OK, so to make room for Drury on the roster, we demoted Tim Kennedy and not Todd White. It was widely accepted that Kennedy looked better in camp than White did, not to mention their salary disparity (Kennedy's cap hit is $550,000, compared to White's $2.375 million). It's worth remembering that to call Kennedy back up, we would have to first put him on re-entry waivers, off of which any NHL team below us in the standings could recall him at half his salary, leaving us on the hook for the other half.
It's a weird move, made all the weirder by Torts's explanation: "He's a kid that has to play...I think he had a good camp. It tailed a little bit, but it's not going to help him sitting around here...He understands, and he's a great kid. We'll see where we go as we move on here." So, it seems to be the usual "give him a chance to develop" explanation. But why do we care about Kennedy's development, when we're not really convinced he'll stay in the Rangers' system? It's weird.
One possible explanation is that we don't: we've got enough second- and third-liners right now, and so why keep a roster spot filled with a guy we aren't gonna use at all now that Drury is back? That makes sense, and I think the move is only really confusing in the face of leaving Todd White up - surely if we have no use for Kennedy, we have no use for White, right?
This morning at practice, White apparently skated on a fourth defensive pair, with Mike Sauer. Maybe we're keeping him around for the possibility of another defenseman to rotate in. I can't actually argue with this: Michal Rozsival is the third-best defenseman on the team right now, hands down. If White can play a solid defensive game (I have no reason to believe that he can or that he can't right now), he's worth giving a shot - it's not like he's going to be significantly less responsible than Del Zotto, Eminger, and Staal have been.
Is this actually why White is being kept around? I have no idea. But it's an interesting thought, for a club that is already so clearly deficient on defense. As for tonight, the third pair will retain Eminger while giving Gilroy his first chance of the season, scratching Sauer. I guess that's fine? Sauer definitely played better hockey than Eminger in these first two games, but not by enough for me to care right now. Let's keep giving everyone a chance until we find some sort of pair that isn't awful. And I have no problem with that pair including Todd white, I guess.
As for the forward lines, White (whom I guess I'll leave in this part of the discussion for now) is of course scratched, though Torts has not yet committed to a lineup or to scratching Christensen, who skated at practice today. Christensen played with the Avery-Stepan-Fedotenko line, while White played with the Boogaard-Boyle-Prust line (while not on defense with Sauer). I still think the smart thing to do is give Drury a shot at top pivot and let Christensen sit, but they never ask me.
In other news, after years of paying no attention to him whatsoever, despite the fact that he's such a solid, unsung player, it's nice to see the NHL finally turn the spotlight toward this Crosby kid here in Pittsburgh. Going to nhl.com and seeing his face staring back at me was a welcome change from their usual coverage of teams like the Coyotes and the Kings, players like Rick Nash and Dustin Byfuglien, and especially all those Europeans. And the article, which lists all the different muscle groups Crosby likes to exercise and features the phrase "divine providence," was just so insightful - it really helped me learn more about the game of hockey! So, thanks for that, nhl.com.
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