Thursday, October 16, 2008

Valiquette May Get Start Against Toronto

With three games in four days starting tomorrow it looks like Tom Renney is leaning toward starting Steve Valiquette in the first game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Obviously Henrik Lundqvist needs to be in net when the Rangers face-off against the defending Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings Saturday night in Detroit and then against Sean Avery and the Dallas Stars on Monday at the Garden making this is a good opportunity to get Valiquette some work while giving Lundqvist an extra day off.

Steve Zipay at Blue Notes said this regarding the possibility of a Valiquette start tomorrow 'Steve Valiquette was the first goalie off the ice, but Renney said not to read much into it. Ha. We will anyway. He didn't commit publicly to Lundqvist and I think he's leaning toward playing Vally at home against the Leafs...'

Zipay also updates an earlier report that both Gomez and Kalinin sat out practice today saying 'each took pucks in the leg during the Sabres game and are sore, but expected to play tomorrow night.'

...this makes a lot of sense especially seeing how well Lundqvist came back against the Devils after a night off against the Flyers.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bring him on. He's proved himself as a reliable backup goalie.

Anonymous said...

I like watching him play. Give him a chance to let the Garden faithful cheer him on. '06-07 3-2 Shootout win over the Blues with Valley in the pipes @ MSG was one of the most exciting games of the year! Stones Metropolit with a glove save to win.