So, yes, we all know: Sean Avery cleared waivers and was reassigned to the Connecticut Whale, where he will presumably play for a while. This is tragic, and no, I'm not over it. It occurred to me yesterday, when I put on my Avery shirt to wear in a silent protest no one gave a shit about, that I own 2 numbered player-specific Rangers T-shirts: 25 and 16. Oof.
There's very little I can say about this that hasn't already been said. If I weren't so busy at work this week, I'd put together the Rangers' overall record since 2007 with and without Avery in the lineup, and if I were really free I'd try to correlate that with his ice time. Unfortunately, no one pays me to look up statistics just to prove a point to nobody, and my job does pay me to do something that isn't that. So, if you're not busy, look that up for me. Otherwise, hopefully I'll do it later?
Outside of that, we all know what happened here. Avery's a much better player than a lot of people give him credit for, John Tortorella included. On October 1, Torts said the final cut was down to Avery or Christensen. Since then, in our final 2 preseason games, he played Christensen in both and Avery in neither, claiming he already knew what Avery had to offer and needed to see what Christensen could do. Then Christensen had 2 shitty games and he cut Avery, actually going so far as to say Christensen's a guy who can help us in the shootout.
It was never about preseason, it was about finding a lame excuse to cut Sean Avery, which Tortorella finally did. The 2 final preseason games weren't for evaluation, they were giving Christensen an opportunity to do something decent, so Torts could point at it and say "See? This is why." That didn't pan out, because, as mentioned, Christensen is a piece of shit (and no, as commenter Chris pointed out Monday, it doesn't help any that Christensen ran his mouth off about Avery to the media, in exactly the way a teammate never should). So Torts was left floundering when he had to tell the media yesterday why he cut Avery: Christensen couldn't even play well enough to give Torts the excuse he was so desparately looking for.
It's bullshit. Avery's got a great pass and great puck protection, and he was marginalized by a media-hating coach who took the media's stance on one of his own. For more on this, here's Scotty Hockey's brief but correct farewell post. And tangentially related, last week when Avery was still a Ranger, Kerri at Some Like it Blue posted a Fire-Joe-Morganning of some bullshit at the Fourth Period that's worth a read.
Anyway, the point was supposed to be that I'm not here to talk about Avery, I'm here to talk about the rest of the roster. Here are some other things that have happened in the last couple of days. First of all, Dale Weise was among the Rangers cut from camp last week, as noted here. So, the plan was to reassign him to Connecticut, but first he had to clear waivers. For some reason, he was not exempt from waivers - I've been reading the CBA, and I cannot figure out why. Really, if anyone can explain this to me, please do. My interpretation is he should have been exempt.
Anyway, he was waived, and he didn't clear. He almost cleared, but then the Canucks (who had the second-to-last chance at him, in front of only the Cup-winning Bruins) claimed him. So, Dale Weise is a Canuck now. Sad times.
Then, we waived Brendan Bell and Stu Bickel. "But, wouldn't that leave us with only five defensemen?" you might ask, if you were poised to set me up perfectly for this explanation. Not really. See, when a team waives a player, assuming he clears, the player has no obligation to be reassigned to any particular team. The Rangers can, and in fact did, waive Bell and Bickel and then, once they clear, leave them on the roster. "So why would they bother?" Perceptive question! Well, once a player clears waivers, he is exempt from clearing them for another 30 days. So by waiving Bell and Bickel now, the Rangers avoid having to waive them if the wanna send them down sometime in the next 30 days (after which some teams, having seen injuries or NHL-level play from mediocre players, might be more interested in claiming them).
Then, there was the announcement from Slats himself that Staal is being placed on IR and could miss a good month of the season. Of course, this is no surprise, as a concussion is a totally unpredictable and terrible thing that you should never receive from your brother.
Seriously, you guys, if you are in a jam and you need to give your brother or sister something for a birthday or a Christmas, do not give him or her a concussion. It is the gift that keeps on giving you headaches and dizziness and you cannot get rid of it. Go buy a fucking candle or something. Bake them some banana bread! Who doesn't love banana bread? Come on, you guys. This holiday season: say no to giving your siblings concussions.
