New York Rangers 2010-11 Season PreviewLast season the Rangers managed to rally back into the playoff picture only to break down in a shootout in the last game of the season against Philadelphia, who start this season as defending eastern conference champions. "That could have been us", said Sean Avery in an interview in late July, when asked about the tragic end of last season. Olli Jokinen failed to score in the shootout and was therefor hated by the fans and will be for years to come.
Olli Jokinen as an undercover agent for Calgary to spoil the Rangers playoff berth.With July 1st coming, everyone knew that GM Glen Sather was going to make some big splashes in the FA pool. He signed UFA Derek Boogard to a contract that averages 1.625M$ and covered the loss of everybodies darling J. Shelley on the 4th line. "He will be tough to play against", said Sather, who didn't seem happy about Boogard's price tag. "I wanted to pay him much more but he decided to take less, I don't quite understand that."
After taking care that Marian Gaborik was protected by tough guy Derek "Boogyman" Boogard, Sather signed Martin Biron as a backup goaltender. He came in at a reasonable price and will take some pressure of Henrik Lundqvist, who played way too often last season as coach Tortorella mentioned.
"Can someone give me a hand?" Henrik Lundvist had to carry his team through the 09-10 season.Sather also signed european scoring sensation Mats Zuccarello-Aasen, who will hopefully be called Zuccarello-Awesome by blueshirt fanatics this time next year. The signing of Alexander Frolov will also provide some offense. Frolov wants to proove himself and took less money from the Rangers than he would have got in Russia to show the world he is going to be the next Alexander Ovechin or the next Nikolai Zherdev, which depends on whether or not Frolov can succed on Broadway.
The best move of this offseason was the trade with Atlanta that sent Donald "I-get-booed-whenever-I-touch-the-puck" Brashear and Patrick "Yes-I-am-still-around" Rissmiller to the Thrashers for Todd "You-might-better-buy-me-out-before-my-shoulder-breaks-in-two" White. Not only could this mean that the Rangers will save cap space, but it also means that they got rid of some unwanted players.
Next stop for the Rangers will be the signing of RFA Marc Staal and the waiving of Wade Redden, who is going to be the best payed player in AHL history.
Redden gets told to leave for Hartford. Finally!
With all the new additions the Rangers line up for next season will probably look like this:
Frolov / Christensen / Gaborik
Dubinsky / Anisimov / Callahan
Avery / Prospal / Drury
Boogard / Boyle / Prust
Staal / Del Zotto
Rozsival / Girardi
Gilroy / Eminger (McDonagh)
Lundqvist
Biron
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