Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Monday Meanderings

Just some random thoughts on a fine Monday night:

*Brian Leetch took his place among the best of the best of the best tonight as a Hall of Famer. Let's face it, it is an honour well deserved but for all of the great achievements on the road to Toronto, there were bumps as well. I never understood why he accepted the captain's C and still don't. The man avoided the limelight like the plague and yet took the leadership mantle without being able to handle it. As he did during his number retirement ceremony, Leetch should have deflected the attention to Adam Graves. While I disagree with the authors of 100 Ranger Greats that he was the greatest Ranger ever (the failure as a leader and litany of injuries - slipping on ice? geez - being the main reasons why not), Leetchie certainly retired as one of the best so congratulations to him, his family and his fans.

*Just why did Glen Sather make the trip to Toronto? So he could taunt Leetch about trading him away against his wishes? So he could make that "Forever A Ranger" number retirement tag line be a blatant lie? Or maybe so he could try to learn how to build a real team from the back-end out like Lou? Or perhaps it was to get thanks from Luc Robitaille for dealing Gretzky to LA (even if it was under ownership duress), essentially making the slow left wing's career?

*So Glencross got three games for a pretty clean hit, huh? The Flame didn't jump, didn't throw an elbow, just caught a player not playing attention with a solid hit - perhaps a second or two late but it was clear that he wasn't following the puck. For everyone to cry "headshot! headshot!" I just don't see how you can justify that without mandating that all NHL players skate with their heads up all the time and be the same height and the same weight as everyone else. I mean, I want to play fanboy and call foul but there simply is no reason to in this case. Three games achieves nothing so why bother slapping him on the wrist? Oh yeah, because that is what Colin Campbell does: make examples of the goons, slap the middle-of-the-road guys on the wrists and let star plays off scot-free.

*Let's face it, the loss of Brandon Dubinsky for a few weeks far outweighs any absence by Drury - which may be as little as one game. While Dubi had just two assists in his last 10 games, he was quite active all over the ice making things happen. You have to figure that with him out, we will see Vinny Prospal or Chris Higgins slide to center and maybe P.A. Parenteau return to Broadway. Higgins has been going hard to the net so maybe his north/south play up the middle could turn this little spark of offense into something bigger.

*As for the call-ups, the argument for Geno Grachev in lieu of Pappy is an interesting one. On one side you have the thought that bringing up Grachev for a cup of coffee so early in the season would likely prove detrimental to his long term development. But, the other side of it is that he could step up his game and help pull the team along - likely bringing Arty Anisimov along with him. Two-for-one is quite tempting, especially seeing as Arty has gone back to looking wooden and lost most of the time. Then again, maybe Donald Brashear's pride hand has finally healed from his loss to Colton Orr and he will rejoin the lineup, with Byers getting bumped up a line.

*As for some folks being alarmed that no one has been called up yet - the less days a guy is recalled, the less days they have to pay him for against the salary cap. Someone like P.A. can come up Thursday for the game and fit right in, having been on Broadway in the recent past.

*I love that we still call it being on Broadway, even though this Garden is between 7th and 8th. I don't know, just a nod towards history and a sense of grandeur I guess.

*Tyler Arnason is a tool. Did he really think he could make it as a Ranger? Or more to the point, as a NHLer? He shoulda taken the European money and ran in the offseason rather than waste our time.

*The Rangers are having a season ticket holder forum on Tuesday night. The media alert had Henrik Lundqvist, Ryan Callahan, Marc Staal, Envir Lisin, and Brian Boyle showing up. I think you can pretty much expect that the players will be kept well away from the fans - to avoid the flu and having to have any actual personal interaction - and the usual questions: 'why don't you shoot when we yell shoot' from an old guy, 'when/how/who did you look up to when you started playing hockey' from a well-coached kid and 'Henrik will you marry me' from some fetching young female. Still, I should have a report back here sometime afterwards ...

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

I didn't think the Glencross thing was that blatent either...except for the fact that the hit wasn't late, it shouldn't have been made in the first place. Drury never played the puck or even reached for the pass, it went right by him. So in essence, Drury was an illegal target of a legal hit... not worth a hefty suspension in my book.

I was just a little annoyed that later in the game the refs had the gall to rewind the tape and asses a 4 minute penalty that they didn't catch in real time. Where was the video replay justice when Drury got crunched? It was kind of a slap in the face at that point.

-Plebeian

Chris said...

I agree on the Glencross issue as well... the only thing wrong with that hit was that it shouldnt have been attempted at all because it was interference... Drury never had possession at all and the puck went by him.

2 min interference penalty wouldve sufficed... 3-game suspension is completely worthless.

Chris said...

@ Plebeian - The video replay was not used to issue the 4-min penalty.

What happened was that the linesman informed the referee of the penalty at the end of play (there was no stoppage until the whistle for the cross-checking penalty on Bourque).

As per the NHL Rulebook... the linesman cannot blow the whistle to call a penalty, but at the next stoppage of play can inform the referee of an infraction and the referee can issue the penalty.

So technically it was perfectly acceptable that it happened thew way it did. Do I agree with it? No, and I have NEVER seen that rules used before... but it is in the rulebook

Anonymous said...

Thanks for clearing that up. Sometimes I fast forward through lengthly stoppages of play, I heard some chatter about it form the commentators, but I didn't stick around to hear the explanation.

-Plebeian

Anonymous said...

Agreed with #1. It would have been legal if the puck was there, but he totally mistimed it. It should have been one game at most...

I'm more concerned with the fact that every single vagina on the ice didn't do anything, besides for a push by Redden.

Ranger Greats said...

Scotty, we love you, but the injury crack about Leetch isn't really fair. Yes, slipping on the ice as he got out of a taxi was ridiculous, but he still played 18 years and 1,205 regular season games! Anyone who plays that long is going to have a couple of injury-shortened seasons. And while he was not a great captain, he never lobbied for the job. He was never going to be a gung-ho kind of leader.

Schram said...

As far as I'm concerned Leetch is the greatest Ranger of all time. I don't know who would you even consider to be better than him. Leetch was great defensively and had amazing offensive skills. I'm sorry Scotty, but even though he was a weak captain, he wasn't even given a chance to say no. Leetch wasn't a captain and he knew it, hence why he gave it back to Messier, but I would like to know who you think is the greatest Ranger, since you now made fun of Leetch and not too long ago you knocked Richter.

Schram said...

By the way, I was glad to see that the first person Leetch mentioned was Buekeboom (someone we currently need on this team to be with Gilroy or Del Zotto)

Unknown said...

way to make fun of another Ranger great.

are you sure you are a Rangers fan?

Scotty Hockey said...

Ben - pretty sure.

Schram - Bill Cook or Rod Gilbert, seeing as I didn't see either, I didn't see all of their flaws. I still think Leetch was one of the best, not the best.

Paul said...

How was it a clean hit Scotty? I didn't know you were allowed to hit players when they didn't have the puck. That is news to me. If he had the puck it would have been a clean play but he NEVER had the puck. Also, I am furious that not one Ranger stuck up for their captain getting hurt and there was no retaliation later in the game by a Rangers player. Pretty disturbing.

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