Rangers open at home tonight against the Blackhawks

October 10, 2008   ·   Lenny   ·   Jump to comments

After a successful trip overseas, the Rangers are back in the States and back at Madison Square Garden tonight for ther season opener against the much improved Chicago Blackhawks.

The 2008-09 Blackhawks are not the same team as the last time the Rangers played them. After drafting the highly touted Patrick Sharp and Jonathan Toews a couple of years ago, the Blackhawks made a big splash this offseason with the signing of defenseman Brian Campbell. Sharp and Toews showed that they can play in the NHL last season, so this season we should look for them to be even better. The defense is decent with Brent Seabrook manning the blueline, and even without Nikoli Khabibulin (still with the team), Chicago has a solid netminder in Christobal Huet.Martin Havlat and Andrew Ladd will provide some offense as well, so the Rangers should not take this team lightly.

Some changes for the Blueshirts tonight. Aaron Voros impressed the coaching staff on the trip to Prague this past week, and will now skate on the line with Brandon Dubinsky and Nik Zherdev. Nigel Dawes gets dropped down to the third line with Lauri Korpikoski and Ryan Callahan, and Fredrik Sjostrom makes his 2008 debut on the fourth line alongside Blair Betts and Colton Orr. This of course means the Petr Prucha finds himself in the press box along with Patrick Riismiller and Dan Fritche. Head coach Tom Renney did say that all of those scratched today would be getting into the seven games that the Rangers have over the next eleven days, but that is barring any trades. There is $3.4 million in salary sitting in the press box, which probably won’t last very long.

After tonight, the Rangers head to Philadelphia to take on Sarah Pallin and the rest of the Flyers.

Due to this thing called a real job in the real world, my blogging will be somewhat limited. I do enjoy doing it, though, so I will be checking in from time to time throughout each week. With Derek also recapping the Rangers on a daily basis, I have plenty of faith that any Ranger news that I do not pass along, you will get from him. Enjoy the games, and I will check back in when it calms down around here.