Today, we've got a few things to guess wildly about between now and the next time we gain any small bit of semi-information.
First off, the kinda-Rangers' 2-1 OT loss to the kinda-Devils last night. Reportedly, round one of the great Avery-Christensen roster spot battle went to Avery. While Torts praised the Avery-Mitchell-Miller line as "our most effective line, at least as far as offensive pressure," Christensen a the much less promising critique from the coach, "not much was happening there." Of course, as Torts went on to say, you don't want to "get too down or too high on a guy after the first game." Still, if game one was a battle between these two guys at all, it went to Avery, and that's not bad news.
I feel like it's worth pointing out my father's opinion, which is that Christensen is being badly misused: he's not smart enough to be a center, but could be a very effective right wing (he played center last night, between Hagelin and Thomas). While I fundamentally agree that Christensen could do much better things than he currently does if given a low-pressure "shut up and shoot" role, and while there really is something to the argument that we're fine on grit, and what we need is scoring talent (which sways toward Christensen and away from Avery), I just can't get past the fact that I don't like him very much.
Moving on, we can also invent unsubstantial theories about the meaning behind the lineup for tomorrow night's preseason matchup, also against the Devils, back at the Rock. Here's who's playing in that game:
Forwards: Brian Boyle, Ryan Callahan, Ruslan Fedotenko, Marian Gaborik, Kris Newbury, Derek Stepan, Dale Weise, Wojtek Wolski, Mats Zuccarello, Brad Richards, Mike Rupp, Carl Hagelin
Defensemen: Michael Del Zotto, Ryan McDonagh, Mike Sauer, Brendan Bell, Tim Erixon, Pavel Valentenko
Goalies: Martin Biron, Chad Johnson
We can form theories here about why Eminger isn't getting a second-straight look like DZ, Bell, and Erixon are - they can be anywhere from "because he's a lock for a spot" to "because he's not being given serious consideration for a spot." We can read into Weise and Hagelin getting second-straight looks while Miller, Mitchell, and Thomas didn't. We can wonder if it means Wolski-Richards-Gaborik is pretty much set in stone at this point. And so on.
It's also worth remembering that after this game, the first big round of camp roster cuts will be made. So it's probably at least worth speculating that guys like Kelsey Tessier and Stu Bickel, who didn't make the roster in either preseason game, are probably going home soon.
Ooh! We can make uninformed guesses about various reported injuries, too! Brad Richards and Mike Sauer both playing tomorrow is probably good news about them. As for Staal, he didn't practice again today, but apparently that's because he had a pre-scheduled session with his specialist, which was deemed more important. Which is totally valid! Unless it's a coverup. So that's totally something we can bullshit about!
Finally, here's a really fun one to guess things about. Remember that the Rangers both end the preseason (against HC Sparta, Frolunda, HC Slovan, and EV Zug) and start the regular season (against the Kings and the Ducks) in Europe this year. In fact, after tomorrow night's game, they only have 1 more preseason game (Monday in Philly) before flying out. So, they'll have to take much more than their final roster with them to Europe to finish out training camp and the preseason.
Yesterday, Tortorella announced that the team was planning on taking 18 forwards, 10 defensemen, and 3 goalies with them to Europe. However, today, he announced that a 19th forward "earned his way" onto the trip. So, that must have been someone from last night's game; we can guess who that is! He also said he'd take an 11th defenseman, but that's as insurance for the Staal injury, not because someone earned it. So we can start to guess who those 18+1, 10+1, and 3 players are!
Isn't the preseason fun?
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