Jokinen trade completed

As expected, the much discussed trade between the Flames and Rangers finally became official late last night. Following Calgary's dreadful 3-0 shutout home loss to the Flyers, the two clubs reached agreement on a four player trade that sends Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust to Broadway for Christopher Higgins and Ales Kotalik.

Rather than sound like a broken record repeating our breakdown posted previously in this space, we'll just commend Glen Sather on getting this done. Thanks in part to John Tortorella sending a message that Kotalik sucked, Slats admitted error and moved the ex-Sabre and his ugly $3 million salary/no-trade to Siberia Alberta. In doing so, he got rid of one headache. While parting with the energetic but snake bit Higgins was necessary, it allowed the struggling Smithtown native to start fresh and try to boost his value this summer. It just didn't work out here.

Adding Jokinen, whose hefty $5.25 M salary will come off the books at season's conclusion- is a good move because it fills a void at center. Whether the 31 year-old veteran can return to the All-Star form he displayed in the Sunshine state remains to be seen. But the big pivot returns to the East where he's quite familiar and should have plenty of incentive.

"It comes with the salary, you make $5 million, 11 goals isnot going to cut it," the disappointed Finn told the Canadian media.  "It's definitely a slap in the face to get traded."

"I get a chance to play with one of the better players in the league in [Marian] Gaborik."

If he can effectively team with Gaborik and Vinny Prospal, suddenly the Rangers could become a better team allowing others to take on more comfortable roles. It should relieve pressure off Chris Drury, who is better served anchoring a checking line with Ryan Callahan and Brandon Dubinsky. What could the lines look like for tonight's final game out West in Hollywood? Who knows. Perhaps this might be worth a try:

Prospal-Jokinen-Gaborik
Dubinsky-Drury-Callahan
Anisimov-Christensen-Lisin
Prust-Boyle-Voros

Getting the 25 year-old Prust was a necessity, finally addressing the lack of toughness. The Rangers have repeatedly been pushed around with the Daniel Carcillo thuggery of Gaborik with nobody coming to the star winger's aid standing out. Ironically, they dropped five in a row before Gabby recorded his first hat trick as a Ranger in a 3-1 win over the Avalanche Sunday. Perhaps the presence of Prust, whose 18 fights lead the league rank right behind Zenon Konopka will deter opponents from messing with Gaborik or crashing Henrik Lundqvist's crease.

"I'm looking forward to going to the big city and playing in Madison Square Garden so I'm looking forward to it, but I'm sad to leave again," an emotional Prust expressed.

For what's been the most vanilla team you've ever seen, the Rangers just got a lot more interesting. The question is how will this new roster perform. In a mediocre East with the club that's won only once in the last six remarkably moving up into seventh due to a Florida loss last night, they have until the Olympic Break to give Sather a stronger indication of what will happen at the March 3 deadline. That's not a lot of time.

While the Blueshirts upgraded short-term, Calgary maybe setting up for a much bigger fish. Having stockpiled 13 wings, Darryl Sutter looks to be in position to make more deals. Could Ilya Kovalchuk be his primary target? Expect stiff competition from Washington, Philadelphia and LA with another mystery Eastern team sliding in. It should be fun.

For the Rangers, the fun starts later tonight.

Higgins late goal saves Rangers

For more than 50 minutes, they'd outplayed the Bruins and were leading by two. Rare in itself. But if you've followed this team, you know nothing ever comes easy. So, when a sleepwalking Boston club struck for two in 86 seconds tying it with just over four minutes left, it shouldn't have been a great shock. Neither was the fact Matt Hunwick's shorthanded tally started the comeback with our guys standing around and still dazed enough to let the B's tie.

The more stunning aspect was who scored to rescue the Rangers to an actual regulation win on home ice. Oh. And they scored three without Marian Gaborik on the score sheet. The winner actually came off the stick of Chris Higgins, who finally got off the schneid for his first goal in an eternity. Also his first on home ice. Maybe they can now have a freeze frame MSG Chris Higgins profile as a Ranger.Couldn't resist. In all seriousness, he has been busting his ass for the past two months. So, it was nice to see him finally get rewarded off if I may say some nice work by the captain Chris Drury and constant Ryan Callahan.

