Training Camp Roster: It Begins

(Hey Blogger, I'm switching back to the old interface 'cause there's a lot of information in this post. I tried to tell you that in your "why did you switch back to the old interface?" survey, but - hilariously - there was a Google Forms error.)

Well, training camp started this morning. I'll summarize the reports for you: Torts's training camp has a reputation for being very hard because it is very hard. Everyone basically agrees. Groups of players skate back and forth a lot really fast, and they won't see a puck today at all. Sean Avery, again, is just a pinnacle of manhood and handles these better than most of the rest of them. He still won't make the nightly lineup, which will make me very angry, later. For now, let's talk about who's in camp.

63 players made training camp this year, and the Rangers will go through a series of cuts over the next few weeks until camp is down to a maximum of 23 by opening night. The camp itself, along with the preseason games (which start on Wednesday), will be the staff's opportunity to determine who stays and who goes. So, for lack of real hockey to watch, let's spend our time tracking who's in camp.

Forwards (37)

Rangers you saw last season (15)

Artem Anisimov, Sean Avery, Brian Boyle, Ryan Callahan, Erik Christensen, Brandon Dubinsky, Ruslan Fedotenko, Marian Gaborik, Chad Kolarik, Kris Newbury, Brandon Prust, Derek Stepan, Dale Weise, Wojtek Wolski, Mats Zuccarello

Summer acquisitions (4)

Andre Deveaux, John Mitchell, Brad Richards, Mike Rupp

Notable Prospects (7)

Jonathan Audy-Marchessault, Ryan Bourque, Tommy Grant, Carl Hagelin, Shane McColgan, J.T. Miller, Christian Thomas

Other Kids (11)

Jordan Hickmott, Tayler Jordan, Kale Kerbashian, Chris McKelvie, Matt Rust, Michael St. Croix, Scott Tanski, Kelsey Tessier, Andreas Thuresson, Jason Wilson, Andrew Yogan

Defensemen (20)

Rangers you saw last season (6)

Michael Del Zotto, Steve Eminger, Dan Girardi, Ryan McDonagh, Mike Sauer, Marc Staal

Summer Acquisitions (1)

Brendan Bell

Notable Prospects (6)

Tim Erixon, Tomas Kundratek, Dylan McIlrath, Samuel Noreau, Blake Parlett, Pavel Valentenko

Other Kids (7)

Lee Baldwin, Stu Bickel, Collin Bowman, Peter Ceresnak, Sam Klassen, Jyri Niemi, Jared Nightingale

Goalies (6)

Rangers you saw last season (3)

Martin Biron, Chad Johnson, Henrik Lundqvist

Notable Prospects (3)

Jason Missiaen, Scott Stajcer, Cam Talbot

So, there you are: 63 potential New York Rangers. The first round of camp cuts will probably come after the weekend, but that's just me guessing. Everyone says this is going to be the most interesting, competitive Rangers training camp in years. Of course, they say that every year.

Traverse City ends; Training Camp begins

And the Buffalo Sabres are your 2011 Traverse City Prospects Tournament champions.  Their first year ever doing the tournament, too!  Eh, so it goes.  It was fun to watch hockey, and these kids have a lot going for them.  Went down 2-0 in the first, came back to tie it and went into the third tied 2-2, then gave up 3 goals in the third.  Honestly, I think the kids played a decent third period, just had some bad breaks.  2nd place at Traverse City is nothing to be sad about.

What I actually came here to say was that J.T. Miller and Carl Hagelin, both of whom I called out yesterday as being not particularly impressive, bounced back with very good games last night.  Miller was much more of a presence than he was in the Carolina game, and Hagelin showed much more of that speed that I had read about but not seen.  So, good for both of them.

Meanwhile, hockey really is booting up quickly here.  With the Traverse City tourney ending yesterday, official training camp starts tomorrow.  Though most of the Rangers have already been skating at the practice facility by now, tomorrow starts Torts's official training regimen.  Sometime soon, we'll see an official roster of something on the order of 60 players who are at camp, and that'll be the group that the roster is eventually made of.  Torts will try various combinations at camp and in the 7 preseason games that will come between next Wednesday and October 3.  Throughout this process, the roster will be trimmed a few players at a time until it is down to the opening night roster, in time for the Rangers' season opener October 7.

I'll try to keep this thing updated, as I did last season, with all the new roster announcements as they come in.  Holy shit you guys, hockey's starting!

