With two defenseman who weren’t living up to the contract numbers that they signed, Michal Rozsival and Wade Redden, and two rookie defenseman, Michael Del Zotto and Matt Gilroy, the Rangers were hoping that 22 year old defenseman Marc Staal would anchor the defense.

Instead this has been an up and down year for Staal, who John Tortorella wanted to get more involved in the offense side of things rather than just play stellar defense.

“I think Marc has had his ups and downs,” Tortorella said. “We still have a fairly young guy there in Marc Staal. We’re heaping a lot of responsibility on him as far as a guy that’s going against a lot of top players plus adding power-play time. It’s really the first time with him. You worry about ice time at certain times. You worry about putting them in situations where you want them to succeed and not fail. So we’ll juggle that a little bit as we go through.”

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Staal has two goals and five assists this season while playing in every game for the Rangers. He also has 22 shots on goal and is a minus two for this season.

…Its strange because while the idea would be to get all defenseman to play the Tortorella style and jump into the play, instead of having zero of them last season, the Rangers have two now in Del Zotto and Gilroy. Gilroy especially. Staal is still so young and has shown so much promise that if this year turns into a learning one for Staal for the bigger picture, then so be it. Staal is so important to the Ranger future that letting him back into his defensive role and taking him off the powerplay is probably the best move for now.