“We played a strong game,” the hero said after ending an 11-goal drought. “We just let up a little bit. … We let them back into the game. But we were confident we were going to win, even when they tied it up.”

It allowed them to win a game at MSG and actually jump into a tie with idle Montreal for seventh. They both have 45 points but Les Habitants have played two more games. So technically, we're ahead even though the Habs are playing much better. How bad is the East? Do you even have to ask? The good news if you can actually call it that is that our flawed team is in playoff position. The bad is that if they somehow make it, they'll be easy pickings for the Devils, Caps or Sabres. I fail to see what another gate does for this franchise other than hook up our greedy owner who will screw the fans more than Bret Hart got screwed by Vince McMahon. And that would also mean Slats stays put and again, we're stuck.

All that said, they played solid earning their 20th win in 42 games. Seriously. That's less than half and we're sitting in seventh. For some reason, Boston tried everything to hand us the game, taking four undisciplined minor penalties in a row, including a five-on-three our team blew. But a miracle of sorts took place when there was an Ally Kota-leak sighting. Off a broken play started by Callahan, Dubinsky slid the puck across to Kotalik who blasted a one-timer past Tuukka Rask for his first goal in 22 games. Right away, Versus captured our $3 million mess looking skyward thanking the heavens. Three years. Nine mill with a no-trade.

Up one, the Blueshirts got another man-advantage because Ally's PPG came on a delayed call. In typical fashion, they couldn't build off it allowing the Bruins to win every battle that included a couple of shorthanded bids. Kotalik was also involved in a sloppy change that led to a bench minor for Boston's only PP of the period. The PK did a nice job but Henrik Lundqvist was called upon to make a couple of big saves to keep our team ahead after one.

In the second, a great Mike Del Zotto seam pass found Dubinsky, who one touched it to a cutting Erik Christensen, who broke in from the right side and slipped a one-handed backhand thru Rask's waffle for a two-goal lead at 7:34. Amazingly, the waiver wire pickup has all four of his points over the last three since being moved up by John Tortorella to the top line. Same guy who was getting mysteriously scratched in favor of Brian Boyle. Boyle was in the lineup as was $1.4 M waste of space Donald Brashear, who replaced Aaron Voros for some reason on the fourth line. Boyle actually had a chance but predictably took a weak backhand off a three-on-two that Rask easily ate up. He later did nice PK work on another Bruin power play with Gabby in the box for a bizarre high toss that went into the stands for delay of game.The Blueshirts played really well in front of Lundqvist, allowing him to see all 11 offerings while they sent 17 on Rask and made it more difficult.

"We played really well in all facets of the game,” a pleased Tortorella emphasized of an effort that saw his club block 24 shots, register 11 takeaways and 35 hits.

Distracted by the wrestling chaos, I didn't see a ton of the third but didn't miss much. The B's were still dead when Zdeno Chara went off for interference with under seven minutes to go. They only got five total shots. Unfortunately, the Ranger PP struck the wrong way, allowing the Bruins some life when Gaborik turned it over on the boards, leading to Hunwick's SHG. David Krejci outhustled our guys behind the net and worked it to Blake Wheeler, who then found Hunwick in the slot with his backhand whistling past a screened Lundqvist. Suddenly awaken, the B's took it to us. Even still 5-on-4, the doom and gloom could be felt through the TV. Eventually, Wheeler got the puck and blew one upstairs, stunning only the blatant homers. Somehow, they tied without point leader Patrice Bergeron, who left early in the second after taking a shot off his hand.

Nothing surprises me anymore. So, I didn't have any reaction and figured they'd lose. Only to my startling discovery when I flipped back, I saw Higgins actually smiling as the bench celebrated his first goal as a Ranger on Garden ice. The one time he scores, I miss it. Versus showed the replay after and he wrong footed Rask, who thought pass on a play Higgins snuck a backhand past the gifted Finnish rookie. Drury and Callahan assisted on the late goal with 89 seconds remaining. Claude Julien pulled Rask for an extra but it was obvious that the Rangers wouldn't allow them to tie doing a noble job defensively to earn the two points.