Traverse City

...which is apparently pronounced "TRA-verse," not "tra-VERSE."  So, an anonymous tipster (my father) read my complaints about not being able to see any of these games and told me that he caught part of one on the NHL Network the other day.  So, I did some very complex investigation to the tune of visiting a website or two for about three minutes.  Turns out that not only is MSG Network badass enough to broadcast all the Ranger games at the tournament, they're also the only network badass enough to do so (or, really, to even notice that it's going on).  This leaves NHL Network two choices: pick up the Rangers feed for all these Traverse City games, or don't, and don't show any of the tournament at all.  So, NHL Network has is broadcasting every Ranger game of the tournament.  And here I was, bitching about not watching hockey, instead of just cold watching some hockey.

So, I watched the Rangers' prospects lose to the Canes' 4-3 in the second overtime yesterday.  (Overtime at this tournament is 4 minutes of 4-on-4, then 4 minutes of 3-on-3, all sudden death.  Following that, a 5-man shootout.)  It was fun!  Real people (granted, they all looked 12 years old, but real nonetheless) in real NHL jerseys playing real hockey!  The season is coming!  It's worth noting that because I watched NHL Network's rebroadcast, at 7:00 (the game was at 3), they cut out large swaths of the 3rd period to make it fit in a 2-hour broadcast.  So, with that caveat, here were my 1-game unenlightened first impressions.

Up front, I really liked a lot of the first line.  Left wing Tommy Grant (who was apparently acquired as an undrafted free agent back in March) struck me as a guy who knows where he's supposed to be.  He kept being right in front of the crease creating traffic on offense, and he kept getting back to his position in time to go the other way.  He also found himself in the right place on the penalty kill a few times.  A 6'2" forward who crashes the net and is defensively responsible?  Yes, please.

Right wing Christian Thomas (whom you'll recall from last year's training camps - he was our 2010 2nd-round pick) was one of the two real stars of the night, for me (the other was Erixon).  He's really fast - with the puck, not just on his feet - and he made a lot of good-looking passes.  Yeah, I know that's fool's gold in a kids' game, but still - shift after shift he kept making smart, pretty plays.  Thomas playing opposite Grant made an ideal tandem of wingers, but Thomas stood out more as the forward with the best shot of making the big squad (based on me watching one game).

The other standout forward for me wasn't Grant and Thomas's center, it was the third-line center, some guy named Jonathan Audy-Marchessault.  He's not not under contract to the Rangers, but he's in the system, on a 2-way contract with the Whale and the ECHL's Greenville Road Warriors, which was only signed 3 months ago - he was an undrafted free agent (source in French).  I noticed him early in the game as a good 2-way player, a smart forward with real defensive responsibility, but as the game progressed he also made a number of clever offensive plays and kept the puck on his stick a little more than you expected him to.  I liked this kid a lot.

Other forwards worth mentioning: first-line center Shane McColgan (our 5th-round pick this year) got a lot of Zuccarello-esque praise for being good at his job despite being very small.  Meh!  2nd-line left wing Carl Hagelin (I mentioned him a couple of months ago when talking about potential cap hits added to the team this season; he was drafted in the 6th round back in 2007) made a few nifty moves throughout the night (though he wasn't nearly as dynamic as Grant, Thomas, and Audy-Marchessault).  Finally, this year's first-round pick, J.T. Miller, played second-line right wing and was not particularly remarkable.

On the back six (is that a real thing I'm allowed to call the defense?  The back six?), let's all throw a parade for a kid named Tim Erixon.  I mentioned him in that same post about possible additions, and man is he ever one.  Early this summer, Sather made yet another one of his increasingly frequent smart prospect moves when he traded away dead-end prospect Roman Horak and two 2nd-round picks to the Flames, in exchange for a 5th-rounder and Erixon.  This is one of the reasons we only had one pick between #15 and #106 overall this year.  Erixon is another solid young defenseman with a real chance to make the team: he made smart, quick moves at the point on the power play, showed a real ability to keep the puck when by all rights he should have lost it, was in the right position every time I noticed, and put up a lot of PK time.  All while he had to spend some time covering for his defensive partner, who was out of position sometimes.  Oh, and he plays forever.  I don't think the dude came off the ice for the last 5 minutes of the game or the first 3 shifts of overtime.  Major minutes.  If yesterday's game was any indication, Erixon should have the best chance of any of these guys to make the team.

