Ever seen the movie Groundhog day with Bill Murray? You remember the flick, the one where the guy kept living the same day over and over and over again? Well this preseason seems like a groundhog day kind of event. 4 straight game in 4 straight days, all essentially 1 goal losses (not counting empty netters), 3 of which you can say the Rangers out and out dominated the opponents only to lose.
Again though, like I have been stressing all preseason long, the results are unimportant, it’s the individual performances that need to be examined. So keeping with that theme let’s talk about tonights game. It featured the Rangers A B C D team. With only Petr Prucha, Dan Girardi, Dimitri Kalinin, Wade Redden, Ryan Callahan and Aaron Voros as locks to make the team barring a trade. These aren’t game changing forwards by any stretch of the imagination here folks. Despite having this rag-tag group of forwards out there, there were a lot of positives to talk about.
Lauri Korpikoski, Corey Potter and P.A. Parenteau continued their superb preseason play, with Korpedo standing out in particular for his beautiful individual effort goal, and setting up Prucha for a tap in which he flubbed. Korpikoski, in my eyes, looks like a lock to make this club. But then again, I am not Tom Renney, so God knows how he will play this one out. Parenteau also flubbed a gimme goal when Prucha gave him the puck for a tap in and he missed wide on the wrong side by about 3 feet. But still he set up many good shots, had many good shots himself and looked very much like he belonged. Right now it would be hard to rationalize cutting either of these guys, unfortunately the salary cap is what it is. Corey Potter also had a fantastic game, but he did have 1 bad play which for some reason is escaping me, but I do recall during the game making a mental note to comment on something dumb he did (I don’t take physical notes while I watch, it’s too distracting to me). It may have been the penalty he took, but I actually think it was just a terrible turnover in his own zone.
On the redemption end of things Dan Fritsche and Patrick Rissmiller had much better games, Fritsche in particular. He had a goal, and threw the body around liberally, and was noticeable on most shifts, unlike in previous games. Rissmiller also had a few good plays as well, but still doesn’t look near good enough to force a spot in my eyes. Nedved has also looked pretty good in these preseason games, but not nearly good enough for me to want him anywhere near this team.
The veterans looked pretty good as well. I felt Dan Girardi and Wade Redden looked strong (though on the message boards it seems to vary considerably from person to person on how they did). They played well in their own zone, didn’t make any major mistakes I could think of, and got their shots on net. Petr Prucha on the other hand had an absolutely fantastic game, except for one thing. He couldn’t finish. He was all over the place, all over the puck, aggressive in and out of traffic. Except, again, he couldn’t finish. On top of that, people couldn’t finish his passes either. It’s getting ridiculous at this point. I believe in this kid. While I am not so sure he has a place on this team, I do think he is a much better player than the numbers are playing out. Kalinin looked pretty good as well, pinching in a few times, and making a superb read to break up an odd man rush to head long a 2 on 0 with Prucha and Parenteau (only to see Parenteau miss a wide open net).
Dale Weise also had an active game. He had a few chances at point blank rebounds but kept shooting them into pads, and he threw the body when the opportunity arised. Ryan Callahan had a superb game from start to finish, disrupting the oppositions attack, getting good shots on goal, driving the net, pretty much playing the Ryan Callahan kind of game.
The real sour spot, in my opinion, was Valliquette. I thought he had a terrible game. He gave up 3 goals, 2 of which were just terrible, terrible plays. A wrap around that was about as slow developing as a thought in Sarah Palins head, and a backhand by Martin St. Louis from a terrible angle with way too much of the goal to shoot at. He should have been right at the post, and he should have been upright, not down. Both of those goals were incredibly soft. The Rangers have done a superb job this preseason of limiting chances against, their goaltending has been terrible to say the least. This starts with Lundqvist against the Devils, and filters all the way on through with the possible exception of Mika Wiikman who has looked pretty strong.
Expect some cuts to be made tomorrow, probably in the neighborhood of 5-10 players.
See you all on Saturday, enjoy the debate tomorrow!