BONY 3 Stars:

3rd Star-Blake Wheeler, Bos (goal/assist, 2 SOG, +2 in 16:33)
2nd Star-Brandon Dubinsky, NYR (2 assists, game best 5 SOG, 4 hits, takeaway, 2 blocked shots, 6-7 draws in 24:16)
1st Star-Christopher Higgins, NYR (GW w/1:29 left-1st goal on home ice, 3 SOG, takeaway/blocked shot, +1 in 16:34)

Bos/NYR Preview: A Storm Is Bruin

Tonight, a hot Bruins team visits MSG where our Rangers can't win. It would help if they could put the puck in the net. Right, Chris Higgins? Have you ever seen a guy work as hard and have worse luck than the guy we got just to rid Scott Gomez' contract? Even when Slats does something right, it's like he drank with the Devil, which btw is a good Jack Higgins novel. Oh wait. He does already. Dolan.

You know it's sad when our sad sack team is 5-1-2 in its last eight and still somehow sitting in eighth with 43 points with half a dozen right behind, not playing well enough. Why can't our team tank? Getting a high pick would be the best thing for this roster. At least Gabby and Henrik would get help. Well, Derek Stepan is going to be a good one and Chris Kreider isn't Hugh Specimen. So, there's that. If I sound so unexcited about this game on Versus, it's cause I won't be watching much. Well, I'll see the first and a little of the other two. See. There's actually a reason to watch wrestling with Bret "Hitman" Hart returning to WWE and Hulk Hogan on TNA going head to head. As my brother notes, wrestling sucks. But still, we got rid of our tix to see this. That's when you know your team sucks. I'm sure it will be a "sellout."

Just how pumped am I? A tweet which amused some of the masses who live and die with this team:

@BattleOfNewYork hey #NYR fans remember what it was like to look forward to our games...

Well, there's always next year. Sixteen years and counting.

Rangers fall short in Windy City

A bit late to the fray. But also, didn't see much of the Rangers' latest loss- by a count of 2-1 to the Blackhawks in overtime. A game in which they got outshot severely and couldn't nurse a one-goal lead with Jonathan Toews (PPG) and Dustin Byfuglien (OT winner) to make it five losses in six.

Who cares if we got a point? Based on the little we caught, they hardly had the puck with Chicago in an all out attack which led to three power plays that eventually came back to bite the Blueshirts, who basically hoped Henrik Lundqvist would get a shutout because it was the only chance in Hell. Indeed, he was under siege all night and kept the Hawks at bay until he flopped around like a fish, allowing Toews to flip one upstairs with under six minutes left. We're not saying it was his fault but being down doesn't usually help keep the puck out. Especially on a goalmouth scramble with our exhausted penalty killers.

Not surprisingly, the Hawks won it after Vinny Prospal couldn't bury a great chance, which Duncan Keith got a piece of. Keith, who in our view is the best defenseman this season, then passed to an onrushing Byfuglien who did the rest- abusing Matt Gilroy before deking Lundqvist for the decider. Now, Gilroy made an awful read which can sometimes happen for first-year players. Marian Gaborik tried to get back but it was too little too late which leads us to the goalie. Why wasn't Henrik more aggressive there? If he had come out and pokechecked, Byfuglien never scores and the game probably gets to the skill comp. Just saying.

On a night of little positives, Chris Higgins scored the Rangers' lone tally from Gaborik and Michal Rozsival, who had a strong game. Wade Redden was decent in his return after missing six games. The problem was they had no attack with John Tortorella irate. Hell. Even Mike Keenan on MSG supposedly blasted the lack of effort. Pretty sad considering the days off they had. I could care less if they hate the coach. When you wear that jersey, you play for New York and all the legions of Ranger fans, who live and die with this team. One Cup in 69 years. Is it too much to ask these overpaid stiffs to earn their keep? When Donald Brashear gets more shots/chances than most in his return, that speaks volumes.

Also of note, as we were headed back from The Slope, Dave Maloney chewed up Tort for having no center out during a Blackhawk sequence where they had our guys on their heels. Sometimes, I really wonder what the coach is thinking. Why doesn't P.A. Parenteau get more ice-time? And why is Artie Anisimov getting so little along with Erik Christensen? We're not exactly an offensive juggernaut. One word comes to mind. Popgun.

Well, the Sabres visit MSG Saturday and then the Thrashers. Both of who are much better teams. Will it ever end?