I also want to call out giant child Samuel Noreau.  This dude is 6'5" and was born after The Pixies broke up.  What the fuck.  Noreau was drafted this year just two picks after McColgan, and while Gordie Clark talked about how he was a project and the team needed to work on his 2-way responsibility, I just loved everything the guy did.  He's huge.  If he wasn't defending our crease then he was taking up space in theirs.  His stick is longer than a 5k.  I like him, I want him in the system, I can't wait to see how big he is when he hits puberty.

Dylan McIlrath (you remember him - last year's first-rounder, nickname "the Undertaker" or something) was named the Captain of this squad, and you could see why - he defended his teammates constantly, and was often in Canes' faces.  Unfortunately, this didn't always mean he was defending the puck - in fact, at one point in the first, Jared Staal (yes, there's another fucking Staal) hit Ranger winger Jordan Hickmott late.  McIlrath skated right over and got in his face for it, which was great.  He also left his position wide open right in the slot, which led to a Carolina goal.  But still, it's great to see these guys defending each other like that after only being on a team together for a week.

Other players worth noting: defensemen Jyri Niemi (part of last year's camp as well, acquired the previous May from the Islanders for a 6th-rounder) and Collin Bowman (totally non-roster, invited to camp a week ago) both made defensive mistakes and did very little to make up for them.  I know, it's only one game, but I notice what I notice.  Finally, goaltender Jason Missiaen has an unspellable last name.  He, with every one of his vowels, was signed as a free agent back in March (he had originally been drafted by the Canadiens in 2008, but went unsigned and became a free agent).  He looked pretty good!  I know it's just a prospects game, but the dude had to make a lot of saves last night, and more than a couple of them were hard saves to make!  So, a gold star for the kid who has raised the bar for diphthongs everywhere.

Tonight at 7:00, the Rangers' prospects will play the Sabres' for the 2011 Traverse City Tournament championship.  And, as it turns out, I'll be watching it!  Let's Go Rangers' prospects!

Correction no one cares about

Technically, Callahan is the 26th captain in Rangers' history, not the 27th.  Because Mark Messier was captain twice.

ANNOUNCED

According to Andrew Gross, it's Callahan, with Staal and Richards getting the As.  CAPTAIN CALLAHAN WOO.  Man, I miss hockey.

Woah! Blogger got weird

Feelings on the new blogger interface: NOT AWESOME

Here's the point: 9 days until the preseason starts! At which point I still won't be able to watch any games, because I can't just subscribe to a damn channel, because TV is still stuck in the past. But still: 9 days! And some news, today, too!

Later today, the Rangers will be announcing their new captain and alternate captains for the 2011-2012. Callahan -- oops, I mean, whoever they select -- will be the 27th captain in New York Rangers history. But seriously, it's got to be Callahan, right? With one A going to Staal, I imagine, because he's the one who wore it last season. The other one goes to Dubinsky? Possibly Richards if not Dubinsky? I'd give it to Lundqvist, but I know you're not supposed to do that for vague and unsubstantial reasons.

In other news, Traverse City has been going on this week. I wish I could have seen any of the games, but again, TV doesn't know it's the future yet. But apparently it's been going well: the Rangers' prospects are 2-0 so far, beating the Blues' 5-2 on Saturday and the Stars' 6-2 yesterday. Today is a day off at the tournament, tomorrow they play the Canes' prospects to round out the "regular season," and then the tournament's "playoffs" are on Wednesday. Names we should be paying attention to, apparently, are Dylan McIlrath, Ryan Bourque, Tim Erixon, and Blake Parlett. So, there that is. Let's Go Ranger Prospects!

I am apparently late to the party

But I have just learned that Bruce Boudreau was used as an extra in Slap Shot. Yeah, the movie. Check out this 20-second clip of the Chiefs' game against the Hyannisport Presidents.



Number 7 on the Presidents is apparently a young Boudreau, who played at the time for the Johnstown Jets of the short-lived North American Hockey League. The film apparently tapped the Jets for extras pretty often, and - well - there he is.

Ranger Pundit says...

Some stuff that is true about Sean Avery

On fights, and those who fight

Okay, so let's get serious today.

You may recall Rick Rypien, a 4th-line center who spent years in and out of the Canucks' lineup as a fighter - he was the one who was suspended last year for grabbing a fan. Last month, at age 27, he signed a new, fresh-start contract with the new Winnipeg Jets. Well, Rypien was apparently found dead in his home yesterday, with no information yet released about cause of death.

