Sunday, November 18, 2007

D-Men Getting Their Due


John Dellapina of the Daily News has a great article on the very underrated Rangers defense...

"...'I think we've got guys that are certainly unheralded and maybe have yet to make their mark in a significant way in the league, but that doesn't mean they're not good defensemen,' Renney said. 'And we're growing some guys too.

'You know, it's an easy group to look at and kind of say, ‘They're vanilla.' But vanilla tastes pretty good sometimes. And they just get it done. I give credit to our forwards too. But really, it's six guys and our goaltender that have given our forwards the confidence to press forward and do what they have to do to win hockey games at the other end of the rink.'..."

...the Rangers d-men have obviously been playing outstanding defense all year long, but the offensive explosion that occurred during this road trip was very unexpected.

...I tell you what, Renney is going to have one tough decision to make when Malik is ready to play. There is no way Renney can put Malik back on the top pairing with Rozsival. If he does, the wrath of the crowd will be worse than anything Malik has ever received. At this point, I don't even want Malik to take Strudwick's place. Should be interesting.

Dellapina also reports that the Rangers ratings are way up this year...

"...Bob Raissman reported in his Friday column that Knicks ratings on MSG have taken a dive this season, to an average of 1.14. Rangers TV ratings, however, are going in the opposite direction.

Rangers ratings, which have more than doubled from last season, are back now to where they were well before the 2004-05 lockout - to 0.97 through Thursday night. What's more, the Rangers-Devils game Wednesday night drew a 1.82 rating for MSG, the network's highest regular-season rating since before the lockout."

...hopefully this increase in ratings for the Rangers will force MSGNetwork brass to push Knick games over to MSG2 in favor of the Ranger games.

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