Peepin' Foes: Dallas Stars

The Rangers are in Dallas tonight to face the Stars at 8:30 on MSG 2 (likely placed over that menu channel by your cable system). Sean Avery is not playing, but of course the rumours of him coming back to the Rangers are alive and well thanks to Larry Brooks. As much as I would like this vanilla team to get the kick in the ass from Avery, don't believe the hype. Without Jagr or Shanny around to keep him in check, Avery would likely get into locker room fights left and right with the current so-called captains.

Where We Are: After the Graves night disaster, Tom Renney made the Rangers pay with a whole half hour of hard practice. Oooooo. I'm sure that taught them a lesson. They should score 10 goals tonight!

Where They Are: Dallas is playing the second of back-to-back nights. They lost to Colorado last night 3-2 after letting part-time goon Cody McLeod slip loose on the far post where he banged in a nice feed from Tyler Arnason. The loss broke a five game win streak for the Stars that included a 4-2 tilt in Detroit where Marty Turco got his first win since he played for UM (he had lost all 10 games there as a Star).

Who To Watch For: Dallas still has 'name' scorers in Mike Ribeiro, Mike Modano and Brad Richards but Loui Eriksson has been a revelation. The Stars second round pick in 2003 (yes, the same year we picked Huge Mistake Hugh Jessiman), Eriksson is leading Big D in goals with 24. No Ranger has 20 (or 17 for that matter). Another youngster, james Neal, has been pretty dangerous as well and has six points in his last three games.

What To Watch For: The Rangers to stumble out of the gates exhausted. After all, they did skate hard for a whole half hour yesterday!

What We'll (Hopefully) See: The Blueshirts score more than one goal, Colton Orr keeping that idiot Steve Ott in line and Glen Sather and/or Tom Renney fired after the game.

Also Check Out: Andrew's Dallas Stars and NHL Blog, SBN's Defending Big D and two MSM blogs, Star Telegram and Dallas Morning News.