This news, in conjunction with the death of Boogaard a few months ago, has of course reawoken the old debate about violence in hockey among sportswriters who say dumb shit for a living. You know, like Bill Plaschke, who was on some ESPN show the other day, yelling about the Islanders having a watch party this summer for last season's insane brawl game against the Penguins. Plaschke said, somewhat offensively, "this is why your sport is a fringe sport!" No, you dingleberry, it's a fringe sport because, among other reasons, it's not on ESPN. But the point is that people like that love to point out how violent hockey is - the implication being "well if they'd just stop punching each other, we true-blooded Americans would get on board!"

So, of course, a lot of that came out of the woodwork today, after the news that a second enforcer died in the prime of his NHL career this summer. The argument is simple: Rypien, like Boogaard, has had some behavioral problems, and it seems non-coincidental that an enforcer's life can lead to these kinds of issues. And, as expected, hockey lovers came immediately to fighting's defense, with an argument best summed up in Down Goes Brown's tweet, "a presumptive 'screw you' to anyone who thinks it's appropriate to start up the fighting debate."

First of all, the Plaschke-esque argument that this is the kind of stuff that keeps hockey out of the mainstream is dishonest. Yes, hockey is a very physical sport. But football requires 300-pound men to put on helmets and run toward each other at full speed with the sole intention of gaining ground, over and over again, and you don't see the NFL starving for American fans.

Also, the most attended live competition in America is NASCAR. Come on.

With that said, the hockey community absolutely has a responsibility to protect its own, and if there is a certain kind of lifestyle that is put in danger by playing hockey, measures should be taken to help. Puck Daddy, as usual, has a pretty good piece summarizing a few different people's reactions to the whole thing. "To say the physical toll of fighting doesn't exacerbate the problems for a hockey player is a head-in-the-sand position," Wyshynski writes, "but to say fighting is at the heart of these problems is also naïve."

It's a pretty reasonable position to take in the current debate. If the NHL is concerned about mental trauma, the NHL should step up its rehab and counseling programs (and not just to make a show of them because a convenient target said "sloppy seconds" in a locker room). But I wonder if there's an underlying issue here that the debate doesn't capture. To me, the question isn't whether there should be fights, it's how there should be fights.

I'm no historian, but fighting hasn't always been like this. Yes, the game as a whole is bigger and faster these days, but fighting itself is also a lot more delegated than it used to be. I'm not saying everyone used to be Gordie Howe. There have always been McSorleys and Gretzkys (Gretzkies?): people you didn't fuck with and people who skated next to them and scored goals. But I wonder if it's more polarized these days. Sure, there's an argument that a Donald Brashear has no place in today's NHL; but I wonder if he has no place in 1975's NHL either.

Yes, the Broad Street Bullies won a lot of hockey games by kicking a lot of asses, but they did it as a team. Yes, there are bigger guys and littler guys on every squad. And yes, while sometimes bigger guys would be cheap and go after littler guys, there was always a cultural mandate for bigger guys taking on bigger guys. But hockey didn't really have this understood, staged approach to fighting: two "scorers" get into a scuffle, they skate away quickly, and the two teams' "fighters" go out for the next shift, face off, and immediately drop the gloves. Then everything goes back to normal.

Like so many hockey fans, I am all about fighting as a part of hockey. But that's the key phrase right there - I want it to be a part of hockey, not a thing that also happens during a hockey game. Less Warren Zevon's "Buddy" and more Brandon Dubinsky vs. Mike Richards. Two team contributors who aren't afraid to throw punches at each other, when the game demands it. That's the kind of fighting I'm looking for. It's the kind that's been a part of the game forever.

Hockey's a physical, passionate sport, and we embrace that, and that's part of what makes us special. Sure, that kind of sentence is always used to defend fighting in hockey, so it's not particularly interesting here. But it's important because it highlights the kind of fighting real hockey fans want to see.

I'm not claiming to understand the psychology behind the tragedies the NHL has seen this summer, and I'm certainly not claiming that a different attitude toward fighting in the league could have prevented either of them. But I do think it's important to go a little deeper than the current discussion does, because the implications of the kinds of fighting we see in the game today are a lot more nuanced than those of "does fighting lead to these problems?"

If a better understanding of that doesn't lead to the prevention of awful events like this summer's, maybe it can at least lead to a better understanding of them and of hockey as a whole.

Dammit Sean

Keep your hands to yourself so you can play hockey please.