According to TSN, the Islanders have signed Josef Vasicek for 1 year at $750,000. He’s a big center at 6′5 and should get plenty of ice time playing for Ted Nolan. Solid pick up for the talent level and price tag, this could turn out to be a nice little signing by Garth.

We’d like to say we’re sorry for not getting you the TV schedule.

A VERSUS PR rep and The Globe and Mail’s Bill Houston told me in good faith that we would see it today (Wednesday, August 15, 2007).

Besides, we reported it first. So there.

Anyway, we’ll show it to you tomorrow. We promise.

While we wait to find out if Michael Peca will be joining the Broadway Blueshirts, let’s try to speculate how the lines will look on October 4th when the Rangers open up at home against Florida. The biggest wild card should be the third line center position, which would be filled if Peca is signed. With the players that the Rangers have, there are potentially three scoring lines and one checking line. Here’s what I would do for Opening Day:

Hossa - Drury - Jagr
Avery - Gomez - Shanahan
Prucha - Dubinski - Callahan
Orr - Betts - Hollweg

Rozsival - Malik
Tyutin - Girardi
Mara - Staal

Lundqvist, Valiquette

Scratches: Dawes, Strudwick

The only thing I might look at differently is the defense if Kasparaitis comes into camp in the shape that everyone is proclaiming he is in. If Kasper really is 20 pounds lighter and skating at the speed he was skating two or three years ago, I might put him with either Mara or Tyutin. Give me some of your input. I would like to hear what other people are thinking.

Behind Boxing, ahead of everything else.

I don’t know if I agree with behind Boxing

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/sportSkills

In the poll, Hockey is winning the most difficult, and in last in terms of least difficult. So I’m proven right.

TSN is reporting that Michael Peca is very likely to sign with the Rangers sometime in the very near future.

So says the title of the post.

We’ll be here tomorrow to give u the official release before ANYONE ELSE. We promise.

And then, later in the day, check out our analysis of what looks to be an interesting year 3 of The NHL On VERSUS.

The NHL On NBC may be announcing their sked as well tomorrow, so stay tuned to Battle of NY ALL DAY.

November 3rd, Van Halen will be at the Continental Airlines Arena.

On that very night, Bon Jovi will be at the Prudential Center.

I will be watching the Devils play the Rangers at the Garden.

Shout out to the folks at Battle of Pennsylvania (The new one, that you can find in the links). Me and Danny, who runs BoPA, have agreed to network each other’s sites. The first of these was with Battle of California, but we don’t get to use Earl and Mike and James as much because we rarely see our teams.

Here are the details:
-Battle of NY’s blog posts on the days of Games between the Rangers, Devils or Islanders against the Pens or Flyers will be posted on Battle of PA, and vice versa.
-Battle of NY’s bloggers will do anywhere from 5-10 Liveblogs this year on Game Nighs.
-Battle of PA will post comments on each other’s sites when there is big news on any of each other’s teams.
-Dustin, our graphical genius, will design graphics for them.
-We’ll do our best to promote each other’s sites, and Danny and hopefully Kristin from Battle of PA will help out with the SFM preview. BTW, Frank and Lenny (boy I wish Frank’s name was Carl, oh well) will also be a part of it, as well as the wonderful Patricia from 2 Man.
-We’ll have them take part in the upcoming debates we’ll be having soon.
-We’ll generally be nicer to each other than Stevens and Lindros were.

Visit Battle of PA and give them a shout out. See you all soon!

Finally, the Isles have signed a D man. Three years, 9 million. Not a bad signing. At three million per year, Garth may be able to afford one more decent player under the cap. Markov maybe? Eklund seems to think so.

Sutton brings tenacity and toughness to the Isles’ back line. He doesn’t score much, but will keep the opponent honest and protect Ricky. He uses his body and blocks lots of shots.

Quiet week this week for the New York Rangers. The biggest news of the week came yesterday, when the news broke that Michael Peca was on the verge of signing with the Broadway Blueshirts. Having Peca as the third line center makes sense in some ways and creates havoc in others. Having Peca does give a team a boost on defense, and on the penalty kill. He also has a leadership mentality that can be complemented with the already deemed leaders in Straka, Jagr, Shanahan and Drury. A healthy Peca would be a fantastic addition to any team, but he has not played a full season since 1998-99 and only played 35 games last season with the Maple Leafs. Peca has also been lacking in the offensive statistics. Over the past few seasons, Peca has recorded point totals of 42, 40, 23 and a point total of 15 for last season. While that might be all a third line is expected to produce, do we really want to shell out the million dollar contract it will take to sign him, or should we give the kids a chance? Any thoughts?