. Parenteau was called up and he too scored a goal.
John Tortorella spoke of their play, to Steve Zipay, following last night’s game:
“It’s good for their confidence as far as coming to the National Hockey League and contributing. Once we get healthy, I’m not sure how it’s gonna shake out. But they get some games and some minutes and feel they can do it. Especially Byers tonight, coming in right before game time.”
For more, visit Steve Zipay at Blue Notes.
…I like Byers a lot, Parenteau not as much. I think Byers can be a player for this team sooner rather than later. While I don’t disagree with Parenteau being the first call-up, Byers is the one that I would like to see more of.
During last night’s loss to Minnesota, Marc Staal scored the Rangers second goal but turned the puck over in the neutral zone which led to the Wild scoring the game winner.
After the game, Coach John Tortorella spoke about what Staal still has to learn:
“What Stallsie has to learn, it’s not the D leading the rush, before he turns it over (on the third goal), he makes a great play behind the net. He has Dru wide open, he’s got to headman the puck, that’s a basic play, headman the puck and then join that way. You simply cannot beat people if they have the neutral zone jammed and go one on one, he’s young, he’s going to learn that.”
For more on Staal, check out Blue Notes.
…I was hearing some comments, on twitter, about Staal’s play last night and while its frustrating to see him turn the puck over, its all part of the learning process for him to be the type of defenseman that Torts wants him to be. Defensively, Staal has been solid, though struggled recently, he is still the Rangers most sound defenseman defensively.
The Rangers are used to having their offense revolve around one or two players. Jaromir Jagr and Michael Nylander carried the offense the first two years out of the lockout, and now Vinny Prospal and Marian Gaborik are leading the offense.
Gaborik though missed last night’s game with his leg injury and the Rangers only mustered 20 shots on Niklas Backstrom. Prospal put it bluntly, to Steve Zipay,
It’s painfully obvious that Marian Gaborik is the backbone of this offense. “Our best goal scorer is out of the lineup and so far, the other guys haven’t been able to step up in his absence,” said Prospal.
John Tortorella says that the Rangers need to have their offensive players show up:
“I think we beat ourselves, you can’t whine about that, there are some people in our lineup who are supposed to be offensive players …the guys who are there who have brought offense before, this is your chance to help us. There’s no magic potion trying to get out of this.”
For more, check out Blue Notes.
….One player that I liked last night was Artem Anisimov. He was creating chances and I am hoping that he is finally adjusting to the NHL style and will start to contribute more like he did over the last week or so.
Other than that, Ryan Callahan and Brandon Dubinsky both need to get their offense going. As does Captain Chris Drury. I am a big Drury defender but he just seems a little lost out there and needs to pick his game back up, especially in the offensive end.
With Christopher Higgins and Sean Avery out of the line-up last night, the Rangers called up Dane Byers from Hartford.
P.A. Parenteau was called up earlier in the week to replace Marian Gaborik and both were called up instead of prospect Evgeny Grachev.
John Tortorella says that was the call of the people in Hartford:
“That’s the call we got from the coaches down there,” Rangers coach John Tortorella said.
Tortorella admitted, to Andrew Gross, that he was a little unfamiliar with Byers:
“I haven’t seen enough of him to be fair one way or another in terms of impressions,” Tortorella said. “I’ve heard a lot about him. It’s not fair to assess someone, good or bad. We’ll certainly get a chance to assess him tonight.
For more, visit Ranger Rants.
For a recap and stats, visit SNY.tv
-Petr Sykora opened up the scoring, late in the first and gave the Wild a 1-0 lead.
-Dane Byers (1), who showed up 20 minutes before the game started, scored his first NHL goal, from Wade Redden (4)
-Eric Belanger (3) untied the game by beating P.A. Parenteau and chipping the puck past Henrik Lundqvist
-Antti Miettinen (1) added another for the Wild and put them up 3-1
-Marc Staal (2) cut the lead to 3-2 with a goal from Vinny Prospal (13) and Artem Anisimov (4)
-Henrik Lundqvist stopped 29 of 32 shots
-Niklas Backstrom stopped 18 of 20.
-The Rangers had five shots in the first, eight in the second and seven in the third period
-Enver Lisin and Byers led the team with three shots.
The Rangers next game is Sunday Afternoon at 1PM against Boston
The Game:
The Rangers (8-4-1) travel to Minnesota tonight to take on Marian Gaborik‘s former team, the Minnesota Wild (3-9-0).
To see SNY’s preview, click here.
The Goalies:
Henrik Lundqvist (7-3-1) vs Niklas Backstrom (3-7-0)
Minnesota’s Key Players:
Notes:
Marian Gaborik, Sean Avery and Christopher Higgins are all out tonight.
Dane Byers was called up to take a spot tonight. P.A. Parenteau will also be in the lineup,
Donald Brashear also returns to the Rangers lineup.
This is the only meeting of the season for the Rangers and the Wild
All Time:
Overall: 7-3-0-0
At MSG: 4-1-0-0
At Minnesota: 3-2-0-0
How To Catch It:
The game can be seen on MSG 2 starting at 8:00PM.
As reported earlier, Marian Gaborik will miss his second straight game tonight in Minnesota, his former team.
Gaborik practiced today as part of the Rangers option skate and Andrew Gross spoke to Gaborik about where he is right now:
“I think I’m on the right track,” Gaborik said, before being asked whether he’d skate tomorrow – the Rangers play the Bruins Sunday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. “I don’t know. I need to do a lot of treatment.”
“It is disappointing but I can’t do anything about it,”
Also, as you can see below, Dane Byers was called up and both Christopher Higgins, Gross says left ankle for him, and Sean Avery, right knee, will be out of the lineup tonight.
Donald Brashear will return to the Rangers lineup tonight.
Update 12:40PM: According to Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, John Tortorella said that Marian Gaborik, Christopher Higgins and Sean Avery are all out tonight.
ALSO, according to Jim Cerney, on twitter, Henrik Lundqvist will be in net for the Rangers.
Original Post: According to Andrew Gross, on twitter, the Rangers have called up Dane Byers from Hartford.
Byers played one game with the Rangers in 2007-08 and has five points in nine games for Hartford this season.
Byers was the 48th pick in 2004
….This could be insurance for Christopher Higgins and/or Sean Avery. Should know more soon.
Marian Gaborik, who hasn’t skated since he left Monday night’s win over Phoenix, will skate today as he hopes to return to the lineup as the Rangers head to Minnesota.
Gaborik was the first ever draft pick of the Minnesota Wild and is there career leading scorer.
He said yesterday after practice that he would be dissappointed if he couldn’t play against his old team, yet he deosn’t want to exacerbate his injury:
“We’ll see how it is when I wake up,” Gaborik said. “Of course, the closer I was getting to this game, I was thinking about it more and more. It would be nice to play, but I don’t want to … get it worse.
“It’d definitely be special to skate out there and try to beat your old team, especially in front of these great fans.”
For more, visit the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
← Older posts