On injured reserve, Staal still counts against the cap, but he does not count against the maximum roster size of 23. He must remain on IR for at least 7 days (which means he could theoretically be brought back by the first Ranger game in North America, though he likely won't be). So, that leaves 7 defensemen on the roster, of whom 2 have just cleared waivers. Which means we needed to supplement. Step one was to fly back Tim Erixon, who had only been cut on Saturday morning. That's a lot of time on airplanes for the kid.
Then, today, the Rangers claimed Jeff Woywitka off the waiver wire. He's a 28-year-old left-handed defenseman waived by the Canadiens (who themselves just picked up former Ranger Blair Betts off the wire) yesterday. Woywitka is 6'3", 215-lb, and has been in and out of NHL lineups (more out than in) since being Philly's first-round pick in 2011 (a full 68 picks before Philly was up again, selecting someone named "Patrick Sharp"). I know absolutely nothing else about him. The only friend I have who has ever heard of him before explained, "So you know what VORP is? He's the RP."
This left the Rangers with 9 defensemen on the roster. With their 13 remaining forwards and 3 goalies (remember, the European start to the season allows us an additional goalie over the roster maximum for now), that's one defenseman too many. So, the Rangers today reassigned Bickel to Connecticut. One more plane ride - the NHL really needs to figure out how to handle this whole "European season opener" thing a little better.
So, finally, with all of that said and done, with all of these goddamn plane rides even though the season starts tomorrow, here is the New York Rangers' season-opening roster (assuming no further moves are made in the next 21 hours):
Forwards: Artem Anisimov, Brian Boyle, Ryan Callahan, Erik Christensen, Brandon Dubinsky, Ruslan Fedotenko, Marian Gaborik, Brandon Prust, Brad Richards, Mike Rupp, Derek Stepan, Wojtek Wolski, Mats Zuccarello
Defensemen: Brendan Bell, Michael Del Zotto, Steve Eminger, Tim Erixon, Dan Girardi, Ryan McDonagh, Mike Sauer, Marc Staal (Injured Reserve), Jeff Woywitka
Goalies: Martin Biron, Henrik Lundqvist, Scott Stajcer (Extra Goalie for European Trip)
As for the lineup for tomorrow, it seems obvious that Christensen will be the odd man out until some other forward earns his way off the ice. With the other 12, it is a no-brainer how I would arrange these lines:
Wolski - Richards - Gaborik
Dubinsky - Anisimov - Callahan
Fedotenko - Stepan - Zuccarello
Rupp - Boyle - Prust
However, John Tortorella doesn't believe in lines working together as units. As we've seen time and time again, he believes in 12 individual forwards, and he puts the people he considers the "best" in each position on the top line, and on down the lineup. So, despite Wolski skating with Richards and Gaborik for the majority of the preseason, and despite Dubinsky-Anisimov-Callahan being the Rangers' most solid, consistent line throughout last season, Torts has decided to jumble things around for opening day tomorrow. According to many Rangers reporters' tweets, the game will begin with Dubinsky on the top line, with Feds filling in on Anisimov's left. Based on practice lines today, the lineup to start the game will look like this (assuming Christensen is the scratch):
Dubinsky - Richards - Gaborik
Fedotenko - Anisimov - Callahan
Wolski - Stepan - Zuccarello
Rupp - Boyle - Prust
I'd be more worried about that if I believed Torts would keep any of these lines together for more than a hot minute, but it'd be nice to see him going with actual line combinations, instead of just mix-and-match forwards.
On defense, obviously, Sauer, McDonagh, and Girardi will be playing. Reports seem to be that Del Zotto will be the other man put in the top 2 pairs, and Erixon/Eminger seems to be the most likely third pairing (which, among other things, makes me wonder why we bothered putting Woywitka on a plane out to Sweden and Bickel on a plane back to Hartford). Woywitka and Bell would then be the healthy scratches (along with Mr. Softie).
It's been a long week. But there they are: your 2011-2012 New York Rangers.
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