Rangers vs. Canucks Pregame Notes, Marc Staal Update Coming Tomorrow?

Some pregame notes for the Rangers-Canucks game tonight from Vancouver (10 p.m. EST on MSG Network), courtesy of Steve Zipay of Newsday.


Rangers lines:

Stepan-Richards-Gaborik
Dubinsky-Anisimov-Callahan
Fedotenko-Boyle-Prust
Rupp-Newbury-Christensen

Ryan McDonagh-Dan Girardi
Michael Del Zotto-Tim Erixon
Jeff Woywitka-Steve Eminger

Henrik Lundqvist

Scratches: Wolski (Groin), Sauer (Shoulder)


Canucks lines:

Sedin-Sedin-Burrows
Hodgson-Kesler-Higgins
Samuelsson-Malhotra-Hansen
Volpatti-Lapierre-Weise

Roberto Luongo

- The Canucks will honor Rick Rypien prior to tonight's game, who committed suicide this past August at the age of 27. Rypien played in 119 games with the Canucks over six seasons.

- Wojtek Wolski and Michael Sauer are both out as they continue to try and comeback from their injuries. It sounds like Sauer may miss most of the games on this Canada trip, if not all of them. Brendan Bell was obviously recalled because the Rangers aren't very confident in Sauer suiting up within the next few days.

- Dale Weise is in the lineup and will suit up against his former team for the first time. Weise, of course, was lost on waivers a few weeks ago to the Canucks.

- Joe Micheletti said on the Rangers pregame show on MSG that the Rangers will likely give an official update tomorrow on Marc Staal's recovery from his concussion. Hold your breath, Rangers fans. I'm assuming we're either going to get very good news or not so good news, unless Staal pulls a Sidney Crosby and has a press conference to announce that nothing has changed in his recovery.

Rangers Lose Dale Weise On Waivers To Canucks, Waive Brendan Bell and Stu Bickel

The Vancouver Canucks claimed now ex-Rangers forward Dale Weise on waivers today, and the Rangers also announced that they have placed Brendan Bell and Stu Bickel on waivers in addition to Sean Avery today at noon.

I really have no idea why the Rangers would waive Bell and Bickel when Marc Staal is already out for at least the first two games in Europe and possibly longer, and Michael Sauer's shoulder is banged up. Even though there's little to no chance either guy will be claimed off waivers, why would they possibly take the chance of losing them when the team is all the way in Sweden right now? It just doesn't make sense to me. I thought that maybe they would have made these roster moves if they were set to acquire another defenseman before the season opens on Friday, but John Tortorella said today that it's unlikely the team will add anyone by then.

The team has 30 days to assign Bickel and Bell to Connecticut, assuming they clear waivers, and they would both still be eligible to play for the NHL club until the 30 days are up. As of right now the Rangers technically have only five defensemen on their active roster - Michael Del Zotto, Steve Eminger, Dan Girardi, Ryan McDonagh,

Meanwhile, Dale Weise is no longer a Ranger after putting together what I thought was a pretty impressive training camp and two very good seasons in the AHL. This is another head scratcher to me. Weise is a big body who proved he could score at the AHL level and showed a lot of toughness during his few stints with the Rangers. At the very least he was a nice depth player for the organization. But it doesn't really make sense to me why the Rangers would waive both Dale Weise and Sean Avery and get rid of a lot of that toughness and grit that the Rangers quite frankly don't have enough of right now. The Rangers are short enough on forward prospects as it is, so losing Weise hurts. One could even say that he deserved the 13th forward spot over Erik Christensen and it'd be hard to argue against that.

A weird day for the Rangers and their fans. They cut a fan favorite, have their head coach bury him when being interviewed by the media, waive two depth defensemen and lose a tough forward who I thought showed a lot of potential.

Recap: Rangers Fall To Devils 2-1 In OT

Apologies for not posting in over a week, but I'm back now. That's the downfall when you have on person running a blog.

Anyway, the Rangers fell to the Devils last night 2-1 in Albany last night (yes, Albany). The Rangers' lone goal was scored by Dale Weise on a nice feed from Artem Anisimov. Weise also had a fight at center-ice with Devils forward Brad Mills.The lines last night were:

Brandon Dubinsky-Artem Anisimov-Dale Weise
Carl Hagelin-Erik Christensen-Christian Thomas
Sean Avery-John Mitchell-J.T. Miller
Ryan Bourque-Shane McColgan-Andre Deveaux

Dan Girardi-Brendan Bell
Michael Del Zotto-Steve Eminger
Tim Erixon-Dylan McIlrath

Henrik Lundqvist
Cam Talbot

The Rangers were outshot by the Devils 42-21 and the Rangers took an 0-for on the Power Play. Not a big deal considering the fact that only two forwards playing in the game are locks to be on the Opening Day roster come October.

John Tortorella called the game "sloppy," but praised the line of Avery-Mitchell-Miller. He said their forechecking was very good and said it was the Rangers' best line all night - yet, Sean Avery barely got any shifts in the third period. Seems like Torts is continuing his pattern of saying only positive things about Avery to the media, only to bench him without any real explanation. It was only one preseason game, though, so we'll see what happens and if Avery gets to play with NHL linemates next time if Torts really was impressed by his game.

Henrik Lundqvist, meanwhile, stopped 17 of 18 shots in 31:18 of ice time before he was replaced by Cam Talbot. Talbot was very solid, stopping 22 of 23 shots before being beaten by Patrick Elias for the game-winner 45 seconds into overtime.

My personal thoughts on the game: The Rangers really didn't get much going offensively, but again, look at the lineup. I was very pleased with Dylan McIlrath's performance. Tim Erixon looked a little bit hesitant and shaky at times, but this was his first pro game in the U.S. Lundqvist was stellar and Talbot was very good. Andre Deveaux got into a fight with David Clarkson that he seemed to win pretty easily. He could be a useful weapon if a forward goes down and we need to add some grit against a team like Philly or Boston.

Beyond that, there wasn't a whole lot to write about. I thought Avery had a noticeable game and Del Zotto was alright for the most part. Christensen will need to have a better showing his next time out if he wants to be on this team in the long haul. The Rangers' best forward was Dale Weise, though, who will need to continue to have games like this if he wants to have any chance of making the NHL club out of training camp.

Rangers Re-Sign Forwards Dale Weise and Chad Kolarik

Original Image Credit: NewYorkRangers.com

The Rangers just announced that they've re-signed Dale Weise to a contract extension, although terms were not released. They also apparently re-signed RW Chad Kolarik a little over a week ago, which I didn't see until just now.