Texas Rangers

By Dubi So Avery did what he does best -- he went out and agitated, driving veteran Gary Roberts, an abrasive player himself, to so much distraction that he took a double minor against Avery for high sticking and then giving him the business. That set the stage for the Rangers taking the lead for good...

By Dubi Game reports: Daily News, Journal News, Newsday, Times, Post, AP, and NYR.com -- Islander point of view in the Daily News, Newsday, and NYI.com (written by our buddy Jason Lockhart, whose favorite all-time player is Martin Straka). Notes from before the game in the reporters' blogs -- Blue...

By Dubi Game reports: Daily News, Journal News, Newsday, Times, Post, AP, SNY, NHL.com, and NYR.com -- the best line is from Jay Greenberg of the Post: "The Rangers are winning not because Lundqvist is standing on his head but because he is allowing his teammates to keep theirs." More from the Post: L...

By Dubi Other game reports beyond the two linked above -- the Journal News, Newsday, Times, AP, NY Sports Day, and NYR.com. See also notes at Blueshirts Blog, Rangers Report, Blue Notes, and USA Today. Washington area reports here, here, and here, all in praise of King Henrik, who was the league's nu...

By Dubi This was the most frustrating loss yet for the sputtering 2007-08 Rangers. More than losing in a New York minute to the slick Senators, or melting down against the winless Thrashers, or even being shut own in back to back games last week. This one was all Rangers -- until the lack of goal scorin...

By Dubi Only two teams have given up fewer goals per game this season than the New York Rangers, and those teams are a combined 13-1-1. Only one team has taken more shots on goal per game than the Rangers, and that team is 8-1-0. Only two teams have a larger positive differential in shots for vs. shots aga...

By Dubi Game reports: Daily News, Newsday, Times, Post, NY Sports Day, and NYR.com. Pre-game entries at the reporters' blogs: Blueshirts Blog and Blue Notes. Boston POV here, here, here, and here. Game notes from Newsday and USA Today. Other news: the Daily News on the Rangers opening next season in P...

By Dubi Let the official "Have the Rangers hit rock bottom?" watch begin. They had four days of uninterrupted practice to work on their team chemistry and their moribund special teams. They were facing an 0-6 team reeling from a coaching change. There is no excuse for the Rangers to have falled behin...

By Dubi The Rangers always seem to catch opponents immediately after coaching changes, usually a rebound game for teams regardless of what they do afterwards. So it is tonight in Atlanta. The Rangers were already wary of the trap waiting to happen in facing a desperate 0-6 team. Now the Thrashers wi...

By Dubi And as if that wasn't enough, the Senators got an extra leg up from an officiating crew who saw Shanahan commit some sort of phantom interference to negate a Ranger power play but didn't see Jagr take a shot to the knee while taking a shot on goal ("They said it was a hip, I thought it was knee," J...

By Dubi Things even out. The Rangers started to play better as a team, more accustomed to new dynamics on the ice. Most importantly, they are starting to understand where everyone is on the power play. Both Jagr and coach Tom Renney insisted that they didn't do anything new with the man advantage. "We j...

By Dubi Game reports can be found in the Daily News, Journal News, Newsday, Times, Post, AP, NYR.com, and NY Sports Day. The Islander point of view is in the Daily News, Newsday, SNY, and their web site (by our friend and teammate Jason Lockhart). More on the game can be found in the Newsday, Blue Notes,...

By Dubi For other reading today, NYR.com has a game preview, the New York Sun takes a look at life without Sean Avery, John Giannone talks to Renney at MSG.com, Kenny Albert chimes in with his take at MSG.com, the Isles (according to Newsday) have signed former Islander (and briefly a Ranger) Bryan Be...

By Dubi The Rangers ran into a buzzsaw in Ottawa tonight, a team that is now 10-0 including pre-season, and did a bit of buzzing themselves in playing the Sens fairly evenly -- except for two critical errors early in the game. Considering this was the second game of the season, considering the Range...

By Dubi For more news on what is shaping up as a warm sunny Saturday in New York, see the Daily News on Marek Malik, the Journal News on the Rangers' face-off success opening night, the Times on the Garden's zamboni driver, the Globe and Mail on the Rangers' lawsuit against the NHL, the Record on why t...

By Dubi NYR.com has updated their roster for the first time in a long time, and show new numbers for the rookies who have made the team -- Dubinsky will wear #17 and Staal #18. The two rookies who made the team late last season also have new numbers -- Dan Girardi #5 and Ryan Callahan #24. The Rangers got do...

By Dubi Then there is the lawsuit against the NHL over control of the Rangers' web site. As further details emerge, the AP reports that the NHL forced the Rangers to stop "making Rangers-branded merchandise available through the Rangers web site and making Rangers games available to subscriber...

By Dubi Bergenheim outraces Rozsival to a loose puck and sweeps a backhander through Lundqvist -- lackluster D, lackluster goaltending. Tempers flare over Islander hitting Ranger defenseman after icing touch, but it settles down quickly. First period ends with the Rangers down 1-0 despite ha...

By Dubi All of these bits of roster movement come courtesy of updates from the morning skate in Rangers Report and Blue Notes. Other articles on the rematch can be found in Newsday and their Islander blog, at NYR.com, and at MSG.com in a Stan Fischler entry surprisingly skewed in favor of the Islander...

By Dubi Sam Weinman considers many of these same issues in his entry at Rangers Report today, just as John Dellapina did a couple of days ago in Blueshirts Blog. Steve Zipay gives the nod to Dubinsky and Staal in Newsday. Rangers Report and Blue Notes had some notes from yesterday's practice, as did t...

By Dubi Get used to it, Ranger fans. Teams will be gunning for the Rangers this season. Two years ago, the Rangers measured their progress against the better teams in the league. This year, other teams will be measuring themselves against the Rangers. We've already seen it in pre-season. While the Ran...

By Dubi Meanwhile, on the other side of the ledger, the Rangers played without their leading scorer, their top two centers, their top four defensemen, their franchise goalie, and two other regulars. So it was extremely encouraging to see so many guys battling for jobs outplay a team that iced 75%...

By Dubi The Rangers completed their training camp on Thursday with team-building exercises in West Point that included a mock hijacking of their bus, moving large objects, and a paintball war (see Newsday and Blueshirts Blog). They open their pre-season tonight at the Garden, the last NHL team...

By Dubi For more news: Daily News on Lundqvist, Hartford Courant and Rangers Report on the first cuts, Blue Notes on Renney's quotes, MSG.com on Glen Sather's expectations, Hockey's Future top 50 here and here and Leslie Treff's top 20 Ranger prospects (with Montoya ranking ahead of Staal on bot...

By Dubi Steve Valiquette had the Rangers' top line on his side, but he lost 5-1 to the Red Team, looking weak in giving up penalty shot goals to Martin Straka and Artem Anisimov and three late scrambling goals in front. Petr Prucha scored two more goals during that stretch. Chemical reactions may be t...

By Dubi Scott Gomez on the culture change he has seen take place in New York over the past two years: "The Rangers, what changed with them, these last couple of years, you could tell the discipline was there. Talking to Chris [Drury], that was one of the main reasons we wanted to come here. They're read...

By Dubi The much anticipated New York Rangers' 2007-08 season kicked off last night with Ranger prospects winning their opening game over Lightning prospects at the Traverse City Prospect Tournament in the Detroit area. Brandon Dubinsky, who told Blueshirt Bulletin that he was asked to parti...

By Dubi Artem Anisimov is coming out this year. After toiling for a year in obscurity even in his native Russia, getting little ice time in his first season in the Super League, he is poised to hit North America, first as part of Russia’s entry is the Under-18 Super Series vs. Canada, and then as part of...

By Dubi Finally -- admit it, there have been times where you’ve seen headlines with the word "Rangers" in it that caught your eye, only for you to find out it was the Texas Rangers. Once when I was in England at a time when Neil Smith was Ranger GM and on the hot seat, there was a huge headline that read, "R...

By Dubi Why pay so much attention to non-roster invitees to some obscure prospect tournament? Dan Girardi came to the Rangers that way (although the Rangers did not participate in Traverse City that year). Ryan Constant was a try-out in last year's tournament and remains within the organizatio...

By Dubi The Michael Peca saga will hopefully end today, one way or the other. I suppose we should thank Peca and his agent for giving us something to talk about in an otherwise newsless month. On the other hand, the protracted affair is getting a bit annoying, especially if we're spinning our wheels o...

By Dubi John Vanbiesbrouck was one of three Americans who played in the New York area to be named to the US Hockey Hall of Fame (see USA Hockey, NYR.com, and NHL.com). Beezer came up with the Rangers, carried the team to the conference final and won the Vezina Trophy in 1986, backstopped the Florida Pan...