Rangers host Wild minus Rozsival

March 24, 2009   ·   Derek Felix   ·   Jump to comments

It’s been a pretty busy schedule lately for the Rangers, who play their third game in four nights later- all at home when the Wild come to town. They’ll look to bounceback from a disappointing 2-1 loss the other night to red hot Ottawa.

The Blueshirts blew a chance to move into a tie with Pittsburgh. Instead, they sit seventh with 84 points just three ahead of struggling Montreal and Florida, who got a point last night in an overtime home defeat to the Hurricanes, who now rank fifth with 87 points.

They’re all big now. Tonight’s a chance to help boost their playoff aspirations. Especially with a challenging part of the schedule coming with four of the next five on the road with the always tough rival Devils sandwiched in at MSG next Monday.

They’ll have to do it minus defenseman Michal Rozsival, who is out with one of those “lower body injuries” for seven to 10 days. He left early in the second the other night following a Shean Donovan hit favoring a leg.

In the first year of a five-year $25 million contract, the 30 year-old Czech leads all Ranger blueliners in goals (8), assists (22) and points (30) while averaging better than 22:30 minutes a night- most on the club.

While it’s true Rozsival’s struggled this season to fulfill expectations posting only two assists since John Tortorella took over behind the bench, he’s still an important cog who logs big minutes and can be used in any situation. After teaming for four games with free agent failure Wade Redden, Rozsival recently was moved to third pair with steady presence Paul Mara. The two had decent chemistry.

Forced to recall a player from Hartford, the Rangers have turned to former 2005 second round pick Michael Sauer. A player they chose with Paul Stastny still available. The 21 year-old became the final part of the Brian Leetch trade. Lauri Korpikoski (6-8-14 in 59 GP) is the only other player left from that deal.

Sauer once was highly thought almost making the roster out of camp two years ago. However, injuries haven’t helped. Since getting healthy, he’s put together a good season with the Wolf Pack registering six goals and 16 asssists for 22 points along with 35 penalty minutes in 59 games. His plus-19 rating paces the club and is tied for 15th best in the AHL.

Tonight, Sauer gets to make a first impression when he makes his NHL debut. It’ll be interesting to see how many minutes he gets in such a big game. Especially with Rozsival not expected back right away meaning that he’ll likely play in Atlanta Thursday and Pittsburgh for what amounts to a huge game Friday.

Meanwhile, the Wild are playing for plenty as well with their 76 points tied with Anaheim for ninth in the West a point behind eighth Nashville. Jacques Lemaire’s club got a huge win the other night shutting out the seventh seeded Oilers 3-0 thanks to 31 saves from Vezina candidate Niklas Backstrom, who posted his seventh shutout.Veteran Owen Nolan scored twice. Amazingly enough, the 37 year-old veteran leads them with 22 goals. He recently reached 400 goals in an overtime loss to former team San Jose tallying twice on Mar.10.

The Wild will be without a big player of their own with top scorer Mikko Koivu expected to miss two weeks due to a knee injury sustained in the win Saturday. The younger brother of Montreal’s Saku Koivu has achieved career marks in assists (44) and points (62) in his fourth NHL season.

However, they finally did get star forward Marian Gaborik back Saturday. He was scoreless with six shots in only his seventh game all season. Fresh in the Blueshirts’ memory banks should be the amazing five-goal performance Gaborik victimized them with in a win at St. Paul last season. Yes. He even added an assist making it six-points.

So, they know they can’t take this guy lightly even if he’s had a rough go of it. He’s an explosive player. Figure the shutdown tandem of Marc Staal and Dan Girardi to see a lot of Gaborik.

Tonight will also be Dan Fritsche’s return. So, you know he’s going to want to payback the Rangers for how they treated him even if it had more to do with old hat Tom Renney. In 25 games with Minnesota since being stolen for scrub Erik Reitz (now with Toronto), Fritsche’s tallied seven points including an assist the other night. He enters with points in two of the last three.

So, it should be an interesting match to